Poet Laureate Writing Workshops: Writing the Family

An in-person poetry class exploring our complex relationships with family and ancestry through our writing and literary tools

About this Event

Poet Laureate Writing Workshops: Writing the Family

Come join us for a series of writing workshops led by our Poet Laureate, Marlanda Dekine! Get inspired by our relationship to family and ancestors and learn how to express your thoughts and feelings through poetry. Participants will investigate why writing about our family can be difficult and complex, including how families change over time and effective ways to be authentic and ethical. Through studying craft techniques, including psychic distance, voice, tone, simile, metaphor, etc., we will use the epistolary and narrative forms to write poems about our family and ancestors. Personal family stories or memories will be remembered to generate new poems.

Date: Friday, May 16, 2025

Time: 1:00 PM

Location: Andrews Library

No experience is necessary. Bring your creativity and an open mind. Let's write together and celebrate the world around us!

This program is supported by South Carolina Humanities, a not-for-profit organization; inspiring, engaging and enriching South Carolinians with programs on literature, history, culture and heritage. SC Humanities receives funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom.

Marlanda Dekine is the author of the poetry collection, Thresh & Hold (Hub City Press), noted as a "stirring debut" by The New York Times. Celebrated in the Gramophone for her “intimate and epic perspectives” on American identity in Ars Poetica she has received fellowships and awards, including an Individual Artist Fellowship from the South Carolina Arts Commission, a Governor’s Award from SC Humanities, a Palm Beach Poetry Festival Langston Hughes Fellowship, a Tin House Scholarship, and the New Southern Voices Poetry Prize from Hub City Press. Dekine is the first Poet Laureate of Georgetown County Libraries. She has collaborated with artists of various mediums, including Brittany J. Green (Composer), Douglas Boyce (Composer), Kelley Hollis (Soprano), Omar Najmi (Composer), L'Merchie Frazier (Visual Artist), Mahkia Greene (Filmmaker), and Lisa Neher (Composer). Her poems have been published in journals and magazines, including Orion, Oxford American, Callaloo, and POETRY. Dekine owns {unnamed}, LLC which utilizes the arts and publishing to guide people, communities, and organizations to their deepest selves through intentional dialogue and designing transcendent programming. She is also the creator of i am from a punch & a kiss, SOUL: An Ancestor Workshop, and Speaking Down Barriers, a nonprofit for equity and justice. Dekine earned degrees from Furman University (BA in Psychology), the University of South Carolina (Master of Social Work), and Converse University (Master of Fine Arts in Poetry).

Also check out other Festivals in Andrews, Workshops in Andrews, Arts events in Andrews.