On April 15, Malaika King Albrecht will be leading the poetry workshop “Zen Telegrams and Other Prompts for Writing Epistolary Poems” at our one-day Quadrennial Conference. She was kind enough to write a post for our blog to inspire you for National Poetry Month. Thank you, Malaika!
National Poetry Month is a time to celebrate poetry in all its forms. This week, we’re focusing on epistolary poems in advance of the Carteret Writers Quadrennial Conference on Saturday, April 15. I’m excited to facilitate a workshop on writing epistolary poems and hope you can join us!
An epistolary poem is a poem written in the form of a letter. This can be a letter to a friend, family member, lover, or anyone else. The important thing is that the poem takes the form of a letter. Epistolary poems can be love letters, thank-you letters, apology letters, angry letters, or anything else you can imagine.
I invite you to join me this Saturday for a generative session of writing from prompts and a discussion of examples. As advance examples, here are two of my poems (It was easy to obtain my permission to reprint.) The first poem was published in Madness Muse Press. The second poem is from my book What the Trapeze Artist Trusts.
dear hands being made into fists
dear I haven’t hugged anyone in months
dear flash-bang grenade
dear neck. dear lungs
dear say the name George Floyd
dear knee. dear rubber bullets. dear
tear gas. dear bruised. dear choking
dear over 1 million COVID-19 dead
dear crushed. dear protestors
dear know their names. dear list. dear growing list
(of people of color murdered by police, of Covid dead,
of extinct animals, of fires, of hurricanes)
dear I can’t breathe
dear mr. president. dear photo op with Bible
dear raw heart. dear god
dear say the name Breona Taylor
dear hungry in your car in line before dawn
the church ran out of food
dear horrified. dear I didn’t get
to say goodbye
dear nursing home. dear ICU
dear fire. dear burning. dear nearly
5 million acres
dear buck beaver bobcat and grizzly creek
dear evacuation orders. dear wind
dear caught on camera. dear stop killing us
dear breathless. dear every word
I say is screaming help
dear extinction. dear biodiversity
dear masks. dear masks
dear hurricane. dear climate change.
dear everyone. dear all of us. dear sea
of human spines
crashing against the shore of this year
Dear Stranger, this is my intimate
letter to you that will not change
you or even a fly’s flight path
across this page. We have awakened
mid-dream to find each other here.
You say, “Write me somewhere.”
This is where I let my dress
slip from my shoulders and whisper
so you must lean close to me to hear
and then even closer until I’m only moist
warm air along your neck and into your ear.
Malaika King Albrecht
Poetry Workshop Facilitator: Zen Telegrams and Other Prompts for Writing Epistolary Poems
Malaika King Albrecht is a renowned poet and author of four poetry books, including The Stumble Fields, which was a finalist in the 2021 Eric Hoffer Award. She is also a founding editor of Redheaded Stepchild, an online magazine that only accepts rejected poems. In addition to her writing, Malaika is a yoga instructor, Reiki practitioner, and equine specialist in mental health and learning, working with Mane Source Counseling and the nonprofit Horses and Health. She resides on Freckles Farm in Ayden, NC with her family.
Another great interview, Jen! And she was fabulous at the conference!