Mariela Griffor


Mariela Griffor, is a poet, editor, publisher of Marick Press and diplomat. She is author of four poetry collections, Exiliana, House, The Psychiatrist and most recently, Declassified, and has had her poems and translations published in many literary journals and magazines including Poetry International, Washington Square Review, Texas Poetry Review, and Éditions d'art Le Sabord, in anthologies including Poetry in Michigan / Michigan in Poetry, from New Issues Press. A variety of Griffor's poems has been translated into Italian, French, Chinese, Swedish, and Spanish. She has been nominated to the Griffin Poetry Prize, to the Whiting Awards and the PEN/Beyond Margins Award. She was finalist and shortlisted for the 2017 National Translation Award for Canto General by Pablo Neruda.

Early life

Griffor was born in Concepcion, Chile. She attended the University of Santiago and the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. She left Chile for an involuntary exile in Sweden in 1985. Griffor holds a B.A in Journalism from Wayne State University and a M.F.A in Creative Writing from New England College. She and her American husband returned to the United States in 1998. They live in Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan.

Career

Griffor is co-founder of the institute for Creative Writers at Wayne State University and Publisher of Marick Press. Her work has appeared in Passages North, Cerise Press, Washington Square Review, Texas Poetry Review and many others. She is the author of Exiliana and House. Her latest publication are The Psychiatrist . She is honorary consul of Chile in Michigan.
Griffor writes about her homeland of Chile, and her immigrant experiences as an exile in both Sweden and the United States.

Works

Griffor, who is bilingual, is a rare exception among lyrical Chilean writers that publishes here and in other places. In Resolana one notices an exceptional consistency, a coherence in contrast to the robust naturalism of our tradition and, above all, a profound cultural formation – without a doubt, immersed in the North American lyric, especially Emily Dickinson, Wallace Stevens, Elizabeth Bishop, Marianne Moore – consolidated in hymns to the common and current, in the everyday, in the allusion to the flora and fauna that, without extending in manifest form, uses symbols and literary resources so that the verbal weight asserts itself to her readers.
If one has to position Griffor within the recent history of Chilean poetry, her art is closest to poets such as Jorge Teillier, Delia Domínguez and the early Enrique Lihn.

Poetry

Reviews of books
1. Exiliana
• http://cutbankpoetry.blogspot.com/2007/02/exiliana-by-mariela-griffor.html
• https://web.archive.org/web/20140222170658/http://ravenchronicles.org/Reviews/13-1Kaminsky.html
• http://www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/2007/01/11/marielas-exiliana/
• http://www.themontserratreview.com/bookreviews/Exiliana.html
2. House
3. The Psychiatrist
http://www.artifizz.org/Wordpress/tag/mariela-griffor/
4. Ma Demeure Brule
5. Il rumore della pioggia nel Michigan
6. Heartland
7. Poemas Militantes
8. ANTHOLOGY OF CHILEAN WRITERS: Poetry International
9. ANTHOLOGY: WORKING WORDS: Punching the clock and kicking out the jams
10. ANTHOLOGY: Poetry in Michigan/Michigan Poetry
11. DETROIT ANTHOLOGY
12. TYGERBURNING Literary Journal
13. TYGERBURNING Literary Journal
14. Resolana
Marks, Camilo. "Resolana/Sunspots by Mariela Griffor". Web del Sol.
Etcheverry, Jorge. "En torno a un libro de Mariela Griffor". letras.s5.com.
15. Sunspots and other poems
16. House in Chinese
17. House
Reviews and publications of individual poems
1. Poems Curls and Prologue in Cerise Press: http://www.cerisepress.com/01/01/seeking-a-new-you-speaking-with-mariela-griffor/view-all
2. Cimarron Review: http://cimarronreview.com/issue-186-winter-2014/
3. Texas Poetry Review: http://www.borderlands.org/current_issue.htm
4. Poem: Poem Without a Number: House http://mayapplepress.com/house-mariela-griffor/
5. Poem Wings, Clarification and Ether in ithacalit: http://ithacalit.com/mariela-griffor.html
6. Poems Boys and Prayer to a farm worker: Working Words: Punching the Clock and Kicking Out the Jams
7. Poem The Sonnets of the Death http://www.talismanmag.net/mistralgriffor.html
8. Poem Chiloe Island http://www.acentosreview.com/november_2012/Griffor.html
9. Poem Crisis http://amoskeagjournal.com/2013-2-2/2013-mariela-griffor-crisis/
10. Five poems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HUJjVkgXsU
11. Poem Code Names http://ghosttownlitmag.com/mariela-griffor/
12. Poem The Year of the Plague http://calderaculture.com/author/marielagriffor/
13. http://aldebaranreview.com/ar_fall_2012
14. http://www.2river.org/2RView/17_1/poems/griffor.html
15. http://jmwwjournal.com/Winter2014Index.html
16. http://borderbend.bandcamp.com/album/translating-2010
17. http://pionline.wordpress.com/2013/11/05/on-mariela-griffors-after-death/
18. http://dailydoseoflit.com/2012/11/13/poem-mariela-griffor/
19. Translations: http://epc.buffalo.edu/presses/SN/files/GrifforSNI2.pdf
20. https://web.archive.org/web/20130818104343/http://www.poetrybooks.co.uk/news/344/pbs_winter_choices
21. http://www.thebaconreview.com/featureone.php?id=29
22. http://passagesnorth.com/archives/issue-31/
23. https://web.archive.org/web/20140415155744/http://washingtonsquarereview.com/archives/issue-25/
24. http://www.thecafereview.com/?m=201302