Letters To A Young Poet

September 12, 2018              
                
Jade Pandora             
Catalina Island, California                
                 
Dear Geoffrey,                  
     Yes, the postmark is confusing I’m sure. It’s been years, but I have taken the day boat across the channel over to Santa Catalina. To check on a number of areas of the island’s coastline from which several family members have requested in their wills that their ashes be scattered offshore by hired craft, and the vote fell to me. At least the weather is cooperating even as Fall will soon be upon us.  
 
     And gracious thanks that you have chosen me as a possible mentor. Time will only tell, and sooner rather than later, whether I will vindicate the direction you have chosen to follow.  
 
     At this early juncture, it is too soon to say or predict where whatever you learn will ultimately take you. But do I not suddenly sound like a pompous fop, when it is I who will also be swept along to who-knows-where in the education you will impart. Yes, of course you. This holds no fears for me. We’re only referring to expression in the written word. That should not be so bad, agreed?  
 
     And, glad to notice, you appear ready and resolved for the journey as well. Right now, from expressions of your esteem of me as a writer and poet, just so you understand: my slate is as clean as yours as we venture out into the great unknown. Step for step. I do have years more hands-on experience, and this will factor in in ways even I cannot fathom. So I look forward to putting my knowledge on the table, honored as I am for your very open and honest correspondence.  
 
    Which brings me to something very interesting pertaining to the first of the letters you have sent me at this point in time. For though you say your time as a poet initially covered a brief few years before unfortunate circumstances covering a longer period caused you to cease this endeavor of creative expression, you had since resumed, albeit tentatively.  
 
     At the time, my first reaction wanted to be a rousing cheer. Yet, with layers of your life causing this creative breakdown, I felt such a display of exuberance would be unseemly given the apparent long-term trauma in your life up until very recent times, I am surmising. Obviously, as our association over time is allowed to bear fruit, so might be revealed the myriad ‘shades of gray’. Poetry can be and often is a cathartic agent.  
 
     But even more so to me, at such a crossroad, as your personal admissions were beginning like a ‘spill’ of the rawest draft of a poem, you introduced your prolific interest in, and compositions of sonnets.  
 
     Talk about admissions; let me reciprocate. For all the years as a poet, I had never once been able to compose in any of the sonnet forms; so little my understanding of how a sonnet works. I would pour over Shakespear’s adored sonnets not realizing that’s what they are. It probably seems an irony, too, when I add that I have loved reading the venerated Bard since my early days in college. It is when I discovered I could read and understand his works. I’ve always likened this Eureka moment to ‘finding the Rosetta Stone’.  
 
     So I might consider the fact of hearing from a poet such as yourself as rather prophetic. Me, a mentor, yet you have sought me out to learn from someone that appears to be a promising vessel, now merely half full. Well you must admit, it still sounds a hopeful positive compared to half empty.  
 
     And on that note: my heart is lightened from this mutual exchange that should prove to be an adventure of limits soon to blossom into unlimited growth. I await your next missive, rife with more examples of verse from the edge of your complex existence, thus raising the bar of my own.  
 
       With warm regards,                
               Jade