Episode 121 Notes and Links to Michael Torres’ Work
On Episode 121 of The Chills at Will Podcast, Pete welcomes Michael Torres, and the two discuss, among other topics, his growing up in Pomona, CA, and his childhood and adolescence influences on his work, the speaker as poet and vice versa, his early reading prompted by a generous older sister, works and writers that have thrilled him and impelled him to write, his poetry collection’s themes of identity and masculinity, and the real-life background of his dynamite lines and strong images.
Michael Torres is a VONA distinguished alum and CantoMundo fellow. In 2016 he received his MFA in creative writing from Minnesota State University, Mankato, was a winner of the Loft Mentor Series, received an Individual Artist Initiative Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, and was awarded a Jerome Foundation Research and Travel Grant to visit the pueblo in Jalisco, Mexico where his father grew up. In 2019 he received fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and The Loft Literary Center for the Mirrors & Windows Program. A former Artist-in-Residence at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France as well as a McKnight Writing Fellow, he is currently a 2021-22 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow.
His first collection of poems, AN INCOMPLETE LIST OF NAMES, (Beacon Press, 2020) was selected by Raquel Salas Rivera for the National Poetry Series, named one of NPR’s Best Books of 2020, and was featured on the podcast Code Switch.
His writing has been featured or is forthcoming in Best New Poets 2020, The New Yorker, POETRY, Ploughshares, Smartish Pace, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Georgia Review, The Sun, Water~Stone Review, Southern Indiana Review, Ninth Letter, Poetry Northwest, Copper Nickel, Fifth Wednesday Journal, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, The McNeese Review, MIRAMAR, Green Mountains Review, Forklift, Ohio, Hot Metal Bridge, The Boiler Journal, Paper Darts, River Teeth, The Acentos Review, Okey-Panky, Sycamore Review, SALT, Huizache, online as The Missouri Review’s Poem of the Week, on The Slowdown with Tracy K. Smith.
Michael was born and brought up in Pomona, CA, where he spent his adolescence as a graffiti artist. Currently, he teaches in the MFA program at Minnesota State University, Mankato, and through the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop.
Michael Torres' Website
Buy An Incomplete List of Names
Michael’s Appearance on NPR’s Code Switch
"In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors–Michael Torres"
At about 3:20, Michael talks about growing up in Pomona, CA, and his relationship with language and literature
At about 6:00, Michael highlights his older sister’s contributions in introducing him to great literature, and Michael details being immediately intrigued by Luis Rodriguez’s Always Running
At about 10:00, Pete connects Luis Rodriguez and getting attention through his nickname and Michael’s views of tagging and identity
At about 13:50, Michael responds to Pete’s questions about connections between peer pressure and growing up, including how Michael’s “Down” was inspired by Kendrick Lamar’s “The Art of Peer Pressure”
At about 18:00, Pete flits from A Bronx Tale to a phenomenon with students’ writing their full names in past years as the two “discuss the “desire to leave something behind”
At about 20:10, Pete cites profound and interesting lines from An Incomplete List of Names
that deal with identity, and Pete asks about “Michael” and the delineation between his name and “Remek”
At about 22:00, Michael discusses what reading and writers inspired and thrilled him as he got into late high school and college, including 2Pac and The Rose that Grew From Concrete, Charles Bukowski, Gary Soto’s The Elements of San Joaquin, and Albert Camus’ The Stranger
At about 26:40, Michael further explains hip-hop’s influence on him, including from groups like Dilated Peoples,
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