Michael Torres was born and brought up in Pomona, California where he spent his adolescence as a graffiti artist. He earned his MFA in creative writing at Minnesota State University, Mankato. His poetry has appeared in Ploughshares, The Georgia Review, Water~Stone Review and as The Missouri Review’s Poem of the Week, among others. Torres has received awards and fellowships from the Minnesota State Arts Board, Jerome Foundation, CantoMundo and the National Endowment for the Arts. His work explores identity via examinations of masculinity and culture.



“All-American Mexican” is a series of poems that grapples with belonging and how, for a person of color living in the United States, the need for acceptance often encourages a kind of assimilation that causes tension between the assimilator and their hometown/culture. Torres is interested in the implications of the term “All-American”: a denotation of excellence (i.e. All-American Security Systems) and how a person (traditionally white, American males, i.e. Jack Armstrong, the All-American boy) can self-identify. Considering his cultural heritage, he is interested in how he himself is, can, and cannot be an All-American. And what does an All-American Mexican look like? Can one exist? In which contexts?



Visit him at michaeltorreswriter.com

Photo by Henry Jimenez