Letter from the Poetry Editor by Peter Davison

I write you this because, to your surprise perhaps, I have grazed through your poems as a chance visitor to your room might, noting a pair of green slippers dropped beside the bed and a half-finished letter on the desk-- which I have read. From such clues I can guess that you allowed yourself to be interrupted, and why you walked outside, and where. I know something about your habits, how you touch the words you choose, which edges you have crimped, those which you’ve not been able to unbalance. I know more than you want me to, perhaps, about what you are obsessed by, whether you have ravished your desire or been flung back; I’ve read the sayings that you call your own, the ways you take to try to make them ours. You might not think that you were spied upon, but take my word, at least, that I was here when you were out. And found you in, at home. From “The Great Ledge: Poems” (Alfred A. Knopf: $18.95, cloth; 0-394-58069-9; $9.95, paper; 60 pp.; 0-679-72594-6). The author of eight books of poetry and a memoir, Davison also is poetry editor for The Atlantic and a publisher with his own imprint at Houghton Mifflin. The poem above is the first in a cycle of nine whose collective title is “Literary Portraits.” 1989, Peter Davison. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf.