Dear Editor

Poetry is an American monthly magazine, now in its tenth decade devoted to the publication of new poetry by both established and unknown poets. Many now stellar poets were first published by Poetry, and it is no exaggeration to say that some who were struggling owed their very survival to the magazine. Joseph Parisi is the current incumbent of the editor's chair and has been for the past 19 years. His role is crucial, and the ethos of the magazine as set up by Harriet Monroe, the founder and first editor, has continued to be upheld throughout its long life. The common thread running through all the correspondence is a caring and nurturing one, even when the poets are less than grateful for the opportunities afforded them. Poetry receives some 90,000 unsolicited poems a year, a tribute in itself. Reading through these letters is like listening to a role call of the Modernist poets - Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell, William Carlos Williams, Hart Crane and Vachel Lindsay are here with all their foibles, frailties and demands for money on show. As A R Ammons is quoted as saying at the beginning of the book, 'The histories of modern poetry in America and of Poetry in America are almost interchangeable, certainly inseparable.' In the days when the telephone was an expensive luxury, and certainly long before the insistent demand of the email, letters were the preferred method of communication between the editor of Poetry and the poets. And being poets, their letters were composed, not dashed off. They form a very rich source of knowledge about the poets, their trials and tribulations, the process of writing, the hammering out of a poem word by word. There are even some fascinating but inconsequential personal details that serve to remind the reader that even a poet can have a life outside the discipline of writing. An delightful and important collection. (Kirkus UK)