[New-Poetry] Re: a dead ear for scansion

[David Bircumshaw]

I wouldn't want to say to much on this except that: anyone who learns to 
sing the traditional inheritance of hymns and liturgy will realise that 
scansion certainly does exist, at the same time, Robert Frost's 
criticism of free verse: that it is like playing tennis without a net, 
can be rejoindered with 'yes, that's the attraction'. As Auden observed, 
you have to have a perfect ear to write free verse. It's a Faustian 
turn-on. Trouble is, those who have no ear who write it, bah!

-- 

David Bircumshaw
Website and A Chide's Alphabet http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk