Malaika King Albrecht
About the Poet
Malaika King Albrecht served as the inaugural Heart of Pamlico Poet Laureate in eastern North Carolina. She is the author of four poetry collections, most recently The Stumble Fields (Main Street Rag, 2020), a finalist for the 2021 Eric Hoffer Award. Her book What the Trapeze Artist Trusts (Press 53) received honorable mention in the Oscar Arnold Young Award and was a finalist for the 2012 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Her chapbook Lessons in Forgetting was a finalist for the 2011 Next Generation Indie Book Awards and received honorable mention in the Brockman Campbell Award. She is also the founding editor of Redheaded Stepchild, an online literary magazine devoted exclusively to poems previously rejected elsewhere. Since March 2020, she has hosted hundreds of poetry book launches, featured readings, and open mics on YouTube.
Albrecht grew up in Norfolk, Virginia, and earned a BS in Psychology and an MA in Humanities from Old Dominion University, with an emphasis in creative writing, women’s studies, and sociology. While at ODU, she served as an editor of The Dominion Review (now Barely South Review). She has served the North Carolina Poetry Society in numerous leadership roles, including Vice President of Membership, Lena Shull Chair, and President. She also served on the inaugural advisory board of the Furious Flower Poetry Center at James Madison University and on the board of the Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities, where she chaired the Writers-in-Residence program and founded an annual summer writing camp for elementary students.
In 2025, Albrecht returned to Virginia’s Northern Neck to care for her father. She works as the Programs and Outreach Specialist for Richmond County Public Library at Rappahannock Community College. She lives at Freckles Farm, where she offers mindfulness and yoga classes and shares her life with horses, a miniature donkey, goats, and chickens. Though retired from the professional horse world, she is a PATH International–certified therapeutic riding instructor, an equine specialist in mental health and learning, and a former Special Olympics equestrian coach. She is a member of the Poetry Society of Virginia and the North Carolina Poetry Society.
Region
Eastern
Virginia City or County Affiliation
Warsaw
Years of Residence in Virginia
30 +
Current City/State of Residence
Warsaw, VA
Gender
Female
Race/Ethnicity
White
Year of Birth
1965
Keywords/Tags
environment, relational, memory, thresholds
Published Works or Performances
Books:
The Stumble Fields (Main Street Rag, 2020).
What the Trapeze Artist Trusts (Press 53, 2012).
Spill (Main Street Rag, 2011).
Lessons in Forgetting (Main Street Rag, 2010).
Poems:
“Is There Singing at the End of the World?” (In Banyan Review, 2024).
“Psychotherapy Incorporating Horses.” (In Her Magazine, 2022).
“To Spook or Not to Spook.” (In South Writ Large, 2022).
“because a doorway can be an ambush.” (In 9/11 Anthology, 2021).
“For You Who Are Joining the Chorus.” (In SWIMM, 2021).
“The Word Yes Is in Everyone’s Eyes.” (In Verse Daily, 2021).
“Praise Song for What Is”; “One Last Drink”; “Superstitions About Holding One’s Breath.” (In Pandemic Puzzle Poems, 2021).
“Ways of Looking at a Mask.” (In Verse Daily Web Weekly Archives, 2021).
“Dear hands being made into fists”; “Superstitions About Holding One’s Breath.”
(In Madness Muse Press, 2020).
“Ways of Looking at a Mask.” (In Split Rock Review, 2020).
“To Those Who Are Joining the Chorus.” (In SWIMM, 2020).
“Finding the Hummingbird.” (In South Writ Large, 2017).
“The first time I saw the ghost…” (In Kakalak, 2016).
“One Last Time”; “How to Stay Afloat”; “Lessons in Forgetting.” (In Carolina Mountains Literary Festival Tenth Anniversary Anthology, 2015).
“The Ghost as Magician.” (In Kakalak, 2015).
“The Way Desire Touches.” (In storySouth, 2015).
“To Enter This World”; “The Inside of a Stone, Love, and the Wind”; “No Edge to Darkness”; “How to Make a Ghost”; “Giving the Ghost His Due”; “Truth May Not Be Solid”; “The O Horizon”; “The Mirrors in Our Chests Can Break.”
(In Floor Plan Journal, 2015).
“How to Kiss Fire”; “When I Left My Country.”
(In Blue Light Press Anthology, 2015).
“How I Got Red Hair as a Child.” (In Germ, 2014).
“Ghosts Don’t Haunt Houses.” (In Kakalak, 2014).
“The Ghost as Shape Shifter”; “Like He Never Left”; “Catalogue of Ghosts”; “Riddle Song”; “Red Ribbons Tied in the Bare Oak Branches.”
