Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor,

I am writing to applaud the decision to include visual poetry [“It Is Out of Focus” and “Be yond” by Joel Lipman] in the January 2011 issue without relegating it to a portfolio. While recent years’ portfolios of Flarf, Conceptualism, and Visual Poetry have introduced lots of readers to exciting developments in several poetic communities, they also reinforced the unfortunate idea that there is a “normal” kind of poetry to which these “schools” offer a contrast. Thanks for declining in January to treat visual poets as unusual.