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The Washington Post of January 26, 2013 featured humor columnist Alexandra Petri's "Ode to an Obsolete Art."  Her column went viral the world around, appearing, even, in the Canberra Times of Canberra, Australia.  Prompted by hearing poet Richard Blanco's superb inaugural poem, "One Today," Ms. Petri offered up the opinion that poetry is "a field that may well be obsolete."  Though she said she worries about poetry, that she offered her comments "lovingly,"  and that she acknowledges journalism is "in the next ward over, wheezing noisily," she nonetheless proceeded to make a (not very good) case for poetry's obsolescence. 

Departing from her usually very high standards, her prose in this particular column descends into the sort of desultory, obfuscatorial, aimlessly wandering taradidle that, at another-fine-mess.com, we have canonized as de rigeur for our own twisted version of The Elements of Style.  She should know better! 

Such criticisms notwithstanding, her column is worth the read.  However, her blog entry in which she comments on the many defensive responses she received from poets, is a masterpiece of a comedic, semi-mea culpa, and should not be missed!  

Wishing only to be of assistance to Ms. Petri, we offered her a poem in response, disguised as a Letter to the Editor.    Unaccountably, The Washington Post saw fit to print it in its edition of February 2, 2013.