About the Red Letters:

I was appointed as Poet Laureate for Arlington, MA, back in 2019 and, in that capacity, I began The Red Letters at the start of the Covid pandemic.  Each weekly installment features a single poem by a different author, coupled with a brief introduction/commentary focused on that poet’s work—and it’s seen by several thousand readers in Massachusetts, the United States, and beyond. At the outset, The Red Letters were a response to the fear and isolation we were all experiencing as the pandemic gripped our country and the world, and my impulse was to offer poems that might comfort and remind people they were not alone in all this. But after the murder of George Floyd, the January 6th insurrection, the Russian invasion, and the proliferation of our country’s crises, I began expanding the geographic reach of the RLP to include poets from across the United States and far beyond. And I also broadened the subject matter being presented to include poems that inspire, challenge, and help redefine the larger conversation as our country struggles with something like a new identity crisis. I’ve come to see the Letters as an anthology evolving in real-time, responsive to the emotional and imaginative weather that affects all of our lives. The featured poets have ranged from renowned talents (Rita Dove, Robert Pinsky, Frank Bidart, Richard Blanco, Jane Hirshfield, Martín Espada, Martha Collins and others) to poets just starting out. It’s the quality of the individual poem that matters, and whether it feels like a good fit for this project. Though there are many poets and avid readers of poetry among the RLP subscribers, there are also many who might never have browsed the poetry aisle in the bookstore, but ran across these installments early on, desiring any moment of calm in the emotional storm. They’ve been surprised to discover that contemporary poems might actually contain moments of pleasure and insight. As Whitman would suggest, I think poetry can serve both constituencies (and help make them one.)

   —Steven Ratiner