A Review of DoorWay, Vol. 3 of the English Cantos – Compulsive Reader

Reviewed by Theresa Werba

DoorWay, Vol. 3 of the English Cantos
by James Sale
ASIN: B0F27M6BK3
March 2025, $11.61 (Paperback) $2.99 (Kindle), 194 pages

I have had the honor and pleasure of knowing James Sale as a poetic colleague and ofttimes mentor for many years. I asked him once why he chooses to use imperfect rhymes in his poetry, because I had been under the impression that as formal poets we are never, ever to do it, and that is isn’t following the rules of formal poetry to do it. His response was “There simply are not enough rhyming options in the English language, unlike Italian, which is full of options.” At first I was uncomfortable with the seeming license he was taking in this what I perceived to be a sacrosanct element of formal poetry. How does he get away with that? Is that really allowed? When I first started reading his trilogy The English Cantos, this was really getting to me. It caused me to look constantly at the rhymes, to the detriment of my ability to read the actual poetry.

But I have come to realize what James Sale is doing with rhyming in his poetry is anything but a lack of discipline, or skill, or oversight : it is liberation, innovation, and re-creation. James Sale is not using “lazy rhyme;” he is deliberately, carefully stretching the boundaries of what is acceptable rhyming convention in English formal poetry. He uses his slant rhymes, half rhymes, near rhymes, assonant rhymes, consonant rhymes, light rhymes, and syllabic rhymes with abandon. With joy. With freedom. Lavishly. He is demonstrating that our language is a language that by default doesn’t always perfectly rhyme— but when you get close, it can be as beautiful, and powerful, and in many instances, more effective than a perfect rhyme can ever be. I have come to appreciate his poetic moxie, his brazen iconoclasm, his stretching of the normative, his ingenuity. Whereas I was once rather religious in my approach to rhymes, I now see in James Sale’s work how imperfect rhymes can be effective and of great beauty, and how he does not stray into the realm of formal poetic heresy. It is providing us with another way to look at English rhyming in poetry. It also provides an intentional alternative to the “predictability” inherent in perfect rhyme.

DoorWay is the third volume of the English Cantos trilogy. James Sale recounts his battle with cancer and descent into hell (HellWard, Vol. 1), his visit to purgatory (StairWell, Vol.2)  and his ascent into heaven (DoorWay, Vol. 3). Jospeh Salemi aptly describes the trilogy as a “medieval dream vision,” and throughout the entire work we encounter unusual, mystic, human, emotional, spiritual, and metaphysical realities. In DoorWay James Sale moves through the celestial constellations as he meets loved ones and poets (including, of course, Dante) and ultimately encounters God Himself. He combines mythology, astrology, and Christianity into a syncretic expression of the ultimate spiritual experience.

James Sale has written all three volumes of the English Cantos in terza rima form. This form consists of three-line stanzas, with groups of three rhymes alternating in a chain-like, interlocking pattern (aba bcb cdc). Whereas with a sonnet, you need only find one rhymed pair per quatrain (in the Shakespearean or Spencerian forms) or per octet and most sestets (in the Petrarchan form), with terza rima you need three rhymes per two tercet sets. The option to employ imperfect rhyming opens many unexploited poetic possibilities for rhyming in this challenging form.

Consider this set of tercets, from Canto 4 (“Detour to Taurus”):

In turning then, to glance at what I’d see
Making disturbance so, and seeing, froze:
I saw its wings beating effortlessly;
Yet as they did flesh shifted, changed its clothes,
Me glimpsing glimmerings of some star’s right
To be to which it must metamorphose:

We have a delightful use of the word “metamorphose” as the rhyme to “froze” and “clothes”, yet it is a near-perfect rhyme. Compare this with the following imperfect rhymes in Canto 2 (“St. Dismas Speaks”):

Reminding me before I made my flit
Upwards, one action more to do, be sung:
Even to contemplate, my soul was lit.
‘Hail!’ and I turned, and saw the women’s tongues
Like flames of fire ascending to the heights,
All nine, and one apart, more lovely, strong,

Here we have the addition of “s” to “tongues” to rhyme with “sung” (some poets do this as a matter of course and do not consider this a form of imperfect rhyme, though I normally would), but then we have “strong” as a consonant rhyme to “sung” (where the final consonant rhymes but the preceding vowel is different). Contrast with the assonant rhymes in the following two tercets (Canto 1, “St. Dismas speaks”):

So heavy that, despite Nenya which saves,
My knees buckled and lungs collapsed like shelves;
Yet for all that: epic faces, and braves:
‘Hail! Hail! Great Muse, Calliope herself!
Visit me now and with your beauty let
Me soar where you taught John those secret spells;

Here we have “shelves”, “herself”, and spells”, which all have the same vowel, but the ending consonants are different.

