Well, here we all are again in the letters page of the March Edition of Write Out Side Now Car Park Fight, the friendly low fat magazine of Write Out Loud and what a month it's not yet been. St Patrick's day hasn't yet passed off quietly without incident and a number of issues in the poetry world are yet to present themselves.

One issue that will, we confidently predict, arise around the fourth half of the month is that of whether or not the um bongo adverts (whilst undoubtedly poetic) weren't just a little bit racist in their reduction of African Congolese languages and cultures to little more than wardrums in the jungle together with the ubiquitous definite article "um" such as appears in Little Plumb in the Beano.  But anyway, how far we poets have come from those um bongo adverts, hey. 

Another issue that is bound to crop up is poet laureates; do they work?  Are there too many of them? Are there not enough?  I mean, there's a Poet Laureate for England (and specifically the Royal household), then there's your regional poet laureates, and then there's your shadow poet laureate, whom I think is a bit ganged up on if you ask me given the number of poet laureates on the other side of the house... but anyway, I guess what I'm really asking is should there be regional shadow poet laureates? What do you think?

Your views on these or any other poetic issues are greatly appreciated and you can even bring Ezra Pound's association with Italian fascism and Thomas Stearns Eliots peculiarities, or Andrew Motion's comments on standing down from his post of Poet Laureate and Seamus Heaney's riposte to the notion that he might be asked.

Pleas send your letters to dermot@writeoutloud.net

Pecularly named individual writes:

Sir,

Please accept my gratitude for the March edition of your magazine. Such erudition!

Hatta is brilliant. She has rewritten the rules of… well, English. Didn’t understand a word of it. Marvellous!

Darren’s review of the Howcroft, so graphic it was like, well, it was almost like he was actually there. I was saying to Alan Grey as he popped in to see his libel lawyer. Gotta laugh.

And the astrol… stars thingy; so accurate! It all ACTUALLY HAPPENED to me. OK, that was Taurus and I am Gemini, but you accidentally transposed them, right?

Michael Murray (that his stage name?)! Brilliant. All those big words – iambic progeny - and stuff no-one previously knew (or cared?) about: A thigh is the eventual result of a tight thought. My favourite bit. Almost.

Freda Sowerby all crumpled like a poem, superb. The masked wotsit on stress and rhythm in proctology.

What an unusual zine! What breathlessness of fresh air. I truly hope you get what you deserve. Keep up the good work (drop the rest).

Any chance of a future item: Sylvia Plath on the health and safety aspects of baking?

Oh and please could each article have links to the others at the side for when we get bored and want to move on? Well, if.

Yours aye

Ma Chair

And Miss Foxglove (who also has an unusual name) writes:

Oi Glennon