Edward Vidaurre
Edward Vidaurre is an award-winning poet and author of nine collections of poetry. He is the 2018-2019 City of McAllen, Texas Poet Laureate, 2022 inductee to the Texas Institute of Letters, and publisher of FlowerSong Press. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Texas Observer, Los Angeles Review of Books, as well as other journals and anthologies. He has edited over 50 books and anthologies. Vidaurre resides in McAllen, Texas with his wife and daughter where they foster dogs in need until they find their forever homes.
Edward Vidaurre's EL VIEJO takes the reader on a resigned journey into life, much like a determined man walking to the gallows but with a much much different gasp at the end.
—Juan Ochoa is the author of the novel Mariguano and its prequel Pa'l Otro Lado and Other Tales of Bad Hombres and Nasty Women
This collection by Edward Vidaurre, EL VIEJO, is an intimate work of wonder. Edward takes the time to “write about everything, catastrophes and small sadnesses/” He weaves you through his memories, all the legends, all the tenderness in the abundance of a life lived. To open up each page is to sit with his voice, his musings, his heartbreaks, his loves, his insides. He does not hide a thing in this collection. He has “written many poems about this solace and hurt.” You cannot look away from this masterful voice; instead, take each line, like a breath, let it fill you up. This is a collection that will leave you full.
—Lupe Mendez, Texas Poet Laureate Emeritus (2022 – 2023)
EL VIEJO by Edward Vidaurre gives the ‘coming of age’ genre a new turn through a suite of American poems about the battle of desire against time. We read of baseball, radios, cars, knives, and cops pulling over young men with guns under the dashboard and lifelong dreams of bullets whizzing by. EL VIEJO aches with a nostalgia for sweet sorrows of yesteryears, such as the first kiss of deep desire—and feels the lingering emptiness of a boyhood mitt that missed a legendary stray ball that flew by into the stands. Whether the poet harps on a detail of loss accepted or tries to rekindle the ol’ time feeling by singing along to his mother’s favorite love song on vinyl—Vidaurre offers us a big-hearted take on the pains of aging. It’s not bitterness that endures in these poems but a palpable desire for what’s ahead.
It’s been over 30 years, I haven’t been to a baseball game
in over 10 years or so. Now I just relish in the homeruns
caught on television out there on left field especially
where I celebrate the foul balls and any ball hit into a crowd
—Tess O’Dwyer, co-edited Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas (Routledge) and Poets, Philosophers, Lovers: On the Writings of Giannina Braschi (Pittsburgh)
Description:
Edward Vidaurre introduces students to Federico García Lorca’s concept of duende—a force of heightened emotion, struggle, and deep creative risk.
Through discussion, literary excerpts, and guided writing prompts, students explore the darker and more vulnerable regions of the self. Participants begin by identifying something precious and allowing a figurative shadow to fall across it, then move into writing exercises that embrace contradiction—love with hate, beauty with ache, joy with grief. The workshop emphasizes emotional courage over technical perfection and invites students to write from the “soles of the feet,” where authentic voice resides.
Students leave with new drafts and a deeper understanding of how risk and vulnerability create powerful, resonant poetry.
Purpose:
This workshop encourages writers to move beyond surface craft and into emotional truth. By engaging Lorca’s concept of duende, students learn that poetry is not merely technique but a struggle toward authenticity—writing that feels lived, urgent, and necessary Participants gain tools for accessing deeper imagery, embracing contradiction, and trusting instinct in their creative process.
Schedule:
Introduction to Duende (Lorca & Concept Overview) – 10 minutes Definition of duende, Lorca’s “Theory and Play of the Duende,” and discussion of heightened emotion in art
Discussion: Possibility of Death / Emotional Risk – 10 minutes
What does Lorca mean when he says duende will not come without the possibility of death in the room?
Prompt 1: Precious Things & Shadow Exercise – 10 minutes List meaningful objects/people; allow a figurative shadow to fall across one
Prompt 2: Love with Hate – 5–10 minutes
Write about love while embracing its ache, sorrow, or contradiction
Prompt 3: Supermarket / Everyday Duende – 10–15 minutes Placing the self in a familiar setting and locating the deeper emotional undercurrent
Student Sharing & Reflection – 20–30 minutes
Optional Extended Writing & Reading Time – 20–40 minutes
Total Time: 70–120 minutes (flexible for class period or 2-hour session)
Description:
In this interactive workshop based on poems from El Viejo (El Martillo Press, 2025), Edward Vidaurre guides students through writing about memory, survival, family, masculinity, and the landscapes that shape identity. Through selected readings and generative prompts, participants explore personal history—from barrio streets and childhood trauma to complicated relationships with parents and self. The workshop emphasizes emotional honesty, cultural memory, and transformation through language. Students leave with new drafts that confront where they come from and who they are becoming.
Purpose:
:This workshop helps writers examine survival, generational memory, and identity through poetry. By engaging lived experience—grief, resilience, neighborhood, faith, and forgiveness—participants learn to transform personal history into powerful, image-driven work rooted in authenticity.
Schedule:
Opening Reading: Aging & Reflection – 10 minutes
Reading from El Viejo Discussion on regret, forgiveness, masculinity, and self-reckoning.
Memory as Survival – 10 minutes
Brief reading from Survival and/or PTSD Barrio Edition Conversation about growing up in survival mode vs. living with intention.
Prompt 1: “I Am Still Alive” – 10–15 minutes
Inspired by Survival Students write about a moment they survived—physically, emotionally, spiritually.
Prompt 2: Writing the Parent (Present or Absent) – 10–15 minutes Inspired by Dear Father or Canciones de mamá Students address a parent or guardian directly—what was said, unsaid, or imagined.
Prompt 3: The Streets We’re From – 10–15 minutes
Inspired by "The Streets Is Where We From." Write about a neighborhood, street, or space that shaped you—include sensory detail.
Sharing & Reflection – 20–30 minutes
Optional Extended Prompt: Forgiving the Self – 15–20 minutes
Return to El Viejo and write toward forgiveness
Total Time: 70–120 minutes (flexible)
Description:
In this deeply reflective workshop drawn from poems in El Viejo (El Martillo Press, 2026), Edward Vidaurre invites participants to explore grief, depression, trauma, and survival through poetry. Using selected readings and guided prompts, writers confront personal loss, inherited silence, and the emotional toll of living in survival mode. The workshop creates a supportive space where vulnerability becomes strength and language becomes a tