“Dear” Poems - (Typed Translation Below)

 

(Translation for those who don't read cursive!  And sorry that my writing is so spindly!)

March 15, 2018

Dear Toads, 

First, how are you? I am so sorry to have been away. I have missed you.

Secondly! I write to you today about letter writing. I love writing letters. There is something about jotting down that ''dear” that loosens me right up. Maybe it’s because the purpose of a letter is so clear. One may try to be artful, but a letter is fundamentally a communication- one writes to one's addressee to get some message across.

Letters have long been a literary device. In fact, the book considered the first novel written

in English ("Pamela" by Samuel Richardson) is '"epistolary" i. e, written as a series of letters.

Epistolary poetry is less common unless you consider the many poems addressed to a person (such as ''To His Coy Mistress," by Andrew Marvell) and the scads of Odes, such as ''To Autumn" by Keats (a master of the ode), ''Ode to my Socks'' (and others by Neruda), and more

modern odes, such as (one of my favorites) ''In Praise of my bed" by Meredith Holmes.

Although odes are not typically framed as letters, one can easily imagine them

beginning with a "dear" that has simply been edited out.

And this, dean Toads, brings me to our prompt for today -start your poem as a letter to a person, place, thing, even feeling—whatever addressee you wish—and then more on from there.

Note that you do not need to include the "dear" (or any trappings of a letter) in your final posted poem. Simply use the "dear" as a starting point. 

Also note that your addressee does not actually have to be "dear” to you- the "dear" is just a device to get you going. (Feel free to be sarcastic.)

Finally, have fun.

Yours truly,

K.  (A/k/a/ Manicddaily)