Letter to Someone Living Fifty Years from Now

by Matthew Olzmann

Letter to Someone Living Fifty Years from Now is an engaging poem written by Matthew
Olzmann. Matthew Olzmann is a contemporary American poet, author and essayist.
Olzmann has received praise for his exuberantly thoughtful style and wide-ranging subject
matter. He is the author of Contradictions in the Design. He lives in North Carolina.
Olzmann is the author of three poetry publications. He currently teaches at Dartmouth
College, and the MFA program at Warren Wilson College.

The poem Letter to Someone Living Fifty Years from Now acts as a kind of time capsule.
It takes us into a future where nearly all life form would be dead, the earth would be
severely contaminated with poisonous substances. There will be nothing pure and good to
look forward to. The poem pursues the tone of apology and self-justification. The poem
is in the form of a narration between a person from the present to a person in the
future.

This poem speaks about how the effects of climate change and environmental issues can
have a lasting impact, even within our own generation. This poem forces readers to realize
how our generation today is ruining our environment for future generations. The speaker
addresses the reader like they’re in the future and our generation today is not able to defend
ourselves for how we have caused so much destruction to our earth.

The narrator suggests that the present generation had a higher sensibility because they were
capable of enjoying the beauty of Nature, identifying constellations and thinking
philosophical thoughts. The poem imagines that in the future world there won’t be any
elephant, golden toad, thylacine or any variations of whale. It is because within fifty years
all these animals would have become extinct due to the exhaustive harpooning and
hacking. The narrator confesses that the present generation drove these animals to
extinction not because they hated these animals but they weren’t really conscious about the
greater consequences of their actions. They just thought about the present needs and short
term entertainment.

There will be nothing good or enjoyable in the future because due to unsustainable
development we would have become degraded the earth to the extent that the future
generation is filled with chemicals like benzene and mercury instead of any flora and
fauna. The extend of pollution and degradation is shown in the line ‘the stomachs of
seagulls rippled with jet fuel and plastic”, meaning the seagulls will have to feed and
live on jet fuels and plastic because all water bodies and air is completely polluted.

Witnessing the degradation that the present generation has done to the future, the future
men might think that we are incapable of joy or enjoying beauty. But the narrator clears
off this prejudice by explaining that they were indeed capable of joy. The narrator explains
to the future generation that in their times the world wasn’t filled with chemicals like lead
paint and sulfur dioxide as in the future. Back then they had sky with stars, forest and
lakes. With the phrase ‘We still had the night sky back then’, the poet is referring to the
night sky’s beautiful vision being blurred progressively due to sky lightning which as the
result of light pollution. They used to enjoy the beauty of the nature and were transcended
seeing the wonders and beauty of God’s creation.

It speaks about the beauty of the our world that we take for granted, as if it is gone for the
future generations. The way this is written causes the readers to feel guilt for how they
mistreat the environment. The last line is especially impactful, where it says, "And then
all the bees were dead". The concluding line can be considered as the death knell of the
environment itself. The poem explains why the death of bees came to then as a sudden,
shocking recovery. The poem details the grave consequences of a life without bees, the
ace-pollinators of the world. Instead of being included in other stanzas, it is on its own to
emphasize how we have all of this beautiful nature, but we killed it and the future
generations will never be able to experience the same thing. The poem shows how pathetic
the world will be, if we continue with our unsustainable development.

NB: Is the narrator of the poem realistic in his prediction of the immediate future?
Or Is he a doomsday prophet ? substantiate your views.

Matthew Olzmann is not just a doomsday prophet who hints at an impending, fictional
apocalypse (end of the world). He is principally addressing practically the possible
outcomes of exploiting Nature and its resources without a second thought about
posterity/future generation. (plz add this point with the essay content)

Short Essay

Q: How does the narrator seek to establish that his generation was capable of refined
thinking?

The Poet tries to explain that his generation was capable of refined thinking by recollecting
the instances in which his fellow men and women thought beautifully about the things
around them. For example, they could create mental pictures about ‘illuminated doodles
on the sky’ ; the patterns that stars created on the night sky (Constellation)-Scorpion
outlines and upside-down ladles. The humans of the poet’s time were also able to be
wonderstruck by thinking about the great mysteries around them .The poet further says that
while they were thinking about all these, time had already passed away beyond recovery
and the nature was damaged beyond repair