Elegy for the Personal Letter, A Poem By Allison Joseph

by Anna Post

Listening to VPR (Vermont Public Radio) this morning, I was struck by a poem Garrison Keillor read on his segment The Writer's Almanac. It was "Elegy for the Personal Letter"* by Allison Joseph, and it struck me smack in the middle of my handwritten letter writing loving heart. 

At one point she writes, "So seldom is it that letters come/That I stop everything else/to identify the scrawl that has come this far—/the twist and the whirl of the letters,/the loops of the numerals."

In its entirety it is both beautiful and relevant. 

*The Writer's Almanac only links to its main page; if the link no longer takes you to the poem, look for the March 9th post. If you still can't find it, it is published in My Father's Kite (Steel Toe Books, 2010).