Back in 2006, which due to forces I don’t quite understand was somehow 16 years ago, the late author Kurt Vonnegut, then 84, received five letters, all from the same class.
The letters were from a group of English students Xavier High School in New York City (where my own father attended, truth be told), requesting his visit to the school.
The student’s english teacher, Ms. Lockwood, had asked each of the students in the class to test their persuasive writing skills and write a letter to their favourite author. The cadre had chosen Vonnegut, and it’s clear why–there’s a formative point in the lives of many when they discover the author of Slaughterhouse Five, Cat’s Cradle, God Bless You, Mrs. Rosewater, Bluebeard, Sirens of Titan and many more, and he helps make his readers kinder, more considerate people.
It’s not surprising, given the man Vonnegut was, that he responded to the students. He was the only author to do so, it turns out. And it was a moment that class will never forget–nor anyone who reads the letter he shared with them.
Vonnegut passed away on April 11, 2007, just six months after he sent the letter to those students. If this is the last piece of writing he shared with this world, we can take it as a letter to us all.
As it once again goes viral, read, and enjoy. You won’t soon forget it.
Kurt Vonnegut’s letter to students, 2006
November 5, 2006
Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lockwood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Batten, Maurer and Congiusta:
I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don’t make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana.
What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.
Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you’re Count Dracula.
Here’s an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don’t do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?
Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash recepticals. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.
God bless you all!
Kurt Vonnegut