Rainer Maria Rilke, from a letter to Marina Tsvetaeva featured in Selected Letters

I do not know the name of the feeling that I have for you. But it is a special tenderness, something I have never felt until now, not for anyone.

— Gustave Flaubert in correspondence with George Sand; Croisset, 12 November 1866, Monday night, from Selected Letters

My brain hums with scraps of poetry and madness.

Virginia Woolf

Selected Letters

... my heart, whose moods are dictated solely by your letters.

— Marquis de Sade, from a letter to Madame de Sade, written c. April 18, 1777, featured in Selected Letters, transl by W.J. Strachan, (1965)

If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?

Emily Dickinson, from Selected Letters, 1971

tw blood, violence

“If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?”

Emily Dickinson, Selected Letters

Way back at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic you might remember Gal Gadot did an embarrassing tone-deaf video where her and half of Hollywood sang 'Imagine' together. A few days later I released a parody where half the Irish comedy scene read Joyce's filthy love letters. It didn't go Irish Twitter viral the way I'd hoped at the time and now I bequeath it to all of you.

Selected Letters - 1

Élysée Palace Paris August 2, 2023

Dear Beneka,

My good sister, you'll have to excuse me for not having written sooner. I accidentally flew to Paris, Tennessee and they sent my luggage to Paris, Texas. Now, having finally made it to this bastion of European bonhomie and engaged for some time in the labors required of me, I've at last a moment of respite.

The French President, whose name escapes me, has me lodged in a 15-bedroom mansion just off the Seine. I'm alone, as my cat (Buttons, you'll remember him, he's a doctor) and my wife were both detained at customs. All the better really since there is only a half-bath in this mansion; such is the Parisian way, I'm told. I've been entertaining dignitaries while they entertain me and have made some headway in establishing a spy-network of street urchins. Last week, I took a day trip to Frankfurt, but the whole place was filled with Germans so I didn't stay long.

There is such work-life balance here in Europe. And what's more: tiny pastries for breakfast! I've many other seemingly complimentary but tacitly enfeebling remarks I could make about the European way of life but I'll hold my tongue for fear it might be snipped off and lightly grilled by one of these Parisian chefs! Alas, I do apologize for burning down your barn, or at least I apologize that the insurance investigator was so thorough. If you've any love for me left in your cold heart please figure out what currency they use here and write back to me at once. They don't take American Greenbacks and instead use some sort of funny money they refer to as a Euro, I assume jokingly. You wouldn't name a currency after a continent so they must be pulling my leg.

Best wishes, Ed

Victoria Chang, from Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief; “Dear Teacher,”

[Text ID: “The language of poetry reminded me to stay alive. It reminded me that, when it felt like I had nothing, I was nothing, I still had words. I could ride language as if on a horseback, and it could take me anywhere, including deeply into myself.”]

Forugh Farrokhzad, from a letter to Ebrahim Golestan featured in “Sin: Selected Poems of Forugh Farrokhzad,” tr. by Sholeh Wolpé.

Vladimir Mayakovsky, from a letter featured in "Love in the Heart of Everything; The Correspondence between Vladimir Mayakovsky & Lili Brik, 1915-1930,"

Even if I went a whole year without seeing you or writing to you, my feelings would not be one iota diminished.

Gustave Flaubert in correspondence with Louise Colet on 28 September 1846, from Selected Letters

... but your heart knows me.

— Marquis de Sade, from a letter to Madame de Sade, written c. February 20, 1781, featured in Selected Letters, transl by W.J. Strachan, (1965)

"If I could drown in sleep as I drown in fear I would be no longer alive."

– Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena