Dear Editor,
Carmine Starnino complains about the complainers who kvetch that poetry has lost “ordinary” readers. He says that it does not make sense to blame the poets. Before I signed on to po-biz, my first profession (thank god, a paying one) was ed-biz. There we took responsibility for our side of the bench: if the learner didn’t learn, then the teacher didn’t teach. But Starnino blames the reader, not the writer, when what we’ve got here—dare I say it?—is a failure to communicate. Come on. Let’s show a little respect for the grown-ups who simply don’t want to read poetry.
pacific grove, california
Originally Published: March 1, 2010
Letter to the Editor