In this workshop, we will explore strategies by which poets may enrich their own art by deliberately imitating their favorites… and their favorites’ favorites! We will discuss such topics as voice, influence, and originality, as well as the imperative of serving a serious apprenticeship. How apprentice poets attempt to wipe away traces of influence is our final consideration. That is, to cover their tracks! Participants are asked to bring 2 poems by poets whose work they admire to the first workshop session.
John Murillo is the author of the poetry collections, Up Jump the Boogie (Cypher, 2010 & Four Way Books, 2020), finalist for both the Kate Tufts Discovery and the Pen Open Book Awards, and Kontemporary American Poetry (Four Way Books, 2020), winner of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry and the Poetry Society of Virginia’s North American Book Awards and finalist for the Pen/Voelcker Award for Poetry and the NAACP Image Award. His other honors include the Four Quartets Prize from the T.S. Eliot Foundation and the Poetry Society of America, two Larry Neal Writers’ Awards, a pair of Pushcart Prizes, the Poetry Foundation’s J Howard and Barbara MJ Wood Prize, an NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, Cave Canem Foundation and the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. Recent poems have appeared in such publications as American Poetry Review, Poetry, and Best of American Poetry 2017, 2019, and 2020. He is an assistant professor of English and director of the creative writing program at Wesleyan University, and he also teaches in the low residency MFA program at Sierra Nevada University.
View poet's page