September 30, 2005

Poetry in General, and in Particular

To the Editor:

I was stunned to read, in Burton Bollag's "The Reason for Rhyme" (Short Subjects, The Chronicle, August 12), that I had supposedly trashed Diane Gilliam Fisher's collection of poems, Kettle Bottom. I don't know the book and had never so much as heard of it.

When Mr. Bollag phoned me, he posed the question: "As a poetry critic, are you concerned that summer reading lists for incoming freshmen include so little poetry?"

I said not at all, because (1) I for