Professor Ron Larson

89 Random Rhymes Professor Ron Larson

From nursery rhymes, to advertising, to most forms of popular music, both children and adults like rhyme. Sadly, modern poetry has generally eschewed rhyme in favor of free-verse. Robert Frost once remarked that "free-verse is like playing tennis with the net down." I would add that today it's also playing tennis on an unmarked court. In the academic world, the "prose poem" is in, and the traditional rhymed poem is out. My book runs counter to this aspect of modernity. Yet, admittedly, a few of my poems below are cinquains, which is a form of poetry with 22 syllables in 5 lines (2-4-6-8-2). The lines may or may not rhyme.

I hope that this book of 89 diverse poems from various perspectives will entertain and at least occasionally instruct the reader. Some have been published in such varied journals as Westward Quarterly, Big Pulp, Soul Fountain, Poet's Digest, and The American Dissident.