The Writing University conducts a series of interviews with writers while they are in Iowa City participating in the various University of Iowa writing programs. We sit down with authors to ask about their work, their process and their descriptions of home.
Today we are speaking with Laura Jaramillo, an instructor at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. Laura will be teaching the online workshop "Poetry and the Art of the Page: Breaking It Apart and Putting It Back Together" April 5, 2025 - April 26, 2025. There is still time to sign up here!
Laura Jaramillo is a poet and critic. Born to Colombian parents in Queens, New York, she now lives in Durham, North Carolina. Her books include Material Girl (subpress, 2012) and Making Water (Futurepoem, 2022). She holds a PhD in critical theory from Duke University. She co-runs the North Carolina-based reading and performance series Paradiso.
1. Can you tell us a little bit about the course that you are teaching for the Iowa Summer Writing Festival?
The course I'm teaching Poetry and the Art of the Page is about paying attention to all the visual aspects of poetry that we may take for granted. I find that sometimes we get overly focused on what the poem is saying and forget that the poem communicates in a lot of other ways that are visual. I became interested in teaching this course because whenever I did intensive editing and reconfiguring of pages in my own workshops, my students often expressed that they'd like to get more hands-on time to do this type of work. This course gives you the opportunity to intensely focus on the visual aspects of writing poetry and how they affect the ways we understand poetry.
2. What is the inspiration for your own work right now?
In keeping with the visual focus of my class, I am perpetually inspired to write by film and my new manuscript Burning Sequence includes writing on a number of films including Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors by Segei Parajanov, Days of Heaven by Terrence Mallick, and Melancholia by Lars Von Trier.
3. Do you have a daily writing routine?
I write whenever I can, but prefer to do so late at night.
4. Tell us about where you are from - what are some favorite details you would like to share about your home?
I am from Queens, New York but I currently live in Durham, North Carolina. My favorite thing about Queens is that there is excellent food from every part of the globe and people speak so many different languages, all compressed into very little space. My favorite thing about Durham, my adopted home, is the Eno River, which I live very close to. I love going to the river with friends in the warm months and hanging out there until we get sunburned.
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Check out Laura Jaramillo's ISWF course!:
Poetry and the Art of the Page: Breaking It Apart and Putting It Back Together
Apr 5, 2025 - Apr 26, 2025