Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor,

I read Eliza Griswold’s article [“Everyone Is an Immigrant”] in the January issue of Poetry as I was riding the bus to Pittsburgh. In the middle of the article, I was interrupted by a slight crisis: I had never confirmed the bus’s destination and could very well have been heading to Chicago. After waiting for an identifiable street sign that confirmed I was, in fact, at least heading in the right direction, I was very happy to return to her article. It was lovely. I had never before encountered that mixture of reporting and poetry and poetic prose, and it felt absolutely fitting for the story she told. I started to dream of newspapers written only by poets with questions and carefully painted descriptions of the past twenty-four hours to replace the matter-of-fact. Thank you, Eliza Griswold, for writing compellingly and proving the usefulness of the artist in the world.