Dear TC Tolbert 2020

As part of the 2020 Dear Poet project, students around the country and the world wrote letters to TC Tolbert in response to Tolbert's poem “What Space Faith Can Occupy.” S/he wrote letters back to one of these students; their letters and Tolbert's replies are included below, along with several additional responses from students.

TC Tolbert also wrote a response to all of the participants of this year's Dear Poet project.

Dear Poet/Reader: Oct. 2, 2020

I’ve been thinking a lot about the difference between confusion and mystery. Earlier today I was texting with M. about Trump’s recent positive COVID-19 diagnosis. Even now when I text with her, I cannot help but flash on the moment that, 10 years ago, instigated the poem “What Space Faith Can Occupy.” The specific moment was eventually edited out and replaced with something a little more coy. I appreciated the honesty with which so many of you said poems confuse me. I was delighted by your questions and each of your reflections taught me something I wouldn’t be able, without you, to know.

Many of you asked about my relationship to M. (the “you”/”woman I love” in the poem). I love her now as I loved her then each time I read the poem and also we were only together for 9 months and she is my family and our relationship utterly shaped me and I’m in a committed partnership with someone else now and M and I have only spoken a handful of times in the last 8 years. Trans theorist, Riki Wilchins, says, “binaries are the black holes of knowledge.”

And is generous. Relational. True.

But is scared. Desperate for separation. Control.

Do you know Congressman John Lewis and his work in the Civil Rights movement? He actually died this past summer and if you don’t know his work, I hope you’ll check out his graphic novel trilogy, March. Anyway, I mention him because many of you talked about lines 2-4 in the poem and this concept of love as noun or a verb (or both), whether we control it or it controls us (or both), whether our love ends when we end or continues on infinitely… Lewis talks about “love in action,” which I think is also related to Cornel West’s statement: “Justice is what love looks like in public.” And bell hooks’: “We do not have to love. We choose to love.”

A possibility for the next time you sit down to read/write a poem:

What if confusion is really only possible if there is a message/information you are supposed to receive and it is frustrated, interrupted, or obfuscated in some way? What if the poem is not a message but an experience? Can you engage with it, without trying to solve it? What if you choose to stay present to the mystery? How does it feel to wander inside all that you do not know?

Being a trans and queer person has taught me the value of chosen family – even as relationships shift, choosing love means always learning bigger ways to live. Being a trans and queer poet invites me to live the and I write. To write the and I live. To live the and I love.

It’s a blessing and a necessity to know that you and folx like you will soon be leading the world. Adrienne Rich said that “War is an absolute failure of imagination,” and I think the same can be said of every kind of oppression. The future and perhaps, more urgently, the present need you and your clarity in the face of confusion, your comfort with mystery, and your imaginations infused with love.

with heart,

From K, Grade 8

Dear TC Tolbert,

My name is K., and I am an eighth grader in Mrs. Castner’s class at Marshall Middle School in Wexford, PA. I am writing about your piece “What Space Faith Can Occupy” because it finally made me realize what love really meant and I don’t think I’ve actually thought about that before.

I’m going to be starting highschool next year and sadly I’m not going to be able to try to find myself and my people for this year but this poem made me realize you can’t love someone if you don’t try. Love and faith aren’t just a feeling they are real physical things. I don’t think people really believe that until it’s conveyed toward them. “My love for you is a monolith of try” this is a beautiful line because it really puts you into perspective that you have to put effort into loving someone and try your best for them. One can only hope that their monoliths are enough for the person they love.

“She is not described by anything” gives me a reminder that you shouldn’t try to be someone else. You can only be yourself and no one else, although it’s hard to not want to be someone else. I don’t want to be the perfect mold of another person, all I want is for others to see me for me. I think this is something many people lose in highschool. Losing sight of who you really are is a terrible feeling because it can feel like your being pushed from every direction to be someone you’re not. Finding yourself is rewarding but difficult, but this is where your loved ones “monolith of try” can make or break you.

I can be the one person still helping hold onto my loved ones self. I know this because I’ve lost myself for months just because I felt that I needed to be perfect for everyone else and not myself. It’s hard to understand that you cannot be there for everyone but to try is the most important thing to do. The “shape of happiness” is different for everyone but it’s the most important thing for you to recognize for yourself. My happiness may not be the same as someone’s happiness but now I know that everyone has happiness just in different forms.

This poem has changed my outlook for who I want to be and my outlook on others. Thank you for helping me realize the type of person I will try to become. I was also wondering if you have ever wondered if it is possible for another feeling to have the same effect as love does.

Thank you,

K.
Grade 8
Wexford, PA

Hey K.!

Reading your letter, I was moved by your wisdom and reflection. How I wish that when I was in 8^thgrade I could have been even half as clear, expressive, and contemplative as you are. I’m inspired!

Oh, before I go any further, please tell Mrs. Castner thank you for me! How incredible to have a teacher who introduces you to contemporary (queer and trans!) poetry – that’s amazing.

One of the most incredible things about this project, for me, is learning more about the poem I wrote by hearing how other people understand and relate to it. When you said, “this poem made me realize you can’t love someone if you don’t try. Love and faith aren’t just a feeling they are real physical things,” I jumped up out of my chair and shouted with recognition – YES! They are real tangible things!

