"Some people text, some e-mail, but there's almost nothing better than getting an actual letter in the mail, especially if it's a letter poem. "A letter poem is when you're addressing someone else," explains poet Joyce Sidman. "The way I write them, you're starting out saying, 'This is why I'm writing to you. This is why I'm intrigued by you. And these are the things I want to know about you.'""
"In the title poem of Sidman's new children's book, Dear Acorn, (Love, Oak), an oak tree writes a letter poem to an acorn: "I feel you there. A tickle at my twig tips. A plump promise against my rough bark." "I'll stretch my arms strong and true," the acorn writes back, "I'll be your friend, the one who rises up beside you.""
"Joyce Sidman says she got the idea for the book about 20 years ago, when she picked up an acorn in the forest. "I was thinking about how an entire oak tree resided in this acorn," she explains. She wanted Dear Acorn, (Love, Oak) to be "about how small things are part of big things. And big things need small things.""
Letter poems take the form of direct addresses to another being, person or nonhuman, stating why the writer writes and what they want to know. Dear Acorn features exchanges such as an oak to an acorn, a pebble to a river, a button to a coat, the ocean to baby sea turtles, and a bubble to the sky. The oak and acorn poems portray sensing, promise, and reciprocal growth. The concept began from noticing an acorn as containing an entire oak, emphasizing how small things belong to and sustain big things. Illustrations combine hand-painted watercolor paper and collage, including Xeroxed envelope linings for patterned textures.
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