Slainte

After all, how long could it last: a month? Six weeks, tops.

That was my thinking when I launched the Red Letter Project back in March of 2020, responding to the Covid pandemic and the first quarantine.  At the time, there was a great deal of concern in the air – but hadn’t we seen other health crises come and go without too much disruption?  Still, I felt the project was a necessary response, recognizing immediately how isolation only magnified our fears.  And since I had been appointed as Arlington’s Laureate, I wanted to offer a reminder to my community, in any way I could, that while we might be physically apart, we were not alone.  “Men work together, I told him from the heart,/ Whether they work together or apart.”  We’d have to embrace the state of mind depicted in Robert Frost’s poem if the balancing act of interconnectedness was to endure.  Even in our solitary efforts, we can still keep each other’s home, health, work, dream in mind.

So how has that feeling changed after two years of Covid anxiety?  And George Floyd?  And January 6^th?  And the proliferation of climate disasters?  And now the Russian tanks rolling toward Kyiv?

I must say all this has only strengthened my resolve: that in pursuing the solitary passions that are central in my life, I must at the same time be mindful of our communal spaces and shared fates.  The first – and the most sacred – word in America’s founding document: we, as in we the people.  Our country has excelled in exploring the vast frontier of I – the rugged individualism and singular creative impulse (not to mention the mass-produced make-believe ‘uniqueness’ being touted from every screen and advertisement.)  But that drive had always been wedded to the idea of we, the common good, a shared humanity.  If now we’ve permitted political and economic forces to decouple those counterbalancing forces, our survival will indeed become precarious.

But for the past two years, I’ve experienced a glorious version of that communal impulse.  Putting the call out to Arlington and then Massachusetts poets to allow me to share their work, I received nothing but positive responses.  Then as the Red Letters were circulated from friend to friend, I began getting subscribers from across the country and even from abroad (a few readers in Turkey, Singapore, Israel, South Korea.)  And soon poets from all over agreed to add their voices to this chorus.  Not only was I able to feature the work of up-and-coming talents but some of the most acclaimed figures in poetry today.  I loved how each Friday, as the new installment appeared in inboxes and on partnering websites, letters from readers would begin arriving – praising a poem or bolstering some idea with their personal narratives.  I would respond to each and then compile a sampling to share with the featured poet.  A real sense of the shared moment developed – that ‘community of voices’ I mention each week – and it reaffirmed all that I’d always hoped for from this medium when I was a young poet just beginning to find my way.

I’ll bet that if you polled a thousand poets about which author most exemplified that sense of poetry as part of our social connective tissue, the name Seamus Heaney would be a frequent answer.  Even before he became a Nobel Laureate – and dubbed the most famous poet of his time – both his writing and his manner (with friends and strangers alike) was so ebullient and deeply humane, he made you feel honored to be a part of the same literary guild.  Seamus left us nearly a decade ago and far too soon.  But I get a similar feeling from the Red Letter poets as well: something of great value was given to them, an ancient tradition; and they feel it is vital that they pass it on to others, that the connections endure, the circle continuing to strengthen and expand.  We recognize ourselves in these poems; and we imagine the countless unseen eyes moving across the page.