Sir, – A total of 23 people featured in an article about how Irish writers reacted to Bob Dylan's Nobel Prize (October 14th). Of those, four expressed a negative view of the decision of the Nobel committee. Of those four, three commented very positively on Dylan as an artist. The other 19, some with great delight, approved of Dylan being awarded the prize. Yet your headline choice is "I wouldn't have given Bob Dylan the Nobel Prize". Amazing. – Yours, etc,
MIKE MAGUIRE,
Dublin 2.
Sir, – Predictions for 2017 Nobel prize for literature – Leonard Cohen, Paul Simon, Tom Waits, Daniel O’Donnell. – Yours, etc,
LIAM GAVIN,
Rush, Co Dublin.
Sir, – A Nobel call. – Yours, etc,
BOB BARRY,
Ashbourne,
Co Meath.
Sir, – At last we have a Nobel laureate that we can listen to. – Yours, etc,
COLIN ROGAN,
Terenure,
Dublin 6W.
Sir, – Joni Mitchell was robbed. – Yours, etc,
PATRICK O’BYRNE,
Phibsborough,
Dublin 7.
Sir, – Does the astute person who doesn’t debate Bob Dylan’s controversial award automatically win the Nobel Peace Prize? – Yours, etc,
DULACH GLYNN,
Raheny, Dublin 5.
Sir, – I will arise and go now, for the times they are a-changin’. – Yours, etc,
PADRAIG J O’CONNOR,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin 14.
Sir, – Bob Dylan’s well-deserved award of the Nobel Prize brings to the surface larger questions about the divide between “high” and “popular” culture. As Paul Muldoon writes about Leonard Cohen, “his songs have meant far more to me/than most of the so-called poems I’ve read”.
Singer-songwriters such as Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen have infused their writing with a social commentary that seems to have disappeared from much poetry published solely in book form.
Dylan's songs of social commentary alone, from The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll to Hurricane, make him a deserving winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
They meet Horace's criteria for good poetry, that it must be "dulce et utile", sweet and useful. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN HARRINGTON,
Kingston,
Galway.