My Thanksgiving tradition: a poem card of gratitude

Every year for the best part of a decade, I've written a poem for Thanksgiving, then mailed it to those for whom I am thankful that year.

As far as I know, I am the only person on the planet who does this. Given my love of this particular holiday, though, copycats are welcome.

When I first began this tradition, I wrote out the poem by hand on Windsor & Newton watercolor paper. As those I wished to thank became more numerous, this got too time-consuming, and I switched to professional printing. What began as a poetry project became a graphic design and photography one too.

Learn more about this year's card

Given the ongoing global upheaval of Covid-19, this year's card was inevitably rather more anguished than previous years. Gratitude was both more elusive and more necessary in 2020 than ever before in my lifetime. I put a lot of thought into the tone my poem would tread toward its ultimate conclusion of thankfulness. In the following pages, I write about some of the thinking behind the card and share images of the finished product.

Spoilers warning: if you know you were an intended recipient of the card this year, you should only click through to my notes if you've actually received it in the mail by now, as the following pages will show you exactly what you're getting. If you know you weren't among the intended recipients or don't care either way, go ahead and click, cowboy: