I wonder why there is no poetry printed in your paper, when it was once a common fact of everyday culture to have verses printed. Yeats was printed in local newspapers. Do you think it a virtue to have such possible genius stamped out?
I don’t work in the newspaper business. I’m a poet, editor and classicist. Why is the highest of the arts — as Hegel saw it — exempted from our paper? Surely, you don’t think so low of the population that they would find no interest in it.
A fine — sharp as a knife — editor would be required, but I can’t think that an impossibility.
The absence of poetry in your publication reduces its value. Asheville is a city of culture, alive for the rhythms of the imagination and ripe for such a particle.
I don’t mean to criticize, but to wonder and suggest.
Ezra Pound once said, “Poetry is news that stays news.” Why print the progeny of Bob Novak over a potential Yeats, Olson, Melville or Archilochos?
Editor’s response: We do print poetry occasionally — this spring, our Kids Issue featured poems, as did our more recent story on Community High School. We also do a poetry contest every now and then. But we long ago decided to leave poetry (and fiction) up to local publications that do it so well, such as Rapid River Magazine and the Asheville Poetry Review.
— Steven Manuel
Asheville
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