Tag: Epistolary

Mastering the Epistolary Poem: A Workshop with John Sibley Williams

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Mastering the Epistolary Poem
A Workshop with John Sibley Williams

Instructor: John Sibley Williams
Date: Monday, January 26
Time: 11:30am-2:00pm PT / 2:30-5:00pm ET
Please check local times.
Duration: 2.5 hours
Cost: $25 (sliding scale)

Please note: This workshop will be recorded for those unable to attend in real time. The recording will only be distributed to those who sign up for workshop in advance.

>>> Register Here <<<

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About the Workshop:

Epistolary poems, from the Latin “epistula” for “letter,” are, quite literally, poems that read as letters. As poems of direct address, they can be intimate and colloquial or formal and measured. The subject matter can range from philosophical investigation to a declaration of love to a list of errands, and epistles can take any form, from heroic couplets to free verse. In this intensive generative workshop, we will explore the many facets of writing “letter poems” through poetry analysis, active discussion, and a progressively challenging set of 6 writing activities that touch upon both our internal/personal worlds and how we interact with the larger world around us. We will study diverse poems from classic poets such as William Carlos Williams and Langston Hughes and contemporary poets such as Victoria Chang, Rebecca Lindenberg, Mai Der Vang, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, and Melissa Stein to see how they successfully explore relationships, internal reflection, political/cultural struggle, and landscape details by using the direct, evocative form of “letter poetry”.

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About The Workshop Leader:

John Sibley Williams is the author of nine poetry collections, including Scale Model of a Country at Dawn (Cider Press Review Poetry Award), The Drowning House (Elixir Press Poetry Award), As One Fire Consumes Another (Orison Poetry Prize), Skin Memory (Backwaters Prize, University of Nebraska Press), skycrape (WaterSedge Poetry Chapbook Contest), and Summon (JuxtaProse Chapbook Prize). His book Sky Burial: New & Selected Poems is forthcoming in translation from by the Portuguese press do lado esquerdo. A thirty-five-time Pushcart nominee, John serves as editor of The Inflectionist Review, Poetry Editor at Kelson Books, and founder of the Caesura Poetry Workshop series. Previous publishing credits include Best American Poetry, Yale Review, Verse Daily, North American Review, Prairie Schooner, and TriQuarterly.

For more information about John and his offerings:

https://www.johnsibleywilliams.com/about-1

https://www.johnsibleywilliams.com/upcoming-classes

Dear Bill, by Craig Cotter

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Dear Bill,

In the past 125 years
many of my neighbors have planted giant redwoods
on their front lawns.

LA is too arid for them.
They get a little sprinkler water,
a little rain,
but not enough.
In 125 years they quickly grow to be the tallest trees in town,

but they are not full like the redwoods north of San Francisco.
They are spindly and pale instead of full and deep green.
They could suck-up 20 times the water they get in LA.

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A mourning cloak
among blossoming jasmine.

A rare butterfly now in North American.

They fly quick and erratic and are hard to catch with a net.
They’re usually jumpy and skittish

but I stood in front of it,
6 inches away,

while it probed jasmine blossoms.
I watched it for several minutes.

The top wings outlined in yellow,
the rest of the wings deep brown—

but when you look closely, the wings are circles of all shades of iridescent brown,
black and violet.

The back of the wings the same dark iridescence
but even darker.

I remembered being 8 in Michigan
trying to catch one.

Hard too as you’d rarely see them.
Still thinking I wanted to catch it with my hand,

or wishing I had a killing jar.

But now I have no interest to collect it
beyond memory and this poem.

A jacaranda is still in bloom.

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When I taught I never scolded children for day-dreaming.
I’d see them look out windows.

They would say, “I wasn’t working,” or,
“Sorry, I was day-dreaming.”

“It’s not a problem.”

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Thinking of you in Brockport.

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I turned down 27 readings last year.

They would’ve allowed me to sell books
and generate cash.

I certainly have my price.

But they’re opposed to day-dreaming.

And there’s not much time for day-dreaming left.

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Today seeing a mourning cloak
was not like anything else Davin.

If it’s finally just your eyes on my words—
you never see me,

even while I’m alive—
that works best.

Did you ever have the right amount of friends and lovers
and didn’t need more?

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I’ve been paid to attend private parties
because some rich people want “real artists” at their parties.

I accept with time limits and with no promise to speak.

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They see more mourning cloaks
than poems.

A guy I gave a book to 22 years ago
said last week, I always thought you’d still be writing poetry
do you still write?

Told him I gave it up.

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It would be nice to get out of this
with a slick synthesis of the many images and themes
I’ve introduced.

Costa Rica at night on Sugar Beach rubbing Michael’s feet.

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A butterfly or a tree?

It’s been mostly in my control so far.

No wars romping through town,
have survived the fires, floods, earthquakes, so far.

Surviving murderous neighbors
not taking all useful precautions.

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The robin you observed in your yard,
did it set you from your family?

Did it get you thinking of that perfect girl?
Do you still have the blue glass bell?

Have you seen a Himalayan blue poppy?

           –for William Heyen

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Craig Cotter was born in 1960 in New York and has lived in California since 1986. His poems have appeared in Southword (Ireland), Chiron Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Court Green, The Gay & Lesbian Review, Great Lakes Review, Hawai’i Review, & Tampa Review. His fourth book of poems, After Lunch with Frank O’Hara, is currently available on Amazon. www.craigcotter.com

Two Poems by Donna Hilbert

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Perspicere

I’ve come to love the power lines
crisscrossing the alley behind my house.

Birds pause here, between their quests
for food and water, to rest

until returning to nest in palm trees
across the alley, down the block,

across the street, and to places
that, no matter how I fix my gaze,

I can’t quite know, I can’t quite find.

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Dear Laurie,

To identify the bird singing from the powerlines,
I pull Birds of America from its spot atop the bookshelf.
Remember, friend, when you gave this book to me? Before
your move to Texas? Or, was it after the returning
to California? Your grandmother’s book
you said, who also loved to name the birds.

How I grieved when you moved half-way across
the country with your family, for your husband’s
better job. I boarded the plane with the baby,
barely three-months old, while you wrangled
the other children up the ramp.
It was December. Remember how we cried?

The new year began and with it, grief began in earnest.
Jobs soured. Friends divorced. In May, my father died.
When school was out, to staunch my tears,
Larry loaded our boys into the car (which car? I don’t remember)
and we crossed the desert states.
Craters, canyons, caverns, kitsch motels, the kids counting
dead critters on the highway all the way to Texas.

Hellish hot, the Texas summer, but Laurie,
you and I were glad to sit in misery together.
We passed the baby back and forth, refilled our icy drinks.
The children, keeping cool, wielded water guns and hoses.
The husbands talked sports, flipped burgers on the grill. It was June.
Did we celebrate our birthdays, one day apart, together?

I don’t remember the birds in Texas, but mosquitos and chiggers
ruled the grass. Cicadas swarmed the backyard trees,
a visitation we’d not expected with its symphony of sizzle
and buzz as if a world were ending or beginning.
We could not have guessed which guests
would call upon us next. Some callers it’s best not to expect.

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Donna Hilbert’s latest book is Gravity: New & Selected Poems, Tebot Bach, 2018. Her new collection, Threnody, is forthcoming from Moon Tide Press. She is a monthly contributing writer to the on-line journal Verse-Virtual. Work has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, Braided Way, Chiron Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, Rattle, Zocalo Public Square, One Art, and numerous anthologies. She writes and leads private workshops in Southern California, where she makes her home. Learn more at www.donnahilbert.com