All posts tagged: John Murillo

How to Write on a Ledge: An Interview with John Murillo

NATHAN MCCLAIN interviews JOHN MURILLO

 

Headshot of John Murillo, a middle aged Black and Hispanic man with a long beard

 

In this interview, Nathan McClain’s mode of inquiry evokes substantial and insightful responses from John Murillo. The ultimate craftsman, Murillo understands the value of writing from a space, from a feeling, instead of toward a subject. In other words, he does not make an event of writing a poem. His practice is uncorrupted by a chase for validation. Instead, we understand the time and dedication necessary to achieve Murillo’s exquisite lyricism and masterful use of form.

John Murillo’s most recent book, Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry, won the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and was a finalist for the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry and the NAACP Image Award. He is an assistant professor of English and director of the creative writing program at Wesleyan University.

How to Write on a Ledge: An Interview with John Murillo
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On Negative Capability

By JOHN MURILLO

       Whitewalls   Mudflaps
Late night howling down
       a dark dirt road   Headlights
killed and so the world gone
       black but for the two blunts
lit   illuminating Jojo’s fake gold
       grin   One girl each screaming
from the backseat we raced
       the red moon   rawdogged
the stars 

On Negative Capability
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On Confessionalism

By JOHN MURILLO

Not sleepwalking, but waking still,
with my hand on a gun, and the gun
in a mouth, and the mouth
on the face of a man on his knees.
Autumn of ’89, and I’m standing
in a section 8 apartment parking lot,
pistol cocked, and staring down
at this man, then up into the mug
of an old woman staring, watering
the single sad flower to the left
of her stoop, the flower also staring,

On Confessionalism
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