Letters between friends

There’s a special feeling that you get when you hold the new book of an author whose work you've loved in the past. 

It’s a little like when you meet an old friend on the street and she shares good news with you, or maybe like when you return to a favorite spot and find it’s the same but different, still special but with a newness that wasn’t there before. 

That’s how I felt when I held my copy of Joyce Sidman’’s Dear Acorn (Love, Oak): Letter Poems to Friends by Joyce Sidman (Illustrated by Melissa Sweet). 

What a remarkable collection of letters in the form of poems that friends send to each other. 

The “friends,” however, are different than you might expect. 

Imagine an oak tree sending a letter to an acorn, or an acorn responding with a letter of its own. 

And what if a bubble could write a letter to sky?

Dear Sky,

Hello! It’s me, Bubble!

I’m here!

Someone breathed me

awake!

Or what if baby sea turtles could share a poem with the ocean, and the ocean could respond with a poem of its own to all the creatures who live in its water?

Not only is Dear Acorn a collection of love letters between friends, it’s a book where each poem and illustration connect us more deeply to each other and to the world around us, and encourage us to use our imaginations to envision the world in a way that makes it clear how all of life is interconnected. 

Melissa Sweet’s illustrations are perfect compliments to the poems and equally wonderful, bringing to life Sidman’s words and offering readers a world in these pages as colorful and enthralling as the world itself.

Here’s Oak writing to Acorn:

Dear Acorn,

I feel you there,

a tickle at my twig tips,

a plump promise

against my rough bark.

Your whole life ahead of you

and weeks till you fall.

Take a good look around, Acorn.

Drink in the view.

The next stop is earth.

Then years upon years

until you see this sky

this high

again.

I’ll be waiting,

Oak

And here’s Acorn’s response:

Dear Oak,

I am round and ready. Bursting

with hope, crammed with possibilities.

I know I must drop and sleep andrtificate

sprout and grow. So slow! But then,

Oak, I’ll stretch up my arms,

strong and true. I’ll be your

friend, the one who rises

up beside you.

Love,

Acorn

For budding poets (young and old), Sidman includes a handful of suggestions for how to write your own letter poems, such as how to choose a subject, what to think about, and how to begin writing a poem. 

I hope you’ll get the chance to pick up your own copy of Dear Acorn (Love, Oak): Letter Poems to Friends from a bookstore or library near you and enjoy Sidman’s poems and Sweet’s illustrations. 

It’s a marvelous collection that helps both adults and children see the world anew. 

What I love about writing

What I love
about writing with
a fountain pen

the moment before
I begin writing
when the pen's nib
is poised above
the page

and I can see
its shadow
curved
like a face
staring up from
the paper
wondering
what the first word,
the first letter,
will be

And how it will feel
to touch the page again,
shadow and nib
kissing the paper,
their kisses
leaving a trail
of words
behind.

--

Each morning
writing
is
like jumping
out of a
plane
and
praying
the parachute
opens...

--

I love the precision
of a fountain pen's
sharp nib

the mysterious way
ink flows onto
the paper from its
point

the clean lines
the way letters form
beneath it
on a page
that was blank
a moment
before.

--

Look -- footprints
in the snow

ink stains
on the page

smudges on glass
evidence

someone was
here.

--

Loving The Water

Loving the water is one of the secrets to writing and re-writing.

If you write what you love, you can endure the many challenges and unexpected obstacles that come with writing... and still write.

Francis Flaherty, an editor for the past fifteen years at The New York Times, observes in his indispensable book on writing, Elements of Story: Field Notes on Nonfiction Writing, that writing what you love is essential to the process:

Go find the stuff you love to death. When you find it, many wondrous things will happen. Time will fly. Work will become play. You will feel stoked. If you are prey to self-consciousness and general writerly heebie-jeebies, they will fade or vanish. Of course, the room you walk into may be the wrong one. But you can just walk out, nothing lost, and try a different door. If you are in love with writing (and not just with the idea of writing), there is almost certainly such a door, and it is waiting for you.

This is the kind of wisdom that Flaherty has gained from editing hundreds of stories during his tenure as editor, and it’s only a small fraction of the wisdom that he shares with writers in his wonderful book.

He understands how hard it is for a writer to get into the water, never mind stay in it, if he or she doesn’t love the water.

Without love, the very act of putting words on paper can be dry and arduous, and the process of revision a form of torture.

But when a writer loves words and loves discovering new ways to put them together, she can take pleasure in the act of swimming in words and stories.

Loving the water helps a writer swim through unforeseen challenges, take unexpected risks, and endure the hardships that come with writing.

The dead-ends and wrong turns, the unpaved streets and marshy backroads, the shoals and low tides and the days when it feels like we’re swimming through a desert of sand instead of an ocean of water... all are made bearable, somehow, by love.

Love has the power to change everything–your determination, your dedication, your passion, your willingness to keep searching the water until you find the right word, the right doorway into your stories.

Writing what you love will change your energy and enthusiasm, the way you put words down on paper, the tone and voice, the energy with which you approach your work, and the way that you look at revisions.

With love, revisions are no longer an ordeal to correct “mistakes” but rather an opportunity to make what you love even better.

The next time you find yourself in the doldrums, floundering for words, wondering why you’re unable to find the energy or passion to create a new story or poem, or to spend the time revising what you’ve written, perhaps it’s because you haven’t yet found "the stuff you love to death."

Perhaps you need to examine how you feel about the subject in more depth.

Or, as Flaherty suggests, perhaps you simply need to try a different door.

Remember: write what you love.

It will change everything.

For more information on Flaherty’s book, check out:
http://www.harpercollins.com/browseinside/index.aspx?isbn13=9780061689147
http://www.publishinghelp.com/editors/archives/2010/08/entry_361.html
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Francis-Flaherty/98954643329
http://www.nytimesknownow.com/index.php/francis-flaherty/