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Letters About Literature National Winners 2007

National Winner, Level 1: Katja Martin

Dear Robert Frost,

I used to live in a world where every winter there was the assurance of snow. I would sit in the woods across from my house with my dog, watching the woods fill up with snow. I would watch as the snowflakes gracefully danced through the frozen sky, slowly descending upon the earth.

Everything has changed. I moved from Delaware to Georgia, from the North to the South. Now, I live in a world where every year the temperature drops and the winter arrives, but there is no chance of snow. No white blanket is dropped over the landscape to cover the leaves of fall. Just, the hard biting wind, the work with no reward.

Your poem, "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening", is all I have left to bring back that feeling of tranquility and simplicity. I had thought that that feeling could only be triggered by being surrounded by a world of white. Your poem is my winter. It's my snow in a small collection of words.

Sincerely,
Katja Saana Sinikka Martin