The Letters (Jack Ridl)

I love the last name of today's poet. It's like a self-contained riddle. His poem, though, doesn't hide much. It's very straight forward, using everyday language.

N gets a letter from his mom who is in a nursing home and he is reminded of how her letters used to be and how her handwriting has changed as she's gotten older.

It's a sweet, familiar portrait. I like that even though the language is common, it's still clearly a poem.

N then turns from thinking of his mother and her letters to his sleeping wife and their in-progress Scrabble game. How the individual letters come together to spell out words. Maybe he is thinking how his mother's letters indicate her coming apart whereas the letter in their game demonstrate his wife's intelligence/cleverness.

I don't know. For me, the ending didn't have the same strength as the rest of the poem. It seemed too short, blunt. I kind of just want to hear more about N's mother. The poem went in a way I wasn't prepared for. Ah well.

Favorite line: "It was her elegance, a dignity/ she held between thumb and / forefinger."