Thursday, March 15, 2018

“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) 



18 comments:

Jim said...

Nice idea, K. I ginned up a little letter, stealing an hour of sleep to do it on my old Galaxy 5 smart phone. It is a "Beware the Ides of March" ditty.
..

Kim M. Russell said...

As I'm short of time, I decided to link a poem a wrote a few weeks ago, before the birth of my first grandson last week. I hope that's OK.

Sanaa Rizvi said...

Loved the prompt,K!💞 Sharing my poem "A letter to my former self"... Happy Thursday everyone!💞

Outlawyer said...

Thanks for deciphering the prompt! K.

Kerry O'Connor said...

I think handwriting says so much about a person. It is idiosyncratic and something as unique as a fingerprint. I shall take some time to think about this challenge, Karin. Thank you.

Sherry Blue Sky said...

This sounds like fun! I will be back.

Fireblossom said...

Love this...I look forward to writing something for it!

(sad lack of elephants, however.)

tonispencer said...

dIverse had this prompt a couple of weeks ago. If it is okay I will link up the letter/poem I write for it.

Gillena Cox said...

I had lots of fun with this prompt. Thanks Karin

much love...

brudberg said...

wonderful... I love letter poems, and tried it just a few weeks ago for the first time... now I need a new recipient for another letter.

Rosemary Nissen-Wade said...

It happened that my attention was drawn to a recent gift from a friend, and I had a realisation about it, just before reading this prompt – so it was natural that a thank-you letter came to mind.

Rosemary Nissen-Wade said...

Sorry, sorry, sorry, managed somehow to enter previous link for a previous prompt before getting the right one there – but didn't realise I had, so the second one is not even labelled "correct". Aaarrrgh!

Frank J. Tassone said...

Evening, Toads! Thanks, Outlawyer, for this inspiring prompt. I experimented with shardoma and prose in this epistle poem! :)

Margaret said...

I wrote this for dVerse about two weeks ago. I know we almost always post a new poem for a Toad's prompt, but this one is very emotional for me and I didn't share it here with this group of poets - I hope you don't mind.

Margaret said...

I will be back in the morning to visit and comment.

Outlawyer said...

Thanks all for sharing. I am sorry to be delayed in looking but will have time today. Kerry, I love handwriting—this was done on a funny app that can convert to typed text and it changes your writing somewhat. Also, because I was trying to be neat but also correcting things at times so having to “erase” and squeeze in my edits, it got a bit cramped and spidery. I have been doing a lot of writing on the app though, with the thought that it can be converted to typed text. Unfortunately, the conversions are not always so seamless! So I may have to re-type in any case. Oh well! Thanks again. K.

brudberg said...

I posted late... and the embers are fading. I need to sleep. Will be back tomorrow.

Susie Clevenger said...

I'm late, but I wrote a letter. :)