“Letter to Someone Living Fifty Years from Now” appears in Matthew Olzmann’s third book of poetry, Constellation Route (2022). All the poems in this book are epistolary, meaning they are written in the form of a letter to a specific person, animal, or object. This poem is one of the shortest and most serious in the collection. Using elements of speculative fiction, it paints the picture of a potential future in which all the bees are dead, as are elephants and whales. The next generation is left with nothing but a planet destroyed by chemicals and toxic waste. In the letter, the speaker tries to clarify to the person living 50 years from now that their generation did not destroy the environment out of hatred. Rather, the speaker infers that they destroyed the planet accidentally by not paying attention to the dangers and by taking nature for granted. Like many of Olzmann’s poems, this one deals with issues of modernity and what it means to be alive in the present moment. It incorporates imagery of a technically advanced world full of benzene and jet fuel but warns against the pitfalls of some of that advancement. Though the poem addresses serious subject matter, it also incorporates humor, everyday speech, and irony to make its point and to engage the reader on the topic of climate endangerment in a way that is accessible.

Poet Biography

Olzmann was born in Detroit, Michigan. He earned a BA from the University of Michigan-Dearborn and went on to pursue an MFA at Warren Wilson College. He later returned to Warren Wilson to teach in their creative writing program. He is married to the poet Vievee Francis, who also teaches at Warren Wilson College.

In 2012 he co-edited the book Another & Another: An Anthology from the Grind Daily Writing Series with Ross White. In 2013 his first book, Mezzanines (2013), won the Kundiman Prize. His second book from Alice James, Contradictions in the Design, appeared in 2016. Constellation Route, his third book, came out with Alice James Books in January 2022.

Prior to teaching poetry, Olzmann held several jobs including cashier, bag boy, and page at a library. Olzmann says he was not good at that job because instead of organizing books he would stop to read them and discover a multitude of subjects in which he didn’t even know he was interested.

Olzmann is known for his deadpan humor and delivery as well as for his wide-ranging interests. In his book Constellation Route, Olzmann writes several imaginary letters from other poets to the speaker. These include references to poets such as Jessica Jacobs, Ross White, Cathy Linh, Mike Scalise, and his wife, Vievee Francis.

Poem Text

Olzmann, Matthew. “Letter to Someone Living Fifty Years from Now.” 2022. Poets.org.

Summary

The speaker speculates that future generations will think human beings of the present hated elephants, whales, and other animals: In 50 years, humans will have harpooned whales “into extinction” (Line 3) and will leave nothing but “benzene, mercury, the stomachs / of seagulls rippled with jet fuel and plastic” (Lines 5-6) to the next generation.

In the third stanza, the speaker clarifies that these assumptions are wrong, saying, “You probably doubt that we were capable of joy, / but I assure you we were” (Lines 7-8). The speaker further notes:

We still had the night sky back then,

and like our ancestors, we admired

its illuminated doodles

of scorpion outlines and upside-down ladles (Lines 9-12).

Next, the speaker answers a question they assume the reader of the future will ask, confirming that there were both forests and lakes left in the speaker’s time (Lines 13-14). Without saying exactly what they predict will happen, the speaker depicts a future in which people can no longer see the night sky, and where the forests and lakes are gone.

In the next stanza, the speaker continues to tell the imagined reader what life is and isn’t like in the current world: “it wasn’t all lead paint and sulfur dioxide” (Line 15); instead, there are still bees who “(pollinate) / a euphoria of flowers” (Lines 16-17). The natural world allows people to contemplate grand concepts like transcendence (Line 19).

The speaker ends the poem suddenly, stating, “And then all the bees were dead” (Line 20). This explains how the world changed. The bees’ dying would lead to a collapse of the rest of the ecosystem. The sudden reveal therefore explains how the collapse mentioned earlier in the poem began.