Sarah Kay

you know, Southern gentleman asked if he could walk us from the restaurant, the three blocks to our hotel to make sure we got home safe, which we thought was very sweet.

And when he walked us home, he handed me this letter that he had written on notebook paper and the letter was,

was about how much my poetry had meant to him and how excited he was about poetry.

And he used lines from my poems in the letter.

Wow.

And I have a line in an old poem, there is a girl who still writes you, she doesn't know how not to.

And he ended his poem by saying, there is a boy who still writes poems, he doesn't know how not to.

Wow.

And there was something about the letter that just really got me.

And it was sort of like, when I'm writing poems, I don't think I'm writing poems for a high school senior on the football team in rural Georgia, but also maybe I am.

You never know who...

needs a poem that you're writing and you never know who is on the other side of a door that you can open for them into poetry and it was so meaningful to me that i kept the letter and figured i'd never see this kid ever again but was grateful to him and last week i had a show

about 30 minutes south of Atlanta for my new book.

And I was at the table signing books afterwards.

And this young man walked up holding his phone in front of him to show me a photograph.

And he was like, hi, I'm sure you don't remember, but I actually met you a long time ago.

You came to perform at my school with Franny.

And I looked at the photograph and I was like, wait,

did you write me a letter?

And he was like, yeah, I did.