Atsuro Riley Unbound

Author and renowned poet, Atsuro Riley is known for a unique and compressed style that blends complex linguistic structure with striking, refined brevity. We sat down with Atsuro to discover how his upbringing in South Carolina’s lowcountry contributed to southern stylings and diverse cultural awareness. His upbringing and path seem anything but ordinary, and his work speaks to the way in which he challenged traditional training methods, building processes and techniques that provide an unmatched richness to his poetry. From world-building to constructing his own lexical roadmap, Atsuro has manifested a lifetime of work into two incredible pieces. We dive head-first into his most recent work, Heard-Hoard (University of Chicago Press 2021), winner of the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America, to realize portions of his aforementioned process and the rationale behind this work. A reading of Creekthroat and Origin are the reward. While Heard-Hoard continues to take the literary world by storm, his first book, released in 2010, Romey’s Order, garnered the recipit of countless accolades including the Whiting Writers’ Award, the Library of Congress’ Witter Bynner Award, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and The Believer Poetry Award. Atsuro Riley is no stranger to achievement. One thing is clear. Decades of dedication to one’s work brings decades of longevity and truly exceptional form of poetry that will undoubtedly stand the test of time. This is Atsuro Riley, unbound.