Letters

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Letters

 I started writing letters when I was in 4th grade when my teacher arranged for her students to have pen pals.  My pen pal was a girl in Alaska.  I remember this pen pal relationship didn't last long.  There were some children's magazines that had names and addresses of children who wanted to be pen pals.  I found a few children to write to this way.  Again, none of these pen pals lasted long. When I was in college I discovered "Letters Abroad," an organization that matched up pen pals for a very inexpensive cost. Through this organization I wrote to pen pals in Germany, Wales, Scotland, England, Switzerland, and France. I met some of these pen pals eventually, either on one side of the Atlantic or the other or both.  My German friend and I have communicated for decades and have visited each other seven times.   All because of letters! A letter is a powerful tool.  I bet many of you are letter writers too, and I bet some of your letters WOULD be poetry.

Today I would like you to write a poem as a letter TO SOMEONE (HUMAN) living or dead. An epistolary poem. Don't let the word scare you! Make it personal rather than general. It may be a poem to a friend or relative, a well known person, a fictional person (a character from a book perhaps), or someone you encountered just once!

I suggest a few poems for you to look at, each with its own style.    

Dear Bryan Wynter by W.S. Graham (2004)

Here is a short segment of the longer poem:

"This is only a note
To say how sorry I am
You died.  You will realize
What a position it puts 
Me in.  I couldn't really
Have died for you if so
I were inclined.  The carn
Foxglove here on the wall
Outside your first house
Leans with me standing
In the Zennor wind.

Anyhow how are things?
Are you still somewhere
With your long legs
And twitching smile under
Your blue hat walking
Across a place? Or am
I greey to make you up
Again out of memory?
Are you there at all?
.............."

Another good example of a letter poem is [Letter to Gary Bottone] by Jack Spicer (1951) This is it in its entirety:

"Dear Gary,

   Somehow your letter was no surprise (and I think you knew that it was no surprise or you would have tried to break the news more gently); somehow I think we understand what the other is going to say long before we say it—a proof of love and, I think, a protection against misunderstanding. So I've been expecting this letter for five weeks now—and I still don't know how to answer it.

   Bohemia is a dreadful, wonderful place. It is full of hideous people and beautiful poetry. It is a hell full of windows into heaven. It would be wrong of me to drag a person I love into such a place against his will. Unless you walk into it freely, and with open despairing eyes, you can't even see the windows. And yet I can't leave Bohemia myself to come to you—Bohemia is inside of me, in a sense is me, was the price I paid, the oath I signed to write poetry.

 I think that someday you'll enter Bohemia—not for me (I'm not worth the price, no human being is), but for poetry—to see the windows and maybe blast a few yourself through the rocks of hell. I'll be there waiting for you, my arms open to receive you.

 But let's have these letters go on, whether it be days, years, or never before I see you. We can still love each other although we cannot see each other. We will be no farther apart when I'm in Berkeley than we were when I was in Minneapolis. And we can continue to love each other, by letter, from alien worlds.

   Love,
   Jack"

After you have written your poem, please link it below (linking back to "What's Going On?).  Please visit the poems of other poets who write during the week.  Mr. Linky will close 8 p.m. Sunday night Eastern Time. I am looking forward to reading what you write.