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There are just so many ways to dislike Waltz’s essay. Start with the facile, faux Hunter S. Thompson prose style; the lack of insights (spoken word has been around for, oh, ten years or so. Thanks for noticing, William!); the defense of Billy Collins (in the sixties the popular poet was Rod McKuen. Anyone happy about that?); or the commercial plugs for his buddy Gabriel Gudding (go talk to your own buttocks, fellas). What’s most appalling to me is that like most “cultural commentators” discussing poetry, Waltz assumes it’s an academic game. The writers I’ve come into contact with in the nearly thirty years I’ve been writing write poetry for love, not grades. And among those people, poetry has never been in danger of dying as an art.

R.T. Castleberry
Houston, TX

Oddly, a large number of letter writers who disliked Waltz’s essay accused him of shilling for “his buddy” Gabriel Gudding. The two are not aquainted socially or professionally, just one poet admiring another—a shocking enough state of affairs, we guess.—Editors

If you had any clue at all about Aron Ralston, you would know that you are the dope for writing such a rude article [Motley Krüse, June]. Aron is a nature lover. Whoever told you he quit his job because of a movie is full of it. He quit his job because he was tired of the corporate world. He wanted to make a career of being a guide. He studied hard, he climbed hard, and luckily he lived to tell about it. If you knew anything about climbing, you would know that what he did, with the exception of not leaving an itinerary, was the norm. By the way, he did have a rope. This climb was kindergarten stuff to him. Fate stepped in, and, as they say, shit happens. Aron is one of the brightest and most responsible people I know, and I really resent the crap you wrote about him.
Sandy Sciota
Rio Rancho, NM

Your article was worth no more than drunken smack talk coming from a table with four empty pitchers at the C.C. Club on a Friday night. You compared Aron to Evel Knievel and the guys from Jackass. Tell me how hiking a trail in the mountains is like jumping the Snake River Canyon on a dirt bike, or standing in an outhouse that is being turned upside down? How do you know he is a thrill seeker? Your ideas on insurance premiums are also a bit inflated. If you had actually done any research at all, you would have found it’s the people who don’t get enough physical activity that have all the health problems. Heart disease and diabetes are at alarming rates because of this. It is inactivity that causes people to be overweight and unhealthy, and to drive up health insurance premiums. I’m a climber, hiker, and cyclist. In my entire life of 35 years, I’ve been to the doctor about seven times for things outside of regular checkups. In the last seven years, I’ve been there twice. Tell me how I am driving up your insurance premiums. How many times have you been to the doctor in the last seven years? Here are the facts: Aron could have left an itinerary. Aron is an experienced hiker and climber on familiar terrain. Aron was pinned down by an 800-pound boulder when he was hiking on a designated trail and found himself in the unfortunate position of having to make a decision that you and I simply cannot comprehend.
Shawn Jeppesen
Robbinsdale

Please spare me the kinder, gentler spin on Pat Awada [“Is This Woman Ruining Our State?,” July]. As state auditor, her responsibility is to oversee $17 billion in local government spending. As the previous owner of Capital Verification, a telecom industry oversight company, she failed consumers to the tune of $222,000 in her clients’ fines and complaints in seven states. She is hardly fit to be state auditor. “The industry is sleazy,” she tells us. “Every telecom has these problems,” she says. As auditor, would she accept similar excuses from any of the cities she audits? If Pat is the “Future of Minnesota,” then Minnesota is in for years of failed oversight from its state auditor, and possibly years of faulty leadership from its governor, senator, or whatever position the Republican Party anoints her to run for next.
Tom Madden
Minneapolis

The picture of one of my favorite officers of the state caught my eye as I eyeballed the magazine shelves at Barnes & Noble in Edina. There was Pat Awada next to a great question: “Is our spunky state auditor making a Republican out of you?” I hope the answer for the majority is a resounding “Yes!” I’m one of those “anti-tax” Republicans who lives across the freeway from the Awadas and found myself at odds with Pat, the mayor, when she was pushing the community center onto Eaganites, who had just approved her community pool a couple years before (though I didn’t object to the pool as much as I did the community center). But now that it’s built, I’m succumbing to the thought that perhaps it was a good idea. I’m actually an “Eagan ambassador” now, and I led tours through the center when it first opened. Pat has always been an aggressive, competitive, and forward-looking person who has a creative mind, which I hope she uses to expose the waste in the 4,300 units of local government she is overseeing. If she can save us taxpayers a mere 10 percent of the $17 billion, she will be worth her weight in gold.
Alice Kreitz
Eagan

I feel there was one essential fact missing from the article about Minnesota’s current state auditor: Her name is Pat Anderson Awada. It was good enough for the election ballot… I wonder why it isn’t good enough for the office’s letterhead. Ah! At this time, there is no need to manipulate the citizens of the state to get elected!
Chris Olson
St. Paul

Thanks for your article on Pat Awada. It was the first article I’ve seen in the local press that was free of total negativism. It read more like a good short-story characterization. I got a feel for who she is, perhaps for the very first time. She is controversial. So, apparently, am I. In fact, I’d be interested in what Pat has to say about an ad campaign we’ve been running for the City of Excelsior in your magazine (placed right at the end of her article). Some people are reading this as “anti-business,” but the opposite is true. Excelsior simply wants unique businesses that go against the grain. Kind of like Pat Awada. How you read her depends on what is written about her. Thanks for an article that allowed me to decide, instead of told me what to decide.
Chris Birt
Minneapolis

I loved the article on the Subaru Baja [“Dude, where’s my truck-like car thing?,” July]. The article mentioned the trouble all car manufacturers are having as they chase the Gen X, active-lifestyle, mountain-biking crowd. That crowd is not interested in most of these vehicles! Charlie Rassouli admits that older folks and “part-time gardeners” are buying the Baja. This is the same problem Honda is having selling its boxy lifestyle auto, the Element. The Element is selling to a much older demographic, mainly older dog owners who swear by the roomy cargo area. Not exactly what Honda was hoping would be stored back there. Pontiac has had the same problem with the Aztec—though that vehicle was hit so badly with the ugly stick the designers should have been arrested.
Steve Roth
St. Louis Park

Thank you for your favorable review of Unplugged, my novel about depression and recovery [The Broken Clock, May]. I appreciate the attention your column brought to my performance and signing at Ruminator Books—and, more important, to the cause of suicide prevention. Your piece did, however, contain one error. I am not a “lifetime victim of depression,” having been spared until the age of 33. More to the point, I reject the label “victim,” preferring to call myself a depression survivor. Were I a “victim of depression,” I’d never have been able to write (and tirelessly tour on behalf of) a book of healing and hope that goes toe-to-toe with mood disorders and the stigma surrounding them. Indeed, given the way I’ve responded to my illness, it might be more accurate to say that depression is a victim of me!
Paul McComas
Evanston, IL