You are celebrating 20 years of your love affair with poetry
THIS IS A LETTER FROM ONE OF OUR READERS
10 July 2025
12:01 AM
Dear T.
What a thing. What a beautiful thing, dear T. You are celebrating 20 years of your love affair with poetry. And we are celebrating too because you are a generous being, and we have all gotten to fall in love with poetry again and again with you.
I remember finding Read A Little Poetry years ago. It was like discovering a hidden treasure. It was magical. It was overflowing. It was mysterious. This was before you signed your name. When I found it, all I knew was that someone extraordinary was offering up gorgeous poetry every week. I knew she was dedicated beyond measure. I knew she was tender. I knew she told the truth.
What made the experience all the more exquisite was that you introduced each poem with your depth, vulnerability, curiosity, and truth. Your introductions were and are poems in themselves. I always love your words as much as I love the poems you share.
Can I tell you why?
- I love the way you number your thoughts. It gives me a chance to breathe. You teach me to breathe in the way you write.
- Even when you are struggling, the fact that you write with such specificity about the pain, the fact that you share what you know to be your deepest truth, shines a light for all your readers.
- I feel you across the globe in your struggles and celebrations, and the world feels like a smaller, brighter place because I am reading the words you wrote a half a world away.
- When you share your deepest heart with me, I feel I can be vulnerable with you. I can tell you that I am writing this letter to you from Interlochen, Michigan, a place I love with all my heart. I am visiting after many, many years. I feel tender, young, and full of feeling. I miss my time here. I miss my young self. I can tell you this.
- I feel your solitude when you write, and also your deep love for those you love. I feel your need for sanctuary, but also your love of true companionship. I am alone here, and I love being alone, but I am also surrounded by my true loves.
- Your words teach me to stay in the transformation, to trust what is unfolding. They teach me to follow the tiniest glimmers of light. They teach me nothing stays the same.
T., this moment is a celebration for me as well. I have worked and built, driven and climbed. But now, I am softening. I am learning how to rest. I am letting myself be. I am trusting enoughness. I am learning how to be patient. (I am often failing, but am trusting incremental progress!) I am being tender and kind to myself.
I celebrate you from this soft place. My tender heart celebrates your tender heart. My loving strength celebrates the beacon of love and strength you are in the world.
Please know, though we have never met in person, I hold you dear. Your work is a true devotion, and I have felt the sacred through you. I am one voice among so many, celebrating the love you have offered us through the gift of poetry.
All my love,
Heidi Rose Robbins
