POETIC JUSTICE

Edward Abbey

The March 19, 1988, issue of  THE NATION magazine printed, under the heading "Poetic Justice," the following letter by Edward Abbey, in response to Dana Gioia's January 16th review of ROCK AND HAWK: A Selection of Shorter Poems by Robinson Jeffers (Random House), edited by Robert Haas. Edward Abbey is the noted environmentalist, essayist, and writer of fiction.

     Thank you for publishing Dana Gioia's review of the new Robinson Jeffers anthology, ROCK AND HAWK [Jan. 16]. Gioia's bold, brave defense of Jeffers's poetry was much needed, long overdue and brilliantly presented. Jeffers is one of the great and basic American poets, right in there with Walt Whitman, Emily Dickenson, Robert Frost and William Carlos Williams. Jeffers in fact was more than a great poet; he was a great prophet. Everything he wrote about the corruption of empire, the death of democracy, the destruction of our planet and the absurd self-centered vanity of the human animal has come true tenfold since his time. Let justice be done --- even in the literary world!