Letters

Poets & Writers Magazine welcomes letters from its readers. Please e-mail editor@pw.org or write to Editor, Poets & Writers Magazine, 90 Broad Street, Suite 2100, New York, NY 10004. Letters accepted for publication may be edited for clarity and length.

May/June 2008

INFORMATION NATION
Regarding "Way, Way Too Much Information" by Frank Bures (May/June 2008) and the online comments about the related Opinion Poll, which found that sixty-five out of a hundred readers believe their writing has suffered as a result of infomania: What a bunch of wimpy writers! It isn't necessary to move to Montana or Estonia to avoid the information glut; you could turn off the TV. If you didn't send so many e-mails, you wouldn't receive so many. Same with cell phone calls. Of course there is way too much information, but show a little backbone and take only what you want and need.
PAT KING
Albia, Iowa

Online reader comments:
I grew up with this kind of world, so perhaps I know how to tune it all out. It's not information that bothers me; in fact, I love having the world at my fingertips if I need to dip into it. My bigger problem is being tempted to go online and learn all kinds of new things, or just procrastinate instead of writing. But the Internet is great for getting to know something about human beings. For me it's just another way to observe people. Online may not be real, but it is a reality, and I say embrace it--while remembering to live a real life too.
STARDANCER101

The problem of infomania involves more than just the willingness or lack thereof to embrace online information and digital technologies. As writers or reporters, readers and critical thinkers, we must do more than just absorb information; we must question and confirm the veracity and the absoluteness of the data we receive. Is the majority of user-generated content just a regurgitation of what is seen in print? When does it become new information and at what cost? How much of this information is new and necessary and how much is redundant? Is the information genuine or an incorrect summation/amalgamation of sources that predate it?
NOLAWRITER

TILL IT BE MORROW
Joshua Bodwell ("Such Sweet Sorrow," May/June 2008) presumably has his facts right when he discusses Richard Ford and Tom Wolfe, but his remarks about Scribner's authors and editor Maxwell Perkins seem a little breezy. Until Hemingway took his own life, in 1961, he remained faithful to Scribner's, not Perkins, who had died in 1947. And Perkins did know that In Our Time had sold poorly. This was not a secret: Hemingway wasn't shy about blaming Boni & Liveright for the book's failure. In discussing "the misconception that major writers hardly, if ever, leave big publishers," Bodwell might have made his point better with the example of Philip Roth, who began with Houghton Mifflin, went to Random House, then Holt, Rinehart and Winston, followed by Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Simon & Schuster, only to return to Houghton Mifflin.
DAVID PETRUZELLI
New York, New York

CIVIL WRITING
In "The Grim Reader" (March/April 2008), Kevin Nance makes a good point about contemporary writers and modernism, which marked a shift away from narrative that can drive "a wedge between writers and readers." Civilization is based on written words, from the Bible to the U.S. Constitution. Albert Camus said, "The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself." Contemporary writers do have a critical role to play if the destructive trend of declining readership is to be reversed. Otherwise, who knows what the societal ramifications will be?
J. P. FARRIS
Alamo, Texas

CORRECTIONS
In "Rebecca Wolff's Fence Turns Ten" (May/June 2008), Kevin Larimer implied that Fence was no longer a nonprofit. In fact, the literary magazine retained its 501(c)(3) status after merging with the New York State Writers Institute at SUNY, Albany.

The name of Neil Aitken, winner of California State University's Philip Levine Prize in Poetry, was misspelled in Recent Winners (May/June 2008).