Events › Letter Poems with Lisa Low

Join Chinatown Branch in celebrating Poetry Month with a poetry workshop with poet Lisa Low! 

In this workshop, learn more about poems in the form of a letter (epistolary poems), which are a lesson in opposites: public/private, individual/society; they also create closeness and intimacy yet cross great distances. This tension is one of the gifts of poetry, its ability to allow conflicting ideas to coexist, especially when subject matter is vulnerable or difficult. In this workshop, we’ll explore the opposing forces of the epistolary poem, write our own letter poems, and expand our ideas of what poems can do.

Lisa Low is the author of Replica (University of Wisconsin Press, forthcoming 2026) and the chapbook Crown for the Girl Inside (YesYes Books, 2023). She is the recipient of a 2023 Pushcart Prize and the 2020 Gulf Coast Nonfiction Prize, and her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Ecotone, The Massachusetts Review, Poetry, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. She has taught poetry workshops at community centers and universities including Chicago Poetry Center, StoryStudio Chicago, Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, and Eastern Kentucky University. 

Space is limited. Registration is required.

For adults 18 and up.

Accessibility
Need sign language interpretation or other accessibility assistance for this event? Please call (312) 747-8184 or email access@chipublib.org to request accommodations. Requests must be made at least 14 business days before the event.

Photo: Courtesy of Lisa Low