Please join the Department of English Visiting Writers Series for a reading and Q&A with author John Murillo.
John Murillo is the author of the poetry collections Up Jump the Boogie (Cypher 2010, Four Way Books 2020) and Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry (Four Way 2020). His 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 J Howard and Barbara MJ Wood Prize from the Poetry Foundation, an NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Cave Canem Foundation and the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. Murillo’s poems have appeared in such publications as American Poetry Review, Poetry, and Best American Poetry 2017, 2019, and 2020.
Up Jump the Boogie was a finalist for both the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and the Pen Open Book Award. In this collection, Murillo alternatively testifies, pays homage, and immortalizes the lives we know and don't. His poems are elegies of liberation, with an insistent tread of music and street lore. Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry follows this collection with a reflective look at the legacy of institutional violence against Black and Latinx communities, providing a context of strength in the face of danger and anger. It was the winner of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and the Poetry Society of Virginia’s North American Book Award, and finalist for the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry, Believer Poetry Award, Maya Angelou Book Award, Hurston/Wright Foundation Legacy Award and the NAACP Image Award.
This reading is free and open to the public. Q&A and book signing to follow. Books will be available for sale from Prologue Bookshop.
