About Peter E. Murphy, Founder/Director
He is a consultant to organizations including Arts Horizons, the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, the Philadelphia Arts in Education Partnership and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and has been an educational advisor to Fooling with Words with Bill Moyers and other PBS poetry programs. Peter has received awards and fellowships from The Atlantic Center for the Arts, Yaddo, The Folger Shakespeare Library, the White House Commission on Presidential Scholars and the New Jersey Council on the Arts. Retired from Atlantic City High School, he continues to teach poetry writing at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. He is also the founder/director of Murphy Writing Seminars which offers the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway, Inservice Solutions Professional Development and other programs for poets, writers and teachers. Peter's Writing Getaways are known for helping writers develop
their craft. Peter is the author two books of poems, Stubborn Child (2005), a finalist for the 2006 Paterson Poetry Prize, and Thorough & Efficient (2008), and his unique poetry writing assignments have been collected in Challenges for the Delusional (2012), all from Jane Street Press.
"Peter Murphy's superb Stubborn Child unflinchingly enacts and
examines his own painful childhood, then moves to the often damaged and
compromised lives of the high school students he teaches. Like the best
delineators of unhappiness, he also brings humor to his task, the dark humor
of a survivor. And indeed this is a survivor's book, both transforming and
transformative — in the end, Murphy the man able to love and affirm, Murphy
the poet able to raise the unruly and the tawdry to the level of art." Reviews of Stubborn Child $14, Available from Jane Street Press and Amazon - or -
In Thorough & Efficient, Peter Murphy gives us a real depiction of the malaise of so-called "inner city" education. Murphy, who taught for 29 years at Atlantic City High School, is relentlessly accurate and often funny as he renders one indelible moment after another. In doing so he replaces the Hollywood script of the "hero" teacher, sacrificing everything so the orchestra can rise at the incipient miracle, with the realities of violence, indifference, intractable corruption, and everyday effort, skill, and decency. If there's any heroism here, it is that Murphy never romanticizes his job or his students, which is probably why he lasted so long. $10, Available from Jane Street Press and Amazon - or -
This anthology compiles a selection of Peter Murphy’s infamous and eccentric poetry-writing prompts. For 18 years he’s shared these prompts at his annual Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway in New Jersey, and this collection features a sampling of the many diverse and wonderful poems that they’ve inspired.
From the Foreword by Stephen Dunn
Spring 2010:
Peter's Principles from New Jersey Lifestyle Magazine
Selected essays on writing poetry:
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Selected
poems:
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Book Peter Murphy. Peter is a dynamic presenter who regularly offers craft workshops, talks on topics such as "The Business of Writing," and readings of his poetry. If you would would like him to work with your group, contact us for availability and pricing. |
Contact Peter
Peter Murphy
peter@murphywriting.com
609-823-5076