Tomas Q. Morin – författare

"Tomáaacute;s Moríiacute;n's poems are as infectious and spooky and darkly humorous as the Brothers Grimm, as shapely and colloquial and eloquent as John Donne, and as skeptical and addicted to history-as-fable as Zbigniew Herbert."—Tom Sleigh, from the introduction

"An energetic and moving book of fantasias and elegies."—Edward Hirsch

Selected from over one thousand manuscripts for the APR/Honickman First Book Prize, Tomás Q. Morín's debut is rich with the mastery of Morín's lush storytelling. From war-torn images of Eastern Europe in the mid-1900s to modern-day glimpses of the American southwest, these poems are bold and brightly imagined.

From "Castrato":

What do you call a gifted sopranowith no balls who is too uglyto play the heroine, is never tall enoughfor the role of the hero? Wait a quarter centuryand you can fast forward past the floggings,the endless sermons, the giggles under alderswith curious girls, busted noses, carpedsisters with chubby boys, the innumerablenights of sleeplessness. Better to skip all thisunpleasantness and descend the last risetoward the coast where you can stroll the docksin the short light of winter, get lostin the cloudbank, let the sea ripenin your hair, scan the flat waterfor the handsome young men . . .

Tomás Q. Morín was born in Texas and educated at Texas State University and Johns Hopkins University. He lives in San Marcos, Texas, and teaches at Texas State University.

“I will call the voice of this poet a ‘common’ voice… a voice a poet could take into an entire lifetime of memorable writing.” —Philip Levine, Ploughshares

This second collection from APR-Honickman winner Tomás Q. Morín explores love gone sideways in the lives of lovers, parents and children, humans and the divine. Patient Zero is filled with voices—of all the people, places, and things that surround a life sick with heartbreak. Doors are the wooden tongues of a house, grocery-store cashiers are gatekeepers to the infinite, and food is the all-powerful life force behind every living thing.

From Patient Zero

Love is a worried, old heartdisease, as Son House once put it, the very stuffblues are made of, real blues that consist of a male and female, not monkey junklike the “Okra blues” or “Pay Day blues,”though I think House would agreetwo hearts of any persuasion are enough for a real blues,if one of them is sick, that sickly green of a frogbitten in two by the neighbor’s dog, all of whichmakes me wonder about the source of our diseaseand whose teeth first tore the heart after Adamand Eve left the garden?...

Tomás Q. Morín''s debut poetry collection A Larger Country was the winner of the APR/Honickman Prize. He is co-editor with Mari L''Esperance of the anthology Coming Close, and translator of The Heights of Macchu Picchu by Pablo Neruda. He teaches at Texas State University and in the low residency MFA program of Vermont College of Fine Arts.