Last fall, the wonderful folks at CBC’s North by Northwest welcomed me onto their show for several weeks to talk about one of the great loves of my life: Dungeons and Dragons.
This year, I’m returning to the show to talk incessantly about two more things that I love: letter writing and poetry.
Early on in quarantine, Rachel Syme—a writer for the New Yorker whose work I’ve admired for a long time—asked her Twitter followers if anyone might want to be pen pals. The answer was a resounding “YES!” and thus #Penpalooza was born: an international community of 9,000 people who exchanged stickers, recipes, bags of tea and many, many heartfelt words over the latter half of 2020.
I have been one of those people, and the practice of letter writing has brought me so much joy during a time when joy is in short supply. Before sending my rambling letters off to the faraway lands of France and Japan and downtown Vancouver, I’ve made a habit of slipping a poem or two into each envelope. Sometimes these poems reference the contents of my letter; sometimes they’re related to world events or the changing seasons. And sometimes they’re just poems I think my recipient would like.
Thanks to North by Northwest—and heavily inspired by Poetry Rx, an advice column I absolutely adore—this little habit of mine is getting an upgrade.
During the month of January, I would love for you to send a letter or postcard to:
North by Northwest
CBC Radio
PO Box 4600
Vancouver, BC
V6B 4A2
I want to know what you’re looking forward to this year and what it looks like outside your window and how you’re staving off the winter blues. I want extremely detailed descriptions of your pets; I want two sentences scrawled on the back of a postcard you have lying around from a vacation you took three years ago. Send me some lyrics from a song you’ve been listening to on repeat or a memory you can’t get out of your head—anything and everything you’re willing to write down.
During January, I’ll be reading through all of the letters—and starting in February, I’ll pick a couple each week to share on the radio, each paired with a poem I think you would like and a little explanation about why.
AND: even if your letter isn’t chosen for the show, if you include a return address on your envelope, I promise to mail you a poem. I am not promising to do it quickly, mind you, but I am promising to do it.
To recap: poetry and letter writing kept me afloat during 2020, and I hope they can do the same for you in 2021. Write me a letter and I will send you a poem (and possibly read your letter on the radio!). Endless thanks as always to the team at North by Northwest for indulging me, and I can’t wait to hear from you!
(P.S. If you want to learn more about this project, you can listen to me talk about it—and share some poetry—on the Jan. 3 episode of North by Northwest. My segment starts at 1:20:39.)
