“To Refract Our Complex Identities: Write an American Ghazal”

María Luisa Arroyo – Born in Manatí, PR & raised in Springfield, MA, María Luisa Arroyo was educated at Colby (BA), Tufts (MA) & Harvard (ABD) in German, her third language. She earned her MFA from the Solstice MFA program at Pine Manor College. In recognition of her numerous poetry community workshops & readings – many in partnership with the Springfield Public Library – Arroyo was named Poet Laureate (2014-2016) of Springfield and 2016 NEPR Arts & Humanities Award recipient. Her poems appear in many journals such as The Common, CALYX, PALABRA, and CHEST: An American Journal for Chest Physicians. Destierro Means More than Exile is her latest chapbook. Her other collections include her chapbook Flight (Thousand Hands Press, 2016) and her full-length collection, Gathering Words: Recogiendo palabras (Bilingual Review/Press, 2008). Currently, she is Assistant Professor of Writing & FYS at Bay Path University in Longmeadow, MA and lives in Springfield, her hometown.