STANDING BY THE SHORES OF GITCHE GUMEE

I strongly disagree with Peter Prescott’s opinion of poetry as stated in his review of “Walt Whitman’s America” in the Sunday, June 11, 1995 Book Review section of the Los Angeles Times.

He says of “Song of Hiawatha” . . . composed in rigid imitation of a Finnish epic. The numbing rhythm of this dumb poem . . .”! Well, I take umbrage with the assessment! I have always loved the “Song of Hiawatha” particularly the rhythm. It tells a beautiful story in “formal metrics” as poetry was meant to be. And I see no beauty in “Leaves of Grass” or anything else Whitman wrote.

Does Prescott find fault with the poems of Edgar Allen Poe, and the scores of 18th and 19th century American poets, including many women? Also, the English poets such as William wordsworth, Percy Shelly, Lord Byron, John Keats, Samuel Coleridge, Oscar Wilder, etc., etc.?

Modern poetry makes no sense to me, and I think it is an aberration! I trust I am not the only one with this opinion!

ELEANORE TRIGHER, COSTA MESA