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Eric Torgersen
Eric Torgersen has published eight books and chapbooks of poetry, two of fiction, and a full-length study of Rainer Maria Rilke and Paula Modersohn-Becker. He also translates German poetry, especially that of Rainer Maria Rilke and Nicolas Born. He was born in Melville, New York. He has a BA in German Literature from Cornell University; after two years in the Peace Corps in Ethiopia, he earned an MFA in poetry from the University of Iowa. He retired in the spring of 2008 after 38 years of teaching writing at Central Michigan University. He lives in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan with his wife, the quilt artist Ann Kowaleski. He’s available for workshops and readings. (photo by Peggy Brisbane)
Eric has been chosen to be the next (2021-2022) Honorary Chancellor of the Poetry Society of Michigan. The third person to be given this honor, he succeeds Laurence Thomas and Jack Ridl.
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Eric's most recent book, In Which We See Our Selves: American Ghazals, can be ordered at:
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There is wisdom here in Eric Torgersen’s poems, wisdom and also humor (the poems make us feel that it is impossible to have one without the other.) Irony and tenderness—along with wisdom and humor—also move playfully in each other’s company. And all these qualities are brought together under the aegis of a form as challenging to write as it is enticing to read. What joy these poems give and what a pleasure they offer to anyone lucky enough to be drawn into their orbit. – Jim Moore – Author of Invisible Strings and Underground: New & Selected Poems.
In this fine collection Eric Torgersen’s great wit and fine ear turn themselves to the ancient Persian verse form, the Ghazal, and dress it, sometimes hilariously, in American tone and circumstance perfectly fitted to an election year, or any year in our strange and various country. When he writes,
The house, you’ll notice, is on fire again.
We might decide to put out the flame for a change.
Look back. Look down. We’re all alone up here.
Let’s not forget the way we came for a change.
you realize this is a book anyone can read with pleasure and instantaneous understanding, even those determined not to understand. – Christopher Howell – Author of The Crime of Luck and many others.
In this fine collection Eric Torgersen’s great wit and fine ear turn themselves to the ancient Persian verse form, the Ghazal, and dress it, sometimes hilariously, in American tone and circumstance perfectly fitted to an election year, or any year in our strange and various country. When he writes,
The house, you’ll notice, is on fire again.
We might decide to put out the flame for a change.
Look back. Look down. We’re all alone up here.
Let’s not forget the way we came for a change.
you realize this is a book anyone can read with pleasure and instantaneous understanding, even those determined not to understand. – Christopher Howell – Author of The Crime of Luck and many others.
Short version of Eric's interview about In Which We See Our Selves with Ben Thorp of CMU Public Radio:
Complete interview in which Eric reads four poems from the book:
Featured Poem
Back Then
I was just an average Joe back then.
I had no plans or dough back then.
Family gone, no friends to speak of--
I was feeling pretty low back then.
I started hanging out too much.
I had no place to go back then.
I don’t remember making choices;
you just went with the flow back then.
It wasn’t that strange to move in with people
you didn’t really know back then.
I think I might have been okay--
some things were touch-and-go back then--
but I started getting into stuff.
I never could say no back then.
To feel like you were keeping up
you did a lot for show back then.
What little I had going for me,
I lost it in the snow back then.
America, it wasn’t you.
I did it. Long ago. Back then.
From In Which We See Our Selves. First appeared in 32 Poems.
I was just an average Joe back then.
I had no plans or dough back then.
Family gone, no friends to speak of--
I was feeling pretty low back then.
I started hanging out too much.
I had no place to go back then.
I don’t remember making choices;
you just went with the flow back then.
It wasn’t that strange to move in with people
you didn’t really know back then.
I think I might have been okay--
some things were touch-and-go back then--
but I started getting into stuff.
I never could say no back then.
To feel like you were keeping up
you did a lot for show back then.
What little I had going for me,
I lost it in the snow back then.
America, it wasn’t you.
I did it. Long ago. Back then.
From In Which We See Our Selves. First appeared in 32 Poems.
Click here for the Featured Poem Archive: past Featured Poems
Click What's New for a list of recent, current and forthcoming publications.
Links to Online Publications:
"I Will Die in Lake Superior" appears in And Here: 100 Years of Upper Peninsula Writing, 1917-2017, ed. Ron Riekki, Michigan State University Press, 2017.
Eric's essay "Gaga's Left Arm" appears in Serving House Journal 15, Fall 2016.
Eric's essay "Writing the American Ghazal" appears in Able Muse, Summer 2015, along with a ghazal, "With You."
Eric's translation of Rilke's "Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes." appears online at Hermes Poetry. Scroll down to read it.
A brief essay, "Reading for Otherness," appeared on the North American Review blog November 10, 2014.
A short poem, "A Death," appears in The Diagram 12.6.
Eric's short essay "In Passing" is online at bioStories. Scroll down to read it.
"What Is Your Earliest Memory? What Does It Mean?" appears at the Silver Birch Press website.
Full publication information on all of Eric Torgersen's books, with cover images and sample readings, can be found under Books.
All poems and translations on this site copyright © Eric Torgersen.
"I Will Die in Lake Superior" appears in And Here: 100 Years of Upper Peninsula Writing, 1917-2017, ed. Ron Riekki, Michigan State University Press, 2017.
Eric's essay "Gaga's Left Arm" appears in Serving House Journal 15, Fall 2016.
Eric's essay "Writing the American Ghazal" appears in Able Muse, Summer 2015, along with a ghazal, "With You."
Eric's translation of Rilke's "Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes." appears online at Hermes Poetry. Scroll down to read it.
A brief essay, "Reading for Otherness," appeared on the North American Review blog November 10, 2014.
A short poem, "A Death," appears in The Diagram 12.6.
Eric's short essay "In Passing" is online at bioStories. Scroll down to read it.
"What Is Your Earliest Memory? What Does It Mean?" appears at the Silver Birch Press website.
Full publication information on all of Eric Torgersen's books, with cover images and sample readings, can be found under Books.
All poems and translations on this site copyright © Eric Torgersen.