Loveplay: A Conversation in Rhyme

Kim Fahner teaches English and history at Marymount Academy in Sudbury,
Ontario.

The concept behind this collaborative work of poetry is that one writer
(Joe Fromstein) reads and then responds to another writer’s (Linda
Stitt’s) poetry. Reflecting this dual-voiced style is the book’s
layout, with Stitt’s poems on the left-hand pages of the book and
Fromstein’s poems occupying the right-hand pages.

Loveplay is obviously an extended ode to rhyme and meter. Rhymed poems
are something of a lost art these days; meaning can be lessened by poets
finding the “right rhyme” in a rhyming dictionary. Perhaps not
surprisingly, then, the poems in Loveplay are highly contrived and
lacking in substance and emotional depth.

Such limitations were clearly no barrier to the celebrity testimonials
that adorn the back cover. Tom Arnold (of Roseanne fame) says the poems
are “[h]umorous, poignant, a little naughty, and most of them
rhyme.” Carol Liefer, a comedian and a writer/producer for Seinfeld,
writes, “This is poetry for people who don’t like poetry.” With
such endorsements, one can say at the very least that the marketing for
Loveplay is impressive.