by Pat Phillips West

2008.11.12 – The letter by a.drian

Write a letter to someone, either a child, brother or sister, a parent, a friend, a spouse, a lover, anyone in your life. Or, address it to the universe.

Tell that person something you want him/her to know, something you perhaps wished to say to that person long ago and couldn’t. Maybe it’s something that has just occurred to you.

No matter what it is, use description, create a scene and pay attention to the style of your writing. Make your language reflect your subject matter, your mood and your feelings.

Additional tips

What you are feeling will dictate choice of words as well as short or long lines or sentences.

If you decide to write a love letter, avoid abstractions. Don’t “tell”; describe your feelings.

Address the “what” or “how”: What you meant to me, what I learned from you, how you hurt me, how that made me feel, how you changed me, what I’ve become because of you.

Take a look at the last three lines of a poem by Don Thompson.

October

. . . as if autumn had written us a long letter,
changed its mind,
and tore it into little scraps.

(Read the entire poem.)

Share your work with us here.

Pat Phillips West moved so often even her closest friends asked if she was in the Witness Protection Program. She refused to comment, except to say she’s in Portland, OR, for now. Her poems appear or will appear in Imagination & Place: Weather, Persimmon Tree, VoiceCatcher6, Manzanita Writers Press, San Pedro River Review and elsewhere.