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PN Review 275
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This article is taken from Poetry Nation 3 Number 3, 1974.

The Critic's Friend John Kease


IT is with considerable pleasure that we present a sentence construction kit from which the critic may develop a wide range of erudite observations on any recently published volume of poetry.

Our 'sentence modules' are based on a Somewhat Improved Modular Prose Linear Extension (SIMPLE) system not previously available to writers in this field.

Sentences may be constructed by linking any four modules from the lists in the sequence 1234. Ambitious critics may find occasional devastating combinations in sequences made from the lists in the order 4321. More rarely, the modules may be ordered 2314 or 2134. These last must be used with great discretion, grammatical errors are possible.

List 1
(a) Apathetic extremism on the one hand, together with
(b) As a consequence of conflicting Celtic urges
(c) Despite emphatic protestations to the contrary
(d) Unless the historical base is widened
(e) Whilst admitting the validity of current trends
(f) None the less it may be postulated that
(g) Rich as these particular textures may be
(h) Whilst conceding ingenious inflexions
(i) This rhetorical question, emphasised by
(j) Though 'art may be selective' the passive nature of

List 2
(a) critical orthodoxy
(b) unselective writing of the polemical variety
(c) left-wing preaching to the converted
(d) the recent workshop in Bradford
(e) a tendency to recondite assumptions
(f) his/her over-eagerness to achieve acceptance ...


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