Winifred Mary Letts: Spring’s Honest Voice in a Time of War

February 10, 1882

Dearest Gardeners,

On this day, we celebrate the birth of Winifred Mary Letts, an English-born writer who spent much of her life in Ireland and became a singular voice of poetic grace amid the ravages of the Great War.

A novelist, playwright, and most notably a poet, Letts captured the paradox of spring—the season of renewal—set starkly against the season of loss that war imposed upon her generation.

Her poetry, deeply informed by her time as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse during World War I, confronts the painful contrast between hope and despair.

In her haunting poem Spring the Cheat, she writes:

O exquisite spring, all this — and yet — and yet —
Kinder to me the bleak face of December
Who gives no cheating hopes, but says — "Remember."

Here, Letts reflects on spring’s cyclical promises that feel cruelly at odds with the unending sorrow of wartime suffering. The bright blossoms mock the scars of conflict, while winter’s severity offers stark, unvarnished truth. It is a meditation that resonates deeply with gardeners who are familiar with the cycles of nature and the enduring nature of grief.

Beyond war poetry, Letts wrote novels and children’s literature and was one of the few female playwrights accepted at Ireland’s Abbey Theatre. She remained tied to Ireland’s landscapes, particularly the rural charm of Dublin's suburbs, where she spent much of her life, and her love for gardens and nature shines through in all her work.

So, dear readers, as the bluebells bloom and blackbirds sing, let us remember Winifred Mary Letts—a poet who never flinched from life’s contradictions and who reminds us that spring, with all its contradictions, is both a cheat and a promise.

Yours, faithfully, bridging blossoms and shadows,
Jennifer