Copyright © 2023 by Michael Torres. Originally published in Poem-a-Day
on May 26, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.
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Michael Torres is a Mexican American poet and the author of An Incomplete List of Names (Beacon Press, 2020). The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Jerome Foundation, and the McKnight Foundation, he is an assistant professor at Minnesota State University, Mankato. About this Poem “The first moment of this poem is, more or less, the prompt given to my class by an undergraduate creative writing student at the end of their presentation. It took me months to find a way into this piece since I was resistant to the prompt’s directiveness. Finally, though, I leaned into it and enjoyed the poem’s escalating and, at times odd, demands. I should add: this creative writing course took place during the first in-person semester after more than a year of virtual learning. Lastly, thank you to Emily E. for prompting us that day.” |
