Warren Wilson’s MFA For Writers Alum Wins International Poetry Prize
Ada Lambert | April 11, 2024
On March 25, 2024, Carlos Andrés Gómez, a graduate of Warren Wilson College’s (WWC) MFA Program for Writers, was announced as the winner of the prestigious 2024 Yeats International Poetry Prize.
Gómez’s win is a testament to his growth as a poet. His journey from high school athlete to award-winning writer is marked by milestones like the Yeats International Poetry Prize, which celebrates the enduring legacy of one of the world’s greatest poets.
“They do this poetry contest every year,” Gómez said. “They solicit submissions from around the world, and this year, the judge was January O'Neil, who is another credible poet and writer. She picked a poem that I wrote for the prize. And it's a double golden shovel sonnet. The poem is called ‘Double Gold Shovel Sonnet Found on the Q Train.’”
Gómez describes the poem’s structure as “formally innovative.” He tackled the challenge of merging the timeless sonnet form with the contemporary constraints of a double golden shovel, creating a uniquely layered piece.
“My poem is actually in conversation with a poem by Ezra Pound, "In a Station of the Metro," which is 14 words and each line in it begins and ends with the word in the poem. [My poem is] wrestling with the destructive way I was made to think about masculinity, which a lot of my work wrestles with.”
Before receiving accolades like the Yeats Prize, Gómez’s life followed a different path.
Gómez never expected to be a writer — in fact, writing was not truly in his peripheral interest until he was in high school. Growing up the son of a United Nations diplomat, Gómez spoke Portuguese and Spanish primarily until beginning to learn English at the age of five. A few years later, he began to read. Feeling a bit behind the others around him, he oriented himself around athletics.
“I was a very delayed reader and speaker of English,” Gómez said. “Sports were at the center of my life until the end of high school, when I fell in love with poetry very unexpectedly after watching the Film Slam starring Saul Williams and Martín Espada when he came to my high school.”
Gómez was entranced by these writers — they were his introduction to slam poetry, the performance of spoken word poetry. Some slam poetry events are competitive, and set before a panel of judges, whereas some events are open to any readers who are trying to share their work.
“It wasn't reading their work that had been published, though I did do that as well, it was in hearing them recite poems orally, and I think hearing that I was like, ‘oh my my gosh, this does something to a room and transforms a space in real-time in a way that I don't know of anything else having the capacity to do,’ and I’m interested in that,” Gómez said.
After receiving his B.A. in History from Penn State, Gómez wanted to study to become a public defender. After skimming the Law School Admission Test (LSAT), he realized that law was not his passion. Instead, Gómez set off for New York City with a friend.
While working full-time in social work and sex education, Gómez nurtured his passion for poetry, spending weekends performing for high school and college audiences and immersing himself in New York’s vibrant slam poetry scene.
“A lot of my training, when it came to writing and poetry, was informal. I was in the New York literary scene from 1999 up until I moved to Atlanta, where I currently reside,” Gómez said. “I would probably go to two to three poetry open mics a week for the first decade that I was in New York City, which I think had a huge impact on my growth and development as a writer.”
Gómez’s confidence on stage wasn’t limited to poetry. With a background in public speaking, he also explored acting, using his performance skills to engage his audience and deepen the emotional impact of his poetry.
“Before I could call myself a writer, I had a lot of experience and felt quite comfortable being a public speaker, and a lot of that came from protests when I was in high school of various kinds of political organizing and involvement,” Gómez said.
Not only did Gómez have experience with public speaking, but he also was drawn to work in acting. He wanted to invoke a feeling in the audience when reading his work, drawing from his skills to give a powerful performance.
“Perhaps this is also connected to me being a delayed reader and having different kinds of anxieties about the premise of literacy, I think I've often thought of writing as necessarily being rendered orally. Even when I revise my poems, I always say them aloud as a part of the revision process to hear the music and how things are working. I feel like there are things that my ear can notice that my brain can't if I'm just reading it on the page. This is something I've done from the moment I discovered my love of poetry.”
When Gómez discovered WWC’s MFA for Writers program, he was intrigued but apprehensive about leaving his life in New York. His doubts faded as he immersed himself in a community of writers united by a shared commitment to artistic growth.
“I took a huge leap being in the MFA program at [WWC,]” Gómez said. “The faculty I had there had a huge impact on my development. I will forever indebted to what [WWC] made possible. It is a rigorous and transformative MFA experience. I was pushed harder than I thought imaginable. I became on the other side of that program a completely different writer and a completely different artistic voice in a really powerful and good way, not the way I was afraid of when I entered an MFA.”
At WWC, Gómez not only honed his craft but also developed a deeper understanding of the writing process. The MFA experience helped him to push beyond his previous limitations, developing a structured approach to his work that would become key to his success.
“[The program] builds a cadence of generating work that I didn't have the kind of structure or discipline before I entered the program,” Gómez said. “I have a dear friend of mine who is a talented writer who did not go to the MFA program for writers, but I've known him for a long time. We have a practice where we meet up every Friday morning, and we exchange new work. And I think that accountability and that structure has been really important for my writing practice.”
Gómez has also learned that placing too much pressure on his writing can stifle creativity and growth.
“I'm not precious at all about anything I generate,” Gómez said. “I think perfectionism kills us, and I'm a recovering perfectionist. Honestly, I like being reckless with what I generate — I don't care if it's absolute garbage. I don't care if it's awful. I don't care if I cringe because I think it's so poorly constructed later. To me, it's about how I can shape it all through revision and editing everything else. You can't revise an empty page.”
Throughout his growth as a writer, Gómez remains deeply grateful for the mentors and influences who have shaped his journey, acknowledging that his success is a reflection of the many voices that helped guide him, including C. Dale Young, Rodney Jones, Sandra Lim, Gabrielle Calvocoressi and Roger Reeves as well as informal mentors Alan Shapiro and Matthew Olzmann.
Through his poetry, Gómez continues to explore the transformative power of words, not only as a medium for personal expression but as a way to challenge and inspire others.
As Gómez’s poem continues to resonate with those who have heard it, his ongoing body of work stands as a testament to his evolution as a poet. With new projects on the horizon, including the upcoming release of his award-winning poem, Gómez’s journey as a writer is just beginning to unfold. If you would like to read more of his work, visit his website here.