‘Uncertain, Untethered’: A Look at Letters 5 and 6 of Volume 6
By Immy Sykes
Edited by Naomi Adam
In this series, we are going through the letters of The Letters Page, Volume 6 (available to purchase here, should you be so inclined) two at a time, discussing them individually alongside considering how they link together. This article takes contributions five and six – respectively a letter and a poem from longtime The Letters Page supporter, Rolf Venner.
The fifth and sixth contributions to Volume 6 of The Letters Page come from Rolf Venner. The first is a letter, the second a poem, both of which are inextricably linked – two halves to a whole.
Venner’s letter resounded with our innate sense of nostalgia, evoking The Letters Page’s history by responding to one of our previously published letters by Nicola Varley, which was sent to TLP subscribers back in spring 2025. Representing the second step in correspondence – the response – Venner’s letter is unique among contributions to Vol. 6. Nevertheless, the narrator no more certain about whether its intended recipient will read his missive than any of our other letters. His poem – ‘A Letter to Laura’ – is equally unsure, directed towards a long-lost childhood friend. It is these two themes – nostalgia and uncertainty – that we found resonated with the rest of the volume.
The nostalgia of Venner’s letter emerges in three forms, beginning with a ‘tidal nostalgia’ inspired by Nicola’s earlier letter. Venner shares his own connection to the sea, having been born but ‘a few yards’ from its shingled song, before the letter flows into discussions of what Venner calls ‘negative nostalgia’ – that is, the feeling we get when we revisit our past haunts and witness their decline. Think, for instance, of returning to the school of your childhood only to see it a construction site, memories locked away under scaffolding. Discussing this negative nostalgia, Venner explores a darker side of the theme of change present across Vol. 6. Indeed, this informed our choice to have his letter follow B. Lawrence’s, whose conflicted response to a changing Nottingham begin musings on a slope of decline that Venner continues.
Venner’s third and final form of nostalgia he dubs an ‘elegiac’ kind: that which fills you with an immense sense of loss as you are faced with things you cannot remember. It leaves you uncertain, untethered, and as Venner writes:
‘Sometimes you can’t find your way back’
Venner associates this sense of feeling lost, unable to return, with his childhood friend Laura. His poem – the sixth entry of Vol. 6, entitled ‘Letter to Laura’ – is addressed to her. In the poem, Venner continues his journey through types of nostalgia as begun in his letter, rerouting in a slightly more positive direction. In wistful verse, he rekindles the nostalgia of childhood, mapping out a summer evening spent playing hide-and seek with Laura and friends.
The game of hide-and-seek the poem presents quickly reveals Laura’s knack for hiding and never being found: a clear analogy for some ultimately unread letters. Even as seeker, Laura counts infinitely, then walks away into the woods without leaving a trace. Venner re-imagines how he lost Laura, how she felt as she left, as though embarking on a journey through nature. Venner’s references to nature – another theme prevalent throughout Vol. 6 in letters from contributors including Jason Low and Lauren White – represent the loss of Laura, a point of ‘no return’. That feeling of losing someone to the wilderness, unsure if you will ever get them back is deftly captured by Venner’s metaphors.
Where Venner’s letter, as a response to Nicola Varley, has an openness and universality to it, his poem rings with a more private note. He addresses Laura as ‘you’, as his intended reader; this renders us, the actual readers, intruders to this personal correspondence. As a result, Venner takes up questions present across Vol. 6: Where and to whom do letters go? And who has the right to read them?
Would you – yes, you – like to read Volume 6‘s letters? The collection is out now in limited numbers, and available to purchase here. We hope you enjoy the letters we have collated and are able to find even more threads connecting them. You can read more about letters 1 and 2 here, or discover the links between letters 3 and 4 here.
The Letters Page will be closed for submissions until late 2027 and won’t be in the office. But if you write to us your letters will certainly be kept safe and find their way to us eventually. It would, as always, be great to hear from you.
The Letters Page, School of English, University of Nottingham, NG7 2RD, UK
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