(In Main Street Rag, 2014).
“Why the Ghost Calls Your Name”; “What Sounds Will You Lean Closer to Hear?”; “How to Be Haunted.” (In Wild Goose Poetry Review, 2014).
“The Present Moment.” (In Poetry in Plain Sight, 2014).
“Winging It.” (In NC Poetry on the Bus, 2014).
“Victoria Woodhull Learns to Speak.” (In The Freeman, 2013).
“On the Shore.” (In Just Women, 2013).
“She Would Marry Him Again.” (In Forgetting Home Anthology, 2013).
“The Word Yes Is in Everyone’s Eyes.” (In Kakalak, 2013).
“Beyond the Clover Meadow”; “The Secret Keeper.”
(In Best of Pirene’s Fountain Anthology, 2013).
“Loftin Woods.” (In BLOODSHOT, 2013).
“How to Kiss Fire”; “When I Left My Country”; “Beyond the Clover Meadow.”
(In Blue Light Press Anthology, 2013).
“Loftin Woods”; “When I Sleep”; “The Dream of Endless.”
(In Nazim Hikmet Winning Anthology, 2013).
“Grave Rubbing.” (In North Carolina Literary Trails, 2013).
“Strung Together”; “Tragedy’s Foreshadowed in the Curve of a Neck”; “To a Nephew Looking for a Way”; “Someone Be My Anchor, My Sail, My Sea.” (In Iodine, 2012).
“How to Kiss Fire”; “These Are My Transgressions.” (In Wild Goose Poetry Review, 2012).
“To the Man with His Back to the Chapel.” (In Best of Arsenic Lobster Anthology, 2012).
“On the Shore”; “Sound Knows Its Place in the Air.” (In Poems of Devotion: An Anthology, 2012).
“Castaways”; “Leaving the Island”; “The Broken and the Lost.” (In Best of Cellar 101 Anthology, 2012).
“The Broken and the Lost.” (In Pembroke Magazine, 2011).
“To the Man with His Back to the Chapel”; “The Stumble Fields.” (In Arsenic Lobster, 2011).
“The Frozen Dialect of the Tundra.” (In Platte Valley Review, 2011).
“It Wasn’t Easy to Be Hit”; “Tying Rocks to Clouds”; “The Between Places.”
(In Soundings Review, 2011).
“Beyond the Clover Meadow”; “The Secret Keeper.” (In Pirene’s Fountain, 2011).
“Leaving the Island”; “Troublesome Creek”; “The Earth Is My New Pair of Shoes”; “Loving the Dark Cloud.” (In Dead Mule, 2011).
“My Rope”; “A Box Is Made in Autumn.” (In International Poetry Review, 2011).
“On the Shore”; “Sound Knows Its Place in the Air.” (In Asheville Poetry Review, 2010).
“How to Walk Right Through a Woman.” (In Bay Leaves, 2010).
“On Your Birthday.” (In Mamas and Papas Anthology, 2010).
“Cup.” (In Four and Twenty, 2010).
“Father Teaching My Eldest”; “The Riddle Song.” (In To Dad with Love Anthology, 2010).
“Where I Find Her.” (In Boston Review, 2009).
“My Father Teaching My Eldest Daughter”; “My Mother’s Fever”; “My Mother’s Transformation”; “The Day Mom Forgets How to Get Out of the Car”; “The Gift”; “That Wednesday Afternoon”; “Cleaning Out Her Closet.”
(In Fieralingue, 2009).
“We Can’t Step into the Same River Twice.” (In North Carolina Poet Laureate Website, 2005).
“Selling Two Acres on the Rappahannock.” (In Pebble Lake Review, 2004).
“What He Said.” (In New Orleans Review, 1997).
“Tenses.” (In Quarterly West, 1994).
Selected Individual Poems or Performances
“The Word Yes Is in Everyone’s Eyes” (In Verse Daily, 2021). https://www.versedaily.org/2021/aboutmalaikakingalbrecht.shtml
"Is there singing at the end of the world?" (InThe Banyan Review, Spring, 2024) The Banyan Review - Issue 18, Spring 2024
“Ways of Looking at a Mask” (In Split Rock Review, 2020). https://www.splitrockreview.org/malaika-king-albrecht
“Loving the Dark Cloud” (In Dead Mule, 2012). https://deadmule.com/malaika-king-albrecht-four-poems/
“The Secret Keeper” (In Malaika King Albrecht: Sample Poems, n.d.). https://sites.google.com/site/malaikakingalbrecht/sample-poems
Malaika King Albrecht