Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. Edited by Thomas Travisano with Saskia Hamilton. Farrar Straus Giroux, $45.  “Please never stop writing me letters—they always manage to make me feel like my higher self (I’ve been re-reading Emerson) for several days.” – Letter #218, July 27, 1960.   In January 1947, [...]

Poetry chapbooks are a strange breed, poetry’s awkward teenager. They rarely enjoy the same distribution as commercially published collections, yet they are eagerly sought by devoted readers and serious collectors.