viii. steve almond

dear steve almond,

you don't know me, but i saw you recently at a reading. the somerville writers' festival was held about a month ago, and you read quickly and then had to leave because your wife was about to go into labor. if i were her, i would be mad you agreed to read at the festival too. but that's not why i'm writing. i was moved by your letter excerpts*, as most were funny, others heartrendingly poignant, and all echoed something i might write myself, which i found most intriguing. so i went to the library, which you will be pleased to know has ALL of your books. and to think i'd never even heard of you. i selected "not that you asked," your book of personal essays, because that's what i like to write, and i hoped it might contain some of the letters you read. it didn't, but i was moved by your homage to vonnegut. i wonder if there's a writer who has had that amount of influence in my life: perhaps lisa carver, whom i have met, or cornel west and wendell berry, whom i have heard speak, or otherwise only the deceased--flannery o'connor, hannah arendt, peter kropotkin, thomas merton, salinger (who, alright, is not dead, but equally inaccessible). i made a zine once and used quotes from vonnegut, who was a fighter until the end. so, unlike you, i do not have grandparents who were communists, but i do come from good country people, and find that i am equally concerned with freedom and truth. so thanks for your words (your essay on the multiple deaths of josephine made me laugh out loud) and keep writing, and reading, and i hope you find another teaching post. you've got two babies to care for now.

sincerely,
ann crews melton

*for the inquisitive reader: steve almond resigned from boston college when they invited condoleezza rice to speak at commencement, after which he received hundreds of emails from right-wing nut jobs, to which he responded publicly at the reading. they included lots of references to his balls, and condi's balls, and hellfire, and expletives unfit to reproduce here.

iv. barack obama

dear mr. president,

a lot of people sure have pinned their hopes on you. are hopes light, like balloons and feathers, so that you might ascend straight up like elijah one day? or are they heavy, becoming burdensome once transferred, like insignificant pebbles which nonetheless sink to the bottom of the ocean floor? are your shoes filling up with salt water, born of so many tears, causing your soles to squeak and your socks to rub blisters into your protruding ankle bones? (for even you have ankle bones, just like the rest of us.) will the oceans ever dry out? will you ever have clean socks again? will those hopes, like so many stones and feathers, yield a giant band-aid on this great nation or only be used to tickle the lucky and forever bruise the downtrodden? are you really ready to learn what hope is? and finally, is there an end to hope, like our oil reserves and bailout fund and number of young who may be sacrificed in the name of selfish, selfish war?

don't let my questions alarm you. i am glad you are willing to take this on. please keep walking, though your soles may squeak, and audaciously confront our tears and oceans of regret and self-indulgent apathy. a few of us are trying to make things better. your election is one of the most significant events in my life, so in that way, hope has already won.

by the way, your kids seem rad, not to mention first lady michelle. would y'all like to come to dinner at my house and meet my cats?

yours truly, a gentle patriot,

ann crews melton