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April Fool? For Poetry, a Slightly Pouty Times Correction

Filed under: Headline Shooter Tagged: awards, Dana Goodyear, poetry

In today's Times:

An essay on March 11 about poetry in The New Yorker magazine referred imprecisely to the poet W. S. Merwin. While he was indeed a special Bicentennial consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress for 1999-2000, a position some consider tantamount to that of a poet laureate, he has not been United States poet laureate.

The essay also misspelled the surname of another poet at one point. He is J. D. McClatchy, not McLatchy. (Go to Article)

Aside to Regret the Error: "at one point"? And "The essay ... misspelled"? As Charlton Heston likes to say, essays don't misspell people, people misspell people. Is this the paper o' record or a high school Hamlet paper?

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Emdashes, founded December 2004, is a place where keen and dedicated readers of The New Yorker, past and present, can find related news and commentary: about people, subjects, and ideas within the magazine, and events and conversations outside its pages. Learn more about us and our contributors.

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