Visiting Writer: Eric Morris

Where to begin? Eric was a senior Chef and Restaurant Management student at the Career Center when I began teaching in 2002. Now he is a first year Northeastern Ohio Universities Masters of Fine Arts student in the consortium. Among other things, Eric is a self-proclaimed failed rock star, teacher at the University of Akron, and (perhaps most importantly) appreciates a good hot deli Italian sandwich.

Eric braved the elements to visit my fiction class at the Career Center. The class felt very comfortable asking questions, and Eric was as comfortable answering them. The students appreciated Eric’s down-to-earth-ness, his Rural Mythologies, and his beard. At my request, Eric read a portion of his mythologies piece titled “Religion,” and chose his favorite—“Tomatoes” in which we were made to feel the difference between a hound and a dog, and learned that even though Eric might not like tomatoes, he writes a lot about them…whether hitting them (hopeful baseball-sized rotten fireworks) with bats, or in the form of ketchup-packet body calligraphy.

Eric’s poems are like multi-course meals for the head; they’re stacked with startling imagery, hilarious moments, clever turns, and distinct voices. In Morris’ poems we’re as likely to meet a sword swallower as a seemingly broken man in a powder blue tuxedo singing a tearful “Total Eclipse of the Heart” to his own reflection. Above all, Eric’s poems crack, sizzle and cook with originality.



If y’all can stand the cliche—Eric’s visit provided some much needed soul food on a dreary day. You rock Eric. Thanks for the reading!