Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor,

Joseph Epstein's "Thank You, No" gives an amusing history of laureatehood in the US and UK, but it contains an error of fact. Not only was Ted Hughes asked to write a poem "about the death of Princess Diana," he produced "6 September 1997" before her funeral. I don't know how Epstein would stack the poem up against earlier Hughes (to me, it sounds more like George Herbert) but I would have enjoyed his take on whether Elton John and Bernie Taupin usurped the laureate's job.