Verse Commentary on MFA Course
By David J. Rothman
Many years ago I published an article in Hellas on intentional doggerel and then, a month or so later received a letter from the poet John Ridland in…superb intentional doggerel! We struck up a correspondence conducted entirely in doggerel couplets that continues on and off to this day. John is a gifted poet and translator (of Hungarian and Middle English, among other tongues) who taught for many years at UC Santa Barbara and regularly appears in Hudson Review, Literary Imagination and scores of other journals. He gave a wonderful reading at the recent Robinson Jeffers Association conference in Long Beach. The man is a fountain of witty verse (among other modes…). I recently sent around a note about our program to some friends, and he sent me this verse commentary…to which I responded…enjoy.
PROSODY
‘CRWR 636 Metrical Traditions and Versification I’
—W. B. Ridland
How can I, that course listed there,
My attention fix
On Traditional Iambic
Or Accentual metrics?
Yet here’s a travelled bard that knows
What he writes about,
And there’s a famous prosodist
That has read and thought,
And maybe what they say is true
Of how good verse should turn,
And O that I were young again
And could sign up to learn!
(The Yeats poem parodied is titled “Politics”)
Dear John:
As usual, your verse
Is witty, terse
And elegant.
Indeed, I can’t
Imagine how it could be
Better turned, so can’t see
Why you, of all people, would
Want to enroll when you are already so good
At doing what we try to teach
To each
Of our students, who
want to learn what you
Already know how to do.
–DJR
