Letter from Poetry Magazine

Letter to the Editor

BY Alice Pillsbury

Originally Published: December 30, 2008

Dear Editor,

Treemont Retirement Community has a poetry study group that meets every week. We have studied individual poets and their works, processed every word of An Introduction to Poetry, worked our way through The Best Poems of the English Language, and read Garrison Keillor's collections. So naturally I felt that a subscription to Poetry would provide the group with some stimulating discussion.

As it turns out, we cannot make head or tail out of your selected "poems." We agree that there is no rhyme and very little reason—only phrases, snatches of words or thoughts in random order, with very little cohesion. The poems are neither enjoyable nor enlightening.

We feel that we are giving Poetry a fair trial, but are dismayed to think that this magazine represents the best of modern poetry.