• Home
  • Blog
  • Current
  • Archives
  • Shop
  • Donate
  • Subscribe
  • Contests
  • About
    • Contact
    • Submit
    • Media Kit
    • Resources
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Facebook

DappledThings.org

A quarterly journal of ideas, art, and faith

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Letters

Dappled Things

Jeannine Pitas

My mother complains she can’t read my handwriting.
She says it’s a scrawl like a doctor’s. When I point out

that I am a doctor, she rolls her eyes. Apparently a PhD
doesn’t count. She was taught the right way. In the 1950s.

By nuns. I say I can’t read hers either, and it’s less beautiful
than she thinks. “It’s still better than yours,” she retorts.

Alas, I can’t disagree. As for my father, he barely writes at all—
he only lifts a pen to pay a bill, sign his name.

The students I teach send text messages in class.
They complain if I make them handwrite a test. They barely

learned cursive in school. Sometimes I feel like one of the last
monks still decorating manuscripts, long after Gutenberg’s

disruption. I know this is an old person’s sentiment.
I prefer to type my prose, but I always handwrite poems.

My numbers look like half-open windows, flags
of countries that don’t exist anymore. My letters

look like hitchhikers standing at the side of the road,
or old friends waving goodbye, smaller and smaller

as the car pulls away.

Jeannine M. Pitas is a writer, teacher, and Spanish-English literary translator living in Iowa, where she teaches at the University of Dubuque. Her first full-length poetry collection, Things Seen and Unseen, was published by Mosaic Press in 2019. Her most recent translation, We Do Not Live In Vain by acclaimed Uruguayan poet Selva Casal, was published in 2020 by Veliz Books. Her poems, articles and translations have recently appeared in U.S. Catholic, National Catholic Reporter, The Christian Century, Religion Dispatches, Convivium, The Literary Review, Beltway Poetry Quarterly and The Paris Review. She also contributes to the Catholic blog Vox Nova and is the Spanish translation editor at Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry. Some of her favorite poets include Zbigniew Herbert, Wisława Szymborska, Denise Levertov, Pablo Neruda, and the various writers of the Book of Isaiah.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)
DT Subscribe

Filed Under: Mary Queen of Angels 2020, Poetry Leave a Comment

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Mary, Queen of Angels 2020

Purchase Featuring nonfiction from Joshua Hren, fiction from Jennifer Marie Donahue and Rob Davidson and the winners and honorees of the Bakhita Prize in Visual Arts.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)

Newsletter

Sign up to receive the latest news from Dappled Things.
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Have you enjoyed our content online or in print during the past year?

Dappled Things needs the support of its readers over and above the cost of subscriptions in order to continue its work.

Help us share the riches of Catholic art and literature with our impoverished culture by donating to Dappled Things.

Archives

Home
Blog
Current
Shop
Subscribe
About

Copyright © 2021 Dappled Things · Staff Forum · Log in

Graphics by Dominic Heisdorf · Website by Up to Speed

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.