Later you wrote, “One can only hope that their monoliths are enough for the person they love,” and I have to admit, you pierced my heart with the sincerity of that hope. And I just want to underline a point you made in your letter (and it’s also embedded in the word “try” – which is to attempt, which says nothing about what we achieve because that isn’t the point – only the effort, the attempt, the process) – we don’t ever have to be “perfect,” K. You just have to be YOU. The sincere, open hearted, wise, reflective, and attentive person that I can see in this letter – your monoliths of try are enough! And I hope you have people in your life who see you – who reflect back to you the goodness that you are.

You ended your letter by asking if I thought it was “possible for another feeling to have the same effect as love does.” Whew. That is such a good question! The truth is, I don’t know. Probably, sometimes. ☺ I think it really depends on which effects you are referring to and how you define love – how it moves, what it moves toward, what boundaries it has, why it may go wherever it needs to go. I believe a lot of people use the word “love” and yet they don’t have a clear answer for these things – or they just accept the surface answer given to us by Hollywood and commercials – and this lack of definition causes a lot of confusion, shame, and hurt. So maybe it would be helpful to figure out what feelings live inside of love. And maybe also to figure out what feelings don’t! For instance, bell hooks wrote a fantastic book called All About Love and in it she says, “Love and abuse cannot co-exist.” She also says, “There can be no love without justice.” These statements are certainly big ideas to try out and to grapple with! What are feelings and actions you associate with love?

I’m deeply honored that you chose my poem to read and respond to so thoughtfully. Please know that this letter is wrapped with a thousand thank yous.

with heart,

PS. bell hooks also said, “When we can see ourselves as we truly are and accept ourselves, we build the necessary foundation for love.” From your letter, it sounds to me like you are well on your way to seeing and accepting yourself, which will only expand your potential for love. Take good care of you!

From Sophia, Grade 9

Dear TC Tolbert,

“I have seen the shape of happiness. y=mx+b”.

Math and poetry is a tricky combination. To be able to incorporate the complexity and factual ideas of math into twelve lines of poetry filled with the expression of feelings is inspiring. My name is Sophia and I am a 9th grader at the High School for Math, Science, and Engineering.

While listening to the first two stanzas of your poem, my attention was caught by the precise use of language you used to connect love to material objects. The moment I heard the linear formula that I have been learning for 3 years, I truly realized the purpose of the poem as a whole. “Linear equations always have arrows because they never end,” my teachers would say. Throughout my life, my family members have told me that their love for me is continuous and it extends to the moon and back. I would never have expected that this “feeling” and “promise of a feeling” could be connected to the continuity of an equation and my ongoing love for mathematics.

Your poem changed my view of the relationship between poetry and mathematics as two school subjects that are not opposite, but rather intertwined through love. For example, in math, inputs and outputs are connected by a function. This idea is similar to that of a sonnet in the sense that when two people (the input) are soulmates, all their differences (function) strengthen their love (output) for one another. Shakespeare’s sonnet, “Sonnet 130”, expresses that even though his mistress isn’t traditionally beautiful, she is true to herself, which deepens his love for her.

When given one of these poems by my English teacher, Mrs Hesseltine, to annotate in class, I normally would sigh and wish to be learning algebra instead. Upon listening and reading your poem, the excitement I felt when annotating it mirrored the feeling I get when presented with a mathematical word problem.

Sometimes I wish that I had been given the talent to affect people in such a way. Other times I wonder how such ideas simply flood a poet’s mind and give them the ability to express them on paper. For the time being, I will ask of you, did anything specific spark the ideas in your poem and what made you decide to connect it to the universal ideas of math?

With gratitude,

Sophia
Grade 9
New York, NY

From Vir, Grade 6

Dear TC Tolbert,

I like poetry. In fact, I am a young and aspiring poet. I have gone to the Folger Theatre downtown almost every time they host a play! Also I am a poet-freestyler. I create my own words to suit my type of poetry! My name is Vir, I go to Sidwell Friends School in D.C., and I am in 6th Grade. I’m writing to you because I was wondering if you could give me some advice regarding poetry. As I know that you have lots of experience in this field of matter.

I am very fond of writing rhyming poems and was wondering if you could advise me how to create an interesting twist in my poems. Even though you do not write rhyming poems that much, I still know your expertise in plot twists. Here is an example of what I find to be an interesting twist. “Rise the sun and rise the sky see the emerald many of divine.”

I am asking you for advice regarding this because I have little experience in creating suspense in my rhyming poems. I say this because I focus on rhyme more than I focus on suspense and also logic. My next question involves structure, similar to this first one. I ask you this question because like the first, it is to help me become a better writer.

Do you have any advice for someone that is eager to write sonnets? I would like a penny for your thoughts as you write lengthy poems some of the time. I know I'm fond of writing long poems so I thought that this would be a perfect question to ask you. You are very descriptive when it comes to sonnets and other lengthy forms of poems. Now moving on to my concluding statement where I will congratulate you for bearing with me.

Thank you for taking the time to listen to me. I wanted to receive advice and now I hope you shall answer. I hope that you have fun in the rest of your writing career. Oh, and before I go, I have one last final question. Do you know if there are any good poem compilation books on amazon etc.? I’m a big fan of yours, so I would like to read some of your poems compiled into a book.

Thanks,

Vir
Grade 6
Washington, DC

Dear TC Tolbert 2020

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TC Tolbert reads "What Space Faith Can Occupy"

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