Format: In Print and Online

The published correspondence of famous poets often accounts for more real estate on bookstore shelves than their books of poems. For academic scholars who spend their weekends in the special-collections rooms of libraries, the value of these books is obvious. But what are they worth to the general reader, or the practicing poet?

Page One features a sample of titles we think you'll want to explore. With this installment, we offer excerpts from Jesus Sound Explosion by Mark Curtis Anderson and What Narcissism Means to Me by Tony Hoagland.

British poet and novelist Thomas Hardy, author of Tess of the D’Urbervilles and The Return of the Native, among other literary classics, wanted his personal papers burned after his death. In 1928, a bonfire was dutifully lit but not everything was consigned to the flames. Hardy’s second wife, Florence, saved at least 12 notebooks filled with information and sources on which the author based his later works of fiction. Thomas Hardy’s ‘Facts’ Notebook, edited by William Greenslade and released this month by Ashgate Publishing, is only the most recent to appear.

Reviewers are accused of having agendas and of cronyism, are called show-offs and career-killers. It's a lot of heat to take for some free books, a few bucks, and a byline.