Dear TNT:

I figured I might mount the barricades for a minute to say what a positive impact your presence on this particular list at Slate has had for me. Despite your reputation as a ferociously poetic outlaw, one I'm sure you must savor as well as resent, I have found you a really helpful critic and back channel companion. You were able to patiently listen to my reasons for rhyming, suggest useful alternatives, and generally deal with my angst in a kind and attentive way.

One of the fun things you shared with me was the perfect blend you draw between pop culture and the classical artistic cannon. I think your foindness for drawing on the vocabulary and references of one world and inserting them into the voabulary and references of another probably lifts eyebrows and gets you in trouble, but I think this is a time-honored and useful function of those who write about poetry and, at least, some poets.

I find you acerbic but warm and humane. I'm glad you have a berth here and am sorry no one else gets to hear the fabulous country music you compose.