On email scholarship [sonnet]

Having first weeded out the spam
the letters a'gleam before his eyes
with every reply to the replies
the scholar's perusal nimbly ran
through the epistolary scrawl
spanning decades   first to style
was he attentive   through the pile
his navigation discerned withal
nuggests of substance here historically
there philosphically glint germane
friendships & courtships wax & wane
quandaries frankly or rhetorically
    peeking out from the seamless reams
    of salvaged epistolary dreams


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reference:
E-Mail and Potential Loss to Future Archives and Scholarship or The Dog that Didn't Bark, by Susan S. Lukesh. First Monday (Volume 4, Number 9. September 1999)