Poets & Writers Magazine welcomes feedback from its readers. Please email [email protected] 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.
Letters
Feedback from readers
I so enjoyed reading the description by Todd Boss of writing librettos for musical productions in “Writing the Libretto: The Art and Music of Poetic Collaboration” (September/October 2026). It is only fair to warn prospective writers that whatever words they write may come out a garbled mess. As a composer myself, as well as a poet, I have written literally hundreds of choral works and solo songs and have sung in choirs for years. No matter how hard singers try, they will produce what listeners hear as a long series of vowels with no defining consonants. They may as well be simply another instrumental voice. I listened to the Jake Runestad Earth Symphony and loved the moods and harmonic richness, but I have no idea what the text is about. I would hope the audience has a copy of the text, as that is the only way the librettist’s efforts will be enjoyed.
Sharon Scholl
Jacksonville, Florida
When I first learned about opera, I considered it the greatest of artistic forms, comprising music, drama, and poetry. So I thoroughly enjoyed Todd Boss’s article. I would voice but two quibbles. The section of text written by Samiya Bashir for Joel Thompson’s choral piece Dark Matters is not so much poetry as a string of declarative sentences: “I struggle. Some days my smallest miracle is / Me.” It also seems to gainsay the remarks of Jake Runestad, referenced earlier in the essay, to the effect that “emotion is conveyed by vowels,” as well as “‘Consonants don’t carry notes’” and “don’t carry emotions either.” The lyrics sound quite consonant-heavy to my ignorant ear. I would suggest that the line from Wendell Berry’s “The Peace of Wild Things” (“When despair for the world grows in me”) is far more successful as part of a poem and a libretto. But I will omit the tiresome miserere over the prosaic fate of modern poetry.
Tom Ukinski
Louisville, Kentucky
Special thanks are due to editor Kevin Larimer for treating my home state of New Jersey with respect for its virtues and not cracking a joke. His Editor’s Note “The Best Path Forward” (September/October 2026), about seeking out used bookstores in the Garden State, was wonderful. On a sad note, from In Memoriam I learned about the untimely passing of the fine writer Jameson Currier, an LGBTQ poet and publisher who brought out my book The Letter I via his Chelsea Station Editions. Jameson and I, in the early days of the AIDS crisis, both wrote for the legendary magazine Body Positive. He was an inspiration and the finest editor I’ve ever had.
Dennis Rhodes
Naples, Florida
Please thank Kevin Larimer and Mary Gannon for a line of dialogue worthy of being published in the Page One section of the magazine: “Mary turned to me and said, ‘What we’re doing makes absolutely no sense, you realize that, right?’” What a fantastic opening line that is a prompt for a thousand stories.
Caren Lee Brenman
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
[Corrections]
The profile of Deesha Philyaw by Brian Gresko, “Radically Entertaining” (September/October 2026), inaccurately stated that an adaptation of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies is in production for HBO Max with actor Tessa Thompson’s production company; the adaptation is in development. “The Low-Residency MFA: A Reassessment of an Underappreciated Program Model” (September/October 2026) by Jessica Goudeau misstated the location of two low-res MFA programs: the Antioch University program in Los Angeles and Randolph College in Lynchburg, Virginia. The Deadlines listing for the Fonograf Editions Open Genre Book Prize (September/October 2026) contained a typographical error; the winner receives $1,500.