When was the last time you received – or wrote – an 18 page letter?  I think I have managed to write one or two in my life and that’s even allowing for my quite large handwriting.

What was in this letter, completely covered in a tall, straight hand that evoked a line of poplars?

‘I have received your eighteen-page letter, completely covered in a hand straight and tall as an avenue of poplars.’

Source: Osip Mandelstam, Journey to Armenia (London: Notting Hill Editions, 2011), p. 91

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