J. Michael Martinez
Encyclopedia
Life
J. Michael Martinez was born and raised in Greeley, ColoradoGreeley, Colorado
The City of Greeley is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of Weld County, Colorado, United States. Greeley is located in the region known as Northern Colorado. Greeley is situated north-northeast of the Colorado State Capitol in Denver. According to the...
. He is a graduate of the University of Northern Colorado
University of Northern Colorado
-Organization:The University of Northern Colorado offers 100 undergraduate programs and more than 100 graduate programs. The university has a satellite campus in Denver, Colorado...
, and George Mason University
George Mason University
George Mason University is a public university based in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, south of and adjacent to the city of Fairfax. Additional campuses are located nearby in Arlington County, Prince William County, and Loudoun County...
, with an MFA in creative writing. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in literature at the University of Colorado at Boulder
University of Colorado at Boulder
The University of Colorado Boulder is a public research university located in Boulder, Colorado...
, and teaches literature and cultural studies there.
His work has appeared in New American Writing, Five Fingers Review, The Colorado Review, and Crab Orchard Review.
He is the recipient of the 2006 Five Fingers Review Poetry Prize and is co-editor and co-founder of Breach Press. Martinez and Gomez had a panel at the 2009 AWP
Association of Writers & Writing Programs
The Association of Writers & Writing Programs is a literary organization whose mission is "to foster literary talent and achievement, to advance the art of writing as essential to a good education, and to serve the makers, teachers, students, and readers of contemporary writing."-Members:AWP...
conference together.
In 2009, Martinez's poetry collection Heredities was selected by Juan Felipe Herrera
Juan Felipe Herrera
Juan Felipe Herrera is a poet, performer, writer, cartoonist, teacher, and activist.The only son of María de la Luz Quintana and Felipe Emilio Herrera, the three were campesinos living from crop to crop, and from tractor to trailer to tents on the roads of the San Joaquín Valley, Southern...
for the Academy of American Poets' Walt Whitman Award for first book publication. About his work, Herrera wrote:
Heredities breaks away from four decades of inquiry into cultural identity. Martinez's exhilarating descent into the unspoken—lit by metaphysical investigations, physiological charts, and meta-translations of Hernán Cortés's accounts of his conquests—gives voice to a dismembered continental body buried long ago. This body, though flayed and fractured, rises and sings.
Awards
- 2006 Five Fingers Review Poetry Prize
- 2009 Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American PoetsAcademy of American PoetsThe Academy of American Poets is a non-profit organization dedicated to the art of poetry. The Academy was incorporated as a "membership corporation" in New York State in 1934...
.