Blog | Carlos Andrés Gómez

“Ghazal Circling Fatherhood” is today’s featured poem for the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series!

Feels like a dream to see my new piece that wrestles with masculinity, fatherhood, and lineage as today’s featured poem for the Academy of American Poets’ iconic Poem-a-Day series.

Heartfelt gratitude to Willie Perdomo (an impossible bar of literary brilliance & citizenship) for selecting it. I can never overstate the transformative impact of my mentors at Warren Wilson and beyond who indirectly made this poem, and all the new poems, possible.

Thank you in advance to every single person who shares, listens, reads, or teaches this poem. You can listen to a crisp studio recording of me reciting it if you click the “audio” link.

My publisher just confirmed that new copies of “Fractures” arrived in stock earlier this week, so the book order link should work (if you’ve been meaning to get it!).

Lastly, I’m lining up event dates and artist residencies for this fall now, so if you want to host me at your independent school, college, law firm, or company DM me ASAP.

Much love & gratitude,

Carlos

#PoemADay
#AcademyOfAmericanPoets
#PoemADaySeries
#CarlosOnTour

“Where Language Ends” just won the 2025 Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Prize!!

I just got the news that the titular poem of my new poetry manuscript, “Where Language Ends,” has been named the winner of the 2025 Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Prize.

Heartfelt thank you to the judges—Siobhan Kent, Matt Sharkey, Rus Sykes, & Habiba Dokubo-Asari—for selecting my poem from several hundred submissions. I am so honored to see my name alongside these other writers.

I’ve been in a season of brief and momentary breakthroughs, but like so many writers, mostly an almost insatiable flood of rejections, so I’m welcoming this acknowledgement of my work. It’s a poem I care a lot about, which makes this particularly meaningful.

I can never say it enough, but my unfathomably brilliant and generous friend (is not a big enough word), Adam Falkner, has offered the most vital and uncompromising feedback on all of these new poems. What a gift to have beloved friends who make me stretch to try, often in vain, to keep up with them. Without Adam, the new manuscript would not exist.

And, lastly, shoutout to Jon Sands and my Emotional Historians’ familia, with whom and during a generative workshop I drafted the initial version of this poem.

Onward.

#StephenADiBiasePoetryPrize

#WhereLanguageEnds

#EmotionalHistorians

#BackToTheWork

“Circling Fatherhood” named winner of the 2024 Poetry International Chapbook Prize!!

On my best days, I strive to be “full of tenderness and bravado.” What a tremendous honor—

Circling Fatherhood has been named the winner of the 2024 Poetry International Chapbook Prize.

This chapbook, which is excerpted from Where Language Ends, gives a sneak peek at my forthcoming full-length poetry collection and will be published as a portfolio in Issue 30 of Poetry International later this year. I cannot wait for you to read these poems.

My heartfelt gratitude to Sandra Alcosser, Blas Falconer, Meagan Marshall, Piotr Florcyzk, Alejandra Hernández, Luis Torres, & the entire Poetry International Editorial Board. I was completely flabbergasted by this news.

Welcoming in every little bit of light right now.

#CirclingFatherhood
#WhereLanguageEnds
#PoetryInternational
#PoetryInternationalChapbookPrize
#BackToWork

5th print run of “Fractures” underway!

My 14 year-old self would be heartbroken to find out that I never won a Gold medal playing basketball.

My current self: equally bewildered and awed that I got one for some poems.

This mighty little book chugs on (with her new accessories).

Somehow we just sold the last few copies of the current run. Which means, we’re just four years and four months from the book’s release and the 5th print run is underway!

Boundless gratitude to each of you who is teaching “Fractures” to your high school students or MFA advisees. Send me a note if you want me to do a Zoom visit with them to talk about the work.

As always, onward. Tightening screws on this new poetry manuscript. I can’t wait for you to see it.

#NewBookOnDeck

#FracturesBookTour

#WhereLanguageEndsBook

#FifthPrintRun

Some good news to kick off 2025…

Some news to bring a little light into this new year:
“Fractures” just won the North American Book Award, Gold Medal for Poetry.

I do not take lightly that in the history of the North American Book Awards only 3 gold medals have been given out in this category. For “Fractures” to be recognized with one of them is humbling and a complete shock.

Somehow this mighty little book on a scrappy university press has won 7 (!) book awards since its release and found its way to readers across the globe.

While I was in the United Arab Emirates last month, several people came up to me with well-loved copies of “Fractures” that they’ve been reading and teaching in Dubai.

An extremely small percentage of published books make it to a fourth print run, and we’re already down to the last few dozen copies of “Fractures” before we’ll need a fifth printing of the book.

Big shoutout to all of the high school teachers, undergrad/MFA/grad professors, and librarians who’ve recommended, assigned, taught, championed, or made room for “Fractures” on their bookshelf. It means everything.

Back to the work. Onward.

#FracturesBook
#CarlosOnTour
#FelixPollakPrize
#NewManuscriptOnDeck…