Only Rhyme, but riveting

The Anthologist

He is engaged in writing an introduction to his forthcoming anthology of poetry, Only Rhyme . . . but is unable to stitch two words together. Anthologist’s block has cost him his lover (Roz) and his weekly grocery cheque (Roz). If something does not happen soon, our protagonist will be in the soup with his publisher.

Procrastination powers this refreshingly funny novel through the brainstorms of a gadfly and gives us delightful insight into an alternative take on poetry. “Poetry,” he says, “is prose in slow motion.” Of course, this does not apply to rhymed verse. And rhyme takes him into the fundamental tenet of his poetic theory: “. . . Iambic pentameter is in actuality a waltz . . . Pentameter, so called, if you listen to it with an open ear, is a slow kind of gently swaying three-beat minuetto.” And, because Chowder/Baker knows our jaws have dropped, he pleads, tongue-in-cheek, “Really, I mean it.”