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Dear Editor: A History of Poetry in Letters - The First Fifty Years, 1912-1962. Compiled and Edited by Joseph Parisi and Stephen Young (New York: W. W. Norton, 2002. Pp. xix, 474. Illustrations, index. Cloth, $39.95).
Despite the well-intentioned efforts of many, poetry in contemporary America threatens to become a marginal concern, a remnant of print culture in a culture that is turning increasingly visual. It seems symptomatic of poetry's uncertain status that in this anecdotal history of the ups and downs of the first fifty years (1912 to 1962) of Poetry, the current editor (Joseph Parisi) and the senior editor (Stephen Young) have woven excerpts from what might be called the business correspondence of America's greatest poets. The appeal of this compilation, then, is not in its poetry-one of the few poems printed in its entirety is the typescript submitted by New York Times journalist Joyce Kilmer of "Trees" ("I think that I shall never see / A poem lovely as a tree ...")-but in its promise of a backstage tour. Here is a chance for an intimate view, a glimpse into the lives of poets when they are talking with the like-minded.
And yet poets and editors are not natural chums. Their relationship more closely resembles that of criminal and lawyer-one produces an event that the other is charged with bringing to some kind of public definition. What poet says to editor, then, is not always...