Letter to the Editor
BY Jeff Shotts
Dear Editor,
After reading through the October issue of Poetry, I was moved to write you to commend you for the best issue of the magazine in a long, long time. You have certainly made the critical and commentary section lively and engaging for the last year, and now by devoting much of the October issue to Frank Bidart's continuing masterwork in "The Third Hour of the Night," you have lifted the quality of the poetry that appears in Poetry magazine to new and exciting heights. I am gratified to see how much the aesthetic sensibility there has been enlarged, and I hope that continues as a trend to look forward to. The remarkable changes at Poetry have both broadened and deepened the national discussion of the art and the art itself in this country. Thank you.
Jeff Shotts grew up in rural central Kansas and earned his BA from Macalester College and MFA from Washington University in St. Louis. After college and graduate school, Shotts worked at Graywolf Press, first as an editorial assistant and then as an editor for poetry and nonfiction; he is currently executive editor at Graywolf. Shotts has discussed the role of the editor and the similarities between...