Red Letter Poems #3

Enjoy this week’s latest installment of the Red Letter Poems Project, inspired by our own Steven Ratiner, Arlington’s Poet Laureate, HERE!

Haven’t read about the Red Letter Poems yet? This special project was envisioned as a letter-mailing campaign sharing poetry by a variety of poets with randomly-selected households. In these times of Covid-19, this project was re-envisioned and has evolved to a digital version that invites you to enjoy and virally distribute poems electronically, via email and social media.

Red Letter Poems is a celebration of National Poetry Month, and is a collaboration among the Arlington Commission for Arts & Culture, Arlington Center for the Arts, Arlington Community Ed, Arlington International Film Festival, Robbins Library and Arlington Poet Laureate Steven Ratiner.

“Hopefully,” says Ratiner, “we will reach an ever-widening circle of readers who can appreciate a momentary respite from these challenging times.”

Share these Red Letter Poems, which can be found here, far and wide via your social media circles using the hashtags #RedLetterPoems, #ArlingtonPoetLaureate, #SeeingBeyondCorona

From Steven Ratiner:

“What I find most remarkable in Susan Donnelly’s poems is how rarely the situations she portrays seem so. She writes about the ordinary days every one of us inhabits; but somehow, burnished by her subtle music and modulated tone of voice, she elevates our shared moments into something worthy of quiet astonishment. In “Chanson…”, she depicts the sort of isolation most of us assume as a given – even when in the midst of crowds. The piece makes me wonder whether, once “social distancing” becomes a thing of the past, we will have learned to relish even our casual interactions — with or without the intercession of music or poetry. Susan’s first book, Eve Names the Animals was awarded the Morse Poetry Prize; two other full-length collections followed as well as six chapbooks, the most recent of which is The Finding Day. Perhaps, right now, there is singing close by that will transform our beleaguered day.”