AUBURN — As part of the Write ME project, poet Myronn Hardy plans to lead a free epistolary poetry workshop, “Writing to know/Un-know,” from 3:30-5:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 14, in the conference room at the Auburn Public Library, 49 Spring St.

Attending this workshop is the first step in participating in the statewide Write ME program, in which people can be connected with their own poetry pen pal.

Myronn Hardy Submitted photo

Letters are a vital ritual of connection, a communication that extends beyond the words or message themselves to encompass an entire range of sensory experiences. An epistolary poem is a poem that is also a letter. The epistolary poem remains a powerful and captivating poetic form — and one that seems particularly crucial to the present moment, in which the intimacy, community-building, and grounding, physical aspects of letter writing can provide much-needed antidotes for social polarization and isolation, according to a news release from Izzy Ruta, adult services manager at the library.

The Write ME project will pair together people in different parts of Maine to exchange letter poems. With support from the MWPA, the Maine Arts Commission, The Telling Room, and many public libraries and organizations around Maine, and funding from the Academy of American Poets and the Mellon Foundation, Julia Bouwsma has created a Maine-wide epistolary poetry project that introduces the form through a series of 20-plus free public workshops across the state during this fall and early winter and then pairs up participating individuals as “poetry pen pals” to communicate with one another over a period of months.

For this workshop, Hardy will lead a generative workshop considering the liberatory intricacies of direct address. Hardy is the author of, most recently, “Aurora Americana.” His poems have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Ploughshares, POETRY, the Georgia Review, The Baffler, and elsewhere. He teaches at Bates College.

Registration is encouraged, or more information, visit auburnpubliclibrary.org or call the Reference Desk at 207-333-6640, ext. 4.

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