Between the Lines by Joseph Parisi, Stephen Young. (Ivan R. Dee,2006) [Hardcover]

by Joseph Parisi

Continuing the saga begun in Dear Editor, the former editor and senior editor of Poetry magazine tell the story of the last half-century of the magazine's leadership in the publication of American poetry through correspondence with a myriad of poets. An enlightening, amusing, and revealing book.

Genres: History

Unknown Binding

First published August 25, 2006

Reviews

[Robert Walkley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn’t expect much from this book, but I came away loving it. I can’t pretend to have read every sentence or even every letter. But what I did read was fascinating. (And I can always go back and read some more!) The book gives the reader a great overview of what the magazine’s mission was and still is, and what it took to keep the magazine afloat through tough financial times. Parisi and Young take you not only between the lines but inside the offices and dare I say even the minds and lives of the editors and poets who roam these many pages. Even subscribers and rejected writers are heard from. The book is not really about the poetry, it’s about the correspondence between the editors of Poetry and the writers whose works they are either accepting or rejecting. The question that haunts the book is whether or not in this day and age of e-mail, letter writing has become a lost art. With email there is immediacy. But letter writing seems to afford more intimacy.

Parisi and Young do an excellent job of providing context for what is happening outside the pages of Poetry, both in the world of letters and in the real world, too.The book is roughly divided into chapters that chronicle each decade, though it begins with a specific event in 2002.

My favorite editor as a letter writer has to be John Frederick Nims. Henry Rago must win an award for being best human being in an editor’s role. Best poet letter writer? There are so many to choose from. But I’ll pick Donald Hall and his correspondence during Jane Kenyon’s terminal illness.

Sometimes the correspondence between an aggrieved writer (who is sometimes a Poetry subscriber) and an editor can get testy. At other times, writers can sound like like they are talking to their therapist or writing Dear Abby (now it would be Dear Prudence). Occasionally, the writer is so nasty that his or her name is not revealed. But writers can be radiantly happy when the editor selects their work or when they win an award. Making art is the foremost concern, of course. But making money (and surviving) is not far behind. After all, the first two chapters are titled “Outrageous Fortune” and “The Lyre and Lucre: Poetry’’s First Fifty Years.”

Pick up this volume. You will be enriched. (In the interest of full disclosure, Poetry has never accepted my work for publication.)