Steven Ratiner was appointed as Arlington’s third Poet Laureate. In early 2020, he came up with a project that would share the delight of poetry by sending out poems by Arlington’s poetic voices in bright red envelopes sent in mass mailings to random households. When Covid-19 hit and began devastating all our town’s planned projects, he reimagined the Red Letter Poems as a virtual project. At the start of National Poetry Month in April 2020, Steven launched the Red Letter Poems Project, releasing a series of weekly poems, shared virtually here on Arts Arlington, on the Robbins Library site, and through local media such as YourArlington.com. As the project started to gain momentum locally, it received more and more acclaim and attention, and Steven invited more and more regional literary artists to join in, sharing their poems with a wide readership of poetry lovers.
One difficult, complicated year later, having traversed a difficult journey through many challenging obstacles — a political maelstrom, a pandemic that shuttered business and stifled gathering in fellowship, growing social unrest and turmoil surrounding racial justice — Steven kept up the pace and organized a project that touched our lives and brought beauty to our inboxes every week.
The Red Letter Poems continue on, having gained quite an appreciative following. We strongly encourage fans to continue to engage directly and personally, subscribing to receive Red Letter Poems in your inbox! Just send an email to steven.arlingtonlaureate@gmail.com with the subject line: “mailing list.’
On this page you’ll find an index of poems/authors and files of all the poems from the project’s inception in April 2020, up to the end of April 2021 in a “gallery” below. To view, just click on each poem to view the full size image. You can return to the original Red Letter Poems page here, to view Steven’s commentary about each poem.
We hope you’ve had the chance to appreciate a momentary respite from these challenging times by tuning in to the many poetic voices of the Red Letter Poems Project.
Red Letter Poems was created in partnership with many of our town’s cultural resources: the Arlington Commission for Arts and Culture, the Arlington Center for the Arts, the Robbins Library, the Arlington International Film Festival, and Arlington Community Education.
