At a time when communication is constant, fast and often fragmented, due to the rise in artificial intelligence and technological advancements, poets Gibson Fay-LeBlanc and Stuart Kestenbaum decided to slow things down. For over a year, the two have been sending each other letters — in the form of poems — through the mail.

The exchange began as part of a statewide project called “Write ME,” launched by Maine Poet Laureate Julia Bouswma, that paired residents and assigned them to write epistolary poems, which are poems that are also letters, across the state. The initial program was designed to last for just four months, but Fay-LeBlanc and Kestenbaum kept going. What started as a structured exercise has evolved into an ongoing, deeply personal correspondence spanning the distance between Deer Isle and Portland. Since December 2024, they have been sending letters to each other every other week.

“When I sit down to write one of these poems, I never know what direction my letter is going to go exactly,” said Fay-LeBlanc, executive director of the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. “It’s a really deep and gratifying way to communicate in a time when we don’t really get mail anymore.”

The two poets, who have known each other professionally for 15 years, found that writing to one another, rather than to an audience, changed the stakes of their work. Their poems, which often run about a page in length, move between the intimate and the expansive, touching on family, grief, the changing seasons and the turbulent state of the world.

“It’s not meant to be perfect,” said Fay-LeBlanc. “It’s a letter.”

Kestenbaum, former Maine poet laureate and former director of Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, described the exchange as a kind of small, intentional community. 

“I think, in a way, I was looking for community,” said Kestenbaum, “and I found that in Gibson.”

Their processes are purposefully slow. Kestenbaum starts writing in his journal, letting ideas percolate before moving to the computer to type up the version he will send. Fay-LeBlanc will read Kestenbaum’s letter for several days in a row, letting his friend’s words settle in his mind before beginning to draft a reply in his own notebook before moving to the computer.

The pair settled on typed letters early on – given their handwriting, they joked, they would still be deciphering the first letter if they had chosen to go the full-analog route. 

They mail their poems, and then they wait. That delay, they agreed, is a big part of it.

In contrast to the immediacy of texts and emails, the space between sending and receiving creates room for reflection. The letters are shaped not just by what each writer wants to say, but by what emerges in the time it takes to say it.

After so many years of friendship, the correspondence has helped them understand each other on a new level.

“I have a deeper appreciation for Stu’s sense of humor and wonder,” Fay-LeBlanc said. “There are times where I get a little lost in whatever that day’s dark cloud is, but Stu’s letters remind me to look up and see the beauty that’s happening.”

“And I’m taken with Gibson’s controlled passion for what should be right in the world and for social justice,” Kestenbaum said. “In one of our last exchanges, he wrote about the bombing of the school in Iran, and I could really feel the heart behind it.”

Shared experiences — like the loss of a brother — have surfaced naturally. They have communicated about their grief in a way that has felt more palatable because of the form of their letter writing. Kestenbaum recalled writing a letter from the airport, reflecting on his brother’s death on September 11, 2001, and the strange grief that surfaces while going through security. 

“I hadn’t intended to write about it in that way,” said Kestenbaum. “I just wanted to convey that public private moment of grief.”

“There was one letter I wrote in late January [2026] when ICE was in Portland,” said Fay-LeBlanc. “If I hadn’t had this correspondence, I don’t think I would have said, ‘I’m going to write a poem about it.’”

“I think that’s at the heart of what we’ve done: moments that might not otherwise become a poem,” Kestenbaum said. “Daily life ends up in poetry in a way that’s more immediate.”

In early April, during National Poetry Month, the pair brought their correspondence into the public sphere with readings titled “First Class Mail: A Correspondence in Poetry.” The audience’s response surprised them.

“There were a lot of non-poets and people who don’t pay much attention to poetry, and I think some of those folks were some of the most moved by the exchange,” said Fay-LeBlanc. “I think there are people who have a hard time accessing poetry. The idea that these are letters, and we are both pretty plainspoken in them, added some accessibility for that audience.”

“It’s like we’re almost standing in for letters people want to write to each other,” Kestenbaum said. “Two guys writing about feelings — that’s the heart of it.”

Samara Brass is a writer and editor based in Somerville, Mass.