A word in praise of the poetry community engendered by the University of Southern Maine.

Last Friday, Jamaal May from Detroit read as the O’Brien Poet in the Glickman Library, a few floors up from the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance.

On Tuesday, Richard Blanco read to hundreds of people at Hannaford Hall.

USM deserves our support, if only for its promotion of poetry. But with so many French-speaking asylum seekers from Burundi, Congo and Rwanda now in Portland, and their children in the schools, why is now the time to eliminate USM’s bachelor of arts degree in French? Reinforcing it and reinstating it seem in order.

Daniel Duff Plunkett

Portland