THE POET AND RADIO SIR, —Mr. Kingsley Amis in his review
of The Craft of Letters in England in the Spectator of July 13 makes an extraordinary statement in connection with the poet and radio. He com- ments that `to write with the spoken word in mind, even if it encourages dilution, must help the poet, not of course because "verbal music" is of the least importance, but because the spoken word requires clarity.' The dropping of 'verbal music' is taking the reaction against Dylan Thomas to ridiculous lengths. Clarity is not a necessarily bad neighbour of `verbal music,' as Dr. Edith Sitwell demonstrated in her book on Pope. Even if Mr. Amis's dislike
of 'verbal music' is limited to the occasion when the poet is writing for radio, he is still telling the poet to throw away deliberately one of his greatest skills.--Yours faithfully,
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