Poetry and audience

Sir, – Is it a rule that to merit publication in The Ticket poems must lack rhyme, or metre, or rhythm or, as is often the case, musicality? Assembled words and phrases, however colourful, are not necessarily poetry. I wonder how many teenagers or their elders, however intelligent, could be expected to learn and recite, except under compulsion, much of the poetry which appears in your pages. – Yours, etc,

PATRICK McCABE,

Glenageary, Co Dublin.

Sir, – I wish to take issue with the lack of balance in the items included in The Ticket every week under the heading “Poem”. All the offerings to date are of the free-form variety, and you never include a poem that rhymes and scans – what people in the concentric literary circles in which I move (at great speed) regard as proper poetry.

READ SOME MORE

There’s a danger that a whole generation of young people is going to be indoctrinated into thinking that this loose form is the only game in town.

So would you mind making space in The Ticket for some modern poems that have rhythm and rhyme – if only to demonstrate that it can still be done? – Yours, etc,

BILL POWER,

Tramore, Co Waterford.