An example of eye rhyme further illustrates expanded rhyming possibilities (Canto 2, “Family Scales”):

Such runes as testify His glory’s due;
Though meshed in flesh, embedded in deep mud
As you are; yet for all your filth accrued,
Still chosen because His Will produces good
Despite unworthy vessels of His grace.
You know (I know!) and sing about His blood.’

Here we have “mud” “good” and “blood”, and I have seen “good” and “blood” rhymed in Elizabethan poetry when I am pretty sure the words did actually rhyme, but we keep them as eye rhyme nowadays.

A particularly interesting use of imperfect rhyme is found in Canto 2 (“Family Scales”):

So high, and first equal of those God made.
Like twins they were, the one called Lucifer
Who fell to where no light is, no words prayed—
His balance lost and righteousness tipped over—
So that in the midway of highest heaven
Michael held firm to prove ultimate victor.

I found this set of rhymes particularly interesting because I never thought to see Lucifer get his own rhyme! I also see that this is an actual perfect rhyme, because the schwa sound at the end of “Lucifer”, “over” and “victor” are the same sound, though spelled differently. So an eye rhyme of a different sort!

I approached reading DoorWay with the idea to listen to the rhymes in my head with a different place in the ear than what I am used to utilizing. I now think of James Sale’s poetry more as the way I might listen to a song, where imperfect rhymes are perfectly acceptable. Then it becomes more of an ornament to the pulses and rhythms and phraseology and storyline. I alertly relax, and enjoy the ride.

Not only did James Sale cause me to reconsider how to rhyme a poem, but he has filled me with wonder at some of the most inventive use of language I have ever read in poetry! Consider the following various lines:

One hullabaloo, hubbub of joyous cries,”
“Some hypnagogic state holds one in lieu—“
“No sagging, sickly sorrows plaguing flesh,”
“My lips ablaze—cremating all my lies;”
“Linear, pillar-like of hot blue steam,”
“Behind, her hinds who fed on trefoil’s leaves
Whose trifurcation tallied being blessed

I have enjoyed every one of these poetic gems of language, and DoorWay is replete with them.

Another fine feature of DoorWay are the excellent annotations by fellow poet and literary critic Andrew Benson Brown, who provides supplemental information and insight throughout the work. The Kindle version makes accessing the annotations very easy, and you do not lose your place as you are reading!

I started as a wary member of the School of The Perfect Rhyme At All Cost, but James Sale has made me a convert to the School of Rhyming Possibilities. In my own poetry going forward I hope to be more open to the sounds and variables inherent in imperfect rhyme. I recommend DoorWay, and the entire English Cantos, as an impressive and satisfying reading experience, a work of technical skill and artistic achievement, a masterpiece for the ages.

James Sale has over 30 books to his credit listed on Amazon. In the U.K. his poems and literary work have appeared in the Bright Star Anthology, Heavenly Hymns: the 10th International Collection of English Poems, Footnotes, Iota, Krax, Linkway;,The Little Word Machine, Lynx, New Hope International, Ore, PN Review, Quaker News and Views, The Schools Poetry Review, Terrible Work, The Third Half, Towards Wholeness, and DawnTreader. In the US he has appeared in The Anglo Theological Review, Ancient Paths Literary Magazine, Bible Advocate, New Poetry, The Epoch Times, October Hill Magazine, Art Times Journal, Lowestoft Chronicle, Midwest Review of Books,The New Book Review, New Poetry, The Unchained Muse, and Honest Rust and Gold. Sale won First Prize in the Society of Classical Poets 2017 poetry competition and also First Prize in the 2018 Society of Classical Poets prose competition. Find more information about James Sale’s The English Cantos at https://englishcantos.home.blog/

About the reviewer: Theresa Werba (formerly Theresa Rodriguez) is the author of eight books, four in poetry, including What Was and Is: Formal Poetry and Free Verse (Bardsinger Books, 2024) and Sonnets, a collection of 65 sonnets (Shanti Arts, 2020). Her work has appeared in such journals as The Scarlet Leaf Review, The Wilderness House Literary Review, Spindrift, Mezzo Cammin, The Wombwell Rainbow, Fevers of the Mind, The Art of Autism, Serotonin, The Road Not Taken, and the Society of Classical Poets Journal. Her work ranges from forms such as the ode and sonnet to free verse, with topics ranging from neurodivergence, love, loss, aging, to faith and disillusionment and more.  She also has written on autism, adoption and abuse/domestic violence. Find Theresa Werba at www.theresawerba.com and on social media @thesonnetqueen.