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bartlebybleaney's review
3.0
Very nice sonnets, though overmuch owed to Hardy and Keats perhaps. The ballads aren't bad, but they gallop a little and often have the problem of repetition, something which has always spoiled a poem for me. Obviously, then, I didn't care for the villanelles either. How anyone can enjoy reading poetry that chimes and chimes and chimes the same lines is beyond me. It may work in song, but it doesn't work in verse. The other thing I disliked was most of the stuff in anapests. Anapests are irritating mostly because they're usually forced, so even someone with a great ear for verse can find himself more than a few lines into a poem before he realizes it isn't in halting iambs, just inadequate anapests.
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