Iambic All Over
University of Illinois professor of English Michael Anania writes to the editors of The New York Times on Joel Brouwer’s Mercury Dressing review:
It measures, perhaps, the success of New Formalism’s self-serving argument that writing in meter is difficult that Joel Brouwer (“Poetry Chronicle,” April 26) should be astonished to the point of italics at the news that J. D. McClatchy spoke an iambic pentameter line in his sleep. There are so many bad iambic lines (that’s one, by the way), we should not be surprised if they slip out between a poet’s snoring and his sighs (that’s two more).