Politics & Poetics with torrin a. greathouse
~ Allison Schneider
This fall, the Fordham English community welcomed award-winning poet and essayist torrin a. greathouse as the featured writer at the annual Mary Higgins Clark Keynote Address. Over 250 students and faculty gathered at Fordham Lincoln Center on October 22 to hear greathouse read, lecture, and discuss her ground-breaking poetry. The much-anticipated annual Mary Higgins Clark event is made possible by a generous endowment from renowned novelist and FCLC alumna, Mary Higgins Clark. Over the years, the series has given students the opportunity to hear from a number of acclaimed authors across several genres and celebrated adding greathouse to that list this year.
torrin a. greathouse is a transgender cripple-punk poet and essayist. She is the author of two poetry collections: DEED (Wesleyan University Press, 2024), winner of the 2025 Barbara Gittings Prize in Poetry, a Stonewall Book Award; and Wound from the Mouth of a Wound (Milkweed Editions, 2020), a Minnesota Book Award and CLMP Firecracker Award finalist, and winner of the 2022 Kate Tufts Discovery Award. Their work has been featured in several publications, including Poetry Magazine, New York Times Magazine, and The Kenyon Review. They are also the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Effing Foundation for Sex-Positivity, Zoeglossia, The Ragdale Foundation, and the University of Arizona Poetry Center. greathouse currently teaches at Pacific Lutheran University’s low-residency MFA program.
Before the event, students and faculty gathered in the Lowenstein 12th Floor Lounge, many of them with greathouse’s first book in tow. Ahead of her visit, Fordham English students received copies of Wound from the Mouth of a Wound from the English Department to inspire dialogue with greathouse and her work.
Professor Sarah Gambito, co-director of the creative writing program, began the event by welcoming the attendees and introducing greathouse to the audience.
To begin the address, greathouse read six of their poems and encouraged the audience to snap, nod, and murmur in response to lines or phrases that resonated with them. The room buzzed with sounds of appreciation as greathouse read through her setlist of poems including, “An Ugly Poem,” “Gait Training,” Sick4Sick,” and “Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination Before a Diagnosis Can Be Determined.”
Following the poetry reading, greathouse began her lecture titled “Fly-Trap Poetics: Alienation & the Refusal of Empathy.” In her address, she touched on her childhood experiences with homelessness and spoke about the transphobia and ableism she has witnessed and personally endured. These sentiments are only growing in our current political climate, greathouse explained, citing hundreds of anti-LGBTQ+ bills proposed in legislatures across the country. “I have been forced to begin making a mental tally of states where, in the future, I might be unable to live or perform without being jailed,” she said.
greathouse then described how their poetry is linked to their identity and politics. They spoke to the audience about poet and theorist Ava Hoffman’s visual essay series “Trap Poetics,” which proposes the weaponization of underperformance to “implicate the reader into their position as audience.” greathouse said her collection DEED was crafted with this in mind, but she adapted Hoffman’s work to her own purposes.
Received form and lyricism feature prominently in greathouse’s poetry, so Hoffman’s weaponization of underperformance doesn’t always fit greathouse’s style. In response, greathouse concluded her lecture by proposing a “Fly-Trap Poetics” where form and lyricism become tools for the expression of transgender and disabled identity and politics. “The formal and lyric flourishes allow me to Trojan Horse my politics,” they said, “into rooms where my voice, where the experiences of those like me, would never otherwise be heard.”
Following greathouse’s lecture, she sat down for a student-led Q&A session to discuss her work and her life as a poet. She spoke about some of the surprising places she finds inspiration for her poetry, including everything from anime to protest signs. greathouse also discussed the importance of teaching living, contemporary poets to young students. She encouraged attendees to read more poetry and to let these living poets inspire their own work. Finally, greathouse concluded the conversation by telling English students to embrace play in their poetry. She said even when she is writing about something dark, the process still has to be fun and exciting. This sense of play is part of what motivates her to continue writing.
After the conclusion of the Q&A, students and faculty were able to have their copies of Wound from the Mouth of a Wound signed by greathouse. The line of students waiting for the opportunity to meet greathouse snaked around the 12th Floor Lounge, and excited chatter rippled through the queue as attendees continued the discussion that greathouse began with their reading and keynote address.