O! Poetry

To the Editor:

In his essay “O! Poetry” (March 27), David Orr dismisses Mary Oliver and highlights precisely the elitist attitude that contributes to the “vast chasm” between readers of poetry and readers of O magazine. It’s fine for Orr to rank Yeats well above Oliver, a hierarchy with which I agree, but to do so in the context of asking for increased poetry readership is contradictory.

As Orr undoubtedly knows, poetry can be intimidating even to smart and devoted readers of prose. But readers cannot be encouraged to read poetry well if their choices and tastes are treated patronizingly.

“Reading might make her know, / Knowledge might pity win,” Philip Sidney tells us through his hapless Astrophel. Can we expect knowledge and, ultimately, love for poetry if the verse to which readers are attracted — or from which they do not initially feel alienated — is presented as unworthy of their efforts?

GILLIAN STEINBERG
New York
The writer is an assistant ­professor at Yeshiva University.