Last Letter Home

A poem found in an unlikely place

In 2022, I received an ancient record from my supervisor, Mike. “This is a personal favor for a friend,” he said. I held the yellowed wax and paper disc by the edges and read the name on the label: SEAMAN GEORGE S—

I looked at Mike with fascination. What is this?

“It’s a letter, on record, from this young sailor to his family, before he shipped out in the Pacific theater during World War II. He never made it home.” Mike paused and looked at me. “Most of his family is gone now too, but this friend of mine is a relative and he’d love to hear it.”

As a Navy veteran myself, and in my current capacity as an audio engineer, I was eager to take this project on. The process of transcription was an arduous one. The record was so old and warped that it was very difficult to discern what was said. I digitized it and then set about “cleaning” the audio through various audio restoration software. The result was good, but it was no magic wand. It was still very difficult to hear what SN George S— had to say.

[Actual audio from this digitization of the record]

So I set about creating a transcript of what I could make out. If the family of our sailor was unable to hear all of the words, at least I could make my best effort at writing what I heard. Again, this was a painstaking process of listening, rewinding, scrubbing the audio. As I slowly re-created the transcript, I started to see, in the repetition, in the slow choosing of words, a kind of poetry emerging. Not that this sailor was a poet (for all I know he may have been), but the way this 70-year-old audio was conducting through my ears, to my brain, and out my pen, was a transliterative process of sorts.

Finally, after weeks of cobbling together the cleanest version of the audio and my transcript to deliver to Mike, I started forming a poem from the record. Utilizing the repetition of the transcription, utilizing the space and the thought and the imagination that I needed to access what was being said, this piece began to emerge.

I call it Last Letter Home, and it was published in North Dakota Quarterly Volume 90 Issue 3/4.

[My reading of the poem, if you prefer]

Last Letter Home

Recorded to wax disc by the USO

on Market Street in downtown San Francisco, California, June 1943.

Restored and transcribed by the poet in Chicago, May 2022.

Mom? 	                Dad?	                              How are ya?                                                        I’m fine. 		   Tol’ ya I’d write.     How 		how’s Dad? 				I hope                       he isn’t             worth 		too much. 		         Yaknow, Mom,          ya better                 take                       take it easy.                                     Yeah     no               Ya  know 			what the doctor said about your heart.
I hope 	          ya rally                  really 			take 			his 			
        presence           fat                                     fat                                       fat 	     and 	     burningly.
        I hope 		  ya like ‘em.
           I hope 			ya liked          that ring              that   sting 		 that     thing 	
I sentya too, Mom.		         Mom? 	      Please                     don’t send me anythin            		 eatable                                    for ma birthday,			because I might git it 				in Huh-why, 
              and by then it 		                won’t do any good.
You know what I mean.
                     I’m alright, 		   Ma. 					I’ve gain 		twenny        two pounds.			                                I’m twenny-five-thousand strong now. 
Wrong as a horse, 								and dumb as 
one 	two		won       two	                               won   too  two	         one		too.
I think 					I look 	good	           in all the dumb 
         dub	  dumb		     dove			places.
You feel 			  those tomatoes 				           and 
             the coconuts?					You know those things 		what look                              weak                                 sing very well, 		Ma.
                              Mom?          The war is almost through
and 		     I’ll                                                                                     be home soon. 
   Peas		     Pleas  		Please	tell me 						   why 			               I did 			 the Navy.				 
                              Ma,               we break,
          but won’t 					       we bend?
                                                                                        Good        bye 		         Mom.
                Love and kisses			 to Dad.