The child of a military family which changed residences year to year, he spent his teenage years in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Just a littleīorn in Everett, Washington, in July of 1959, Carl Phillips is an American poet and writer. The dark and wet and patience make possible. Pattern, and variation randomness and intention release Tameable-of the sea, for movement (same infinite That willows and hazel trees mark the barn’s westernįace with now the wind-rippled field, like a lesser version-tamer, Right? All those hours spent trying to outstare the distanceĪnd pretending a choice to it: now the shadow-script Long enough to have called it out more than once in angerĪnd sex and fear equally. He’s mumbling, as if to someone whose name he’s known Of a stranger, half asleep still, just beginning to remember a bit,Īs he stirs beside you. The smell of apples, victory, tangerines, and smoke The storm of falling in love (and staying there) meant Perfectly meant watching the air for a moment Photographers Unknown, To Sing a Song of Water His papers are archived at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College in New York City. In 2015, Rane Arroyo was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. He is survived by his life-long partner, American poet Glenn Sheldon. Rane Arroyo died in the early morning of April 7th in 2010 due to a cerebral hemorrhage. Nominated sixteen times for the Pushcart Prize for Poetry, Arroyo was awarded a Stonewall Books Chapbook Prize, the Hart Crane Memorial Poetry Prize, The Sonora Review Chapbook Prize from Arizona University, and a 2007 Ohio Arts Council Excellence Award in Poetry. His performed plays include such works as “The Amateur Virgin”, “Emily Dickinson in Bandages”, Prayers for a Go-Go Boy”, and “The House with Black Windows”, co-written with poet Glenn Sheldon, and performed in 1995 by the Polaris Theater in New York City.Īrroyo served as the co-Vice President of the Board of Directors for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs and as the co-Chair for the 2009 Chicago Conference. In addition to his poetry, Rane Arroyo wrote a book of short stories in 2005 entitled “How to Name a Hurricane”. Included among his ten poetry collections are the 2006 “Don Quixote Goes to the Moon” “The Roswell Poems” and “Same-Sex Séances”, both published in 2008 and his last collection, the 2010 “White as Silver: Poems”.
For his 2005 collection “The Portable Famine”, Arroyo won the2004-05 John Ciardi Poetry Prize. In his poetic stanzas and narratives, he juxtaposed his literary knowledge with contemporary pop culture.Īrroyo’s 1996 poetry collection, “The Singing Shark”, won the 1997 Carl Sandburg Poetry Prize and his poem “Breathing Lessons”, published in Emerson College’s literary journal, won a 1997 Pushcart Prize. Arroyo’s work dealt to a large degree with the issues of homosexuality, immigration, and the Latino culture. Openly gay, he wrote poetry, short stories and plays that were frequently self-reflexive, autobiographical works. In the 1980s, Rane Arroyo began his career as a performance artist in Chicago’s art galleries and eventually focused on his poetry. Arroyo was a professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Toledo in Ohio. He earned his PhD in English and Cultural Studies form the University of Pittsburgh. Wondering what it feels like to become fictionīorn in November of 1954 in Chicago, Rane Arroyo was an American poet, playwright and scholar of Puerto Rican descent. To the specifics of long nights without stars Wind from nowhere, wind with news of home, Plus our Tijuana plans for a destiny makeover, Hooves striking rocks to start fires, plusĪnd library cards, the Spanish of my skin, plusĪ belief in doom, nights bedding the moon, Ghosts wearing landscape’s honesty, photogenic (we were our best scriptures), we the scarred My cowboy, minus the sense of an impending Love to ride, minus extras with tire irons,