Poets all face similar questions when writing a new poem: where do I begin, where do I end it, and what should happen in between? In this regard, free verse isn’t really “free” — the “freedom” of free verse can be daunting and even paralyzing. Fortunately, distinct poetic modes can guide us through these questions and offer solid structures and parameters for crafting a poem. One such mode is the epistolary/letter poem through which we address the object of our emotional urgency. We will read several exemplary letter poems and discuss their various strategies, techniques, and stances. Then, guided by a multi-part prompt, writers will begin their own letter poems. Beyond the generative aspect, writers will gain a deeper understanding of this mode and how they might employ it in future poems.

Selected by President Obama as the fifth Presidential Inaugural Poet in U.S. history, Richard Blanco was the youngest, the first Latinx, immigrant, and gay person to serve in that role. In 2023, Blanco was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Biden from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Born in Madrid to Cuban exile parents and raised in Miami in a working-class family, Blanco’s personal negotiation of cultural identity and the universal themes of place and belonging characterize Blanco’s many collections of poetry, including his most recent, Homeland of My Body, which reassess traditional notions of home as strictly a geographical, tangible place that merely exist outside us, but rather, within us. He has also authored the memoirs For All Of Us: One Today: An Inaugural Poet’s Journey and The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood. Blanco has received numerous awards, including the Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize, the PEN American Beyond Margins Award, the Patterson Prize, and a Lambda Prize for memoir. He was Woodrow Wilson Fellow and has received numerous honorary degrees. Currently, he serves as Education Ambassador for The Academy of American Poets and is an Associate Professor at Florida International University. In April 2022, Blanco was appointed the first-ever Poet Laureate of Miami-Dade County.