The Letter All Your Friends Have Written You
by Caits Meissner & Tishon
Description
Caits Meissner and Tishon are two writers living in New York City. The Letter All Your Friends Have Written You marks their first collaborative book. The poems in the collection explore a range of experience and emotion, mingling classic themes of love and war with ruminations on mixtapes, basketball and growing up with The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
It is through this exploration of the ordinary that Meissner and Tishon hope to speak to their readers. These letters in the form of poems are an offering of humor, warmth and the occasional bit of wisdom.
by Caits Meissner
Under headphones, Mavis Staples crawls into the hurting parts.
She is awkward, but persistent, squeezing her round maternal body
into the tiny cracks. Shimmies up the pipe of my heart.
Stomps her feet against the wound. Rolls her eyes.
Says, toughen up, mama, this ain’t the end of the story, yet.
She holds a kettle beneath my tear ducts.
Shakes her head and throws it on the stove.
Beans and rice, again.
She pulls out a chair from the table and wipes her hands
on her apron, how you feel, child, she asks.
by Tishon
As a teenager,
I wanted desperately
to be in the NBA.
Why?
So I could be famous enough to
get a book deal,
leave basketball forever,
and
embark on a career
as a writer.
Well
Basketball is hard.
Caits Meissner reads The Gift (After Yusef Komunyakaa’s Safe Subjects)
What people are saying
“Like two birds in flight, their patterns are varied, their wingspans diverse, yet the tempo between these two poets is an opera, formed from contrasting sounds, blended together to make whole the orchestra of shared experiences… I had to put it down and walk away. I had to catch breaths in the pocket of the ladies room at work, before I could come back to these words and allow myself to read them again. Because this final section, the last sliver of beauty, is about love and loving and lovers and being loved and wanting love and finding love and losing love and trusting love.”
—Pank Magazine book review
“Such magnificent taste and texture and feeling.”
—Used Furniture Review
About the Authors
Caits Meissner, winner of the OneWorld Poetry Contest, attended the 2008 inaugural Pan-African Literary Forum in Accra, Ghana where she studied under Pulitzer Prize winner Yusef Komunyakaa and other luminaries from the literary African diaspora. In addition to her own self-released work, she has been published in various literary journals. She is also an arts educator and designer.
Tishon is a designer, writer and poet who has read his work at Bowery Poetry Club, LouderARTS Reading Series, La Mama and other venues in New York and New Jersey. In August 2011, Tishon founded Well&Often. He is also a founding member of BBOXradio.com. Tishon lives in Brooklyn.
Design Notes
Cover stock: Mohawk Kraft 80 Vellum
Paper stock: Light Pink Mohawk Via Smooth
Bells & Whistles: Embossed lettering on cover
Typefaces: Epic by Neil Summerour
Photography: Grover Watts