A melee broke out early this morning at a coffee shop in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn between those waiting in line to order their tall, grandes and ventis and the steady stream of customers who ordered online and sauntered past them to grab their waiting drinks.

Item 151. Perhaps the most important literary correspondence we’ve ever offered: an unrecorded handwritten letter from Herman Melville to G.P. (George) Putnam, publisher of Melville’s first novel (Typee) and several of his short stories. This letter doesn’t appear in The New Melville Log or Correspondence, but its provenance is an unbroken chain, and the handwriting unquestioned. All pages have minor foxing; a few unobtrusive tears on page two; one coffee-ring stain on page one partially obscuring the date; several large (including one full-page) blue-pencil question marks scattered throughout. Important, compelling, and rare.

There can be little doubt that poets do not contribute greatly to society. Their work, produced in vast abundance, is nearly valueless to our species. Indeed, the great bulk of their efforts are simply given away; the poems cannot be sold. Yet, I believe that poets are capable of contributing meaningfully to the human endeavor and I propose the following ways in which we may put poets to use.

Those who have never hated anyone, for example children under ten years old or saints, often don’t know how to show hatred for deserving hateful people, or even what that feeling is like. By rights they should hate quite a few people, as we all should, and yet they are blocked. At most they feel a vague dismay and insecurity in the presence of repulsive others, or become queasy at the thought that so many folks out there are obnoxious jerks, but they can’t summon the proper attitudes of derision and disdain that all these unmitigated asses so richly deserve. Yet by following a few simple rules they can break through this barrier of reticence and let their justified hatred pour forth.

Grant Sims revolutionized technology. His early death saddened us, but we shouldn’t ever forget that he put all of himself into the products we enjoy today. Now, not forgetting this, we should also know he was human. So let’s allow the man a flaw or two without losing sight of what he meant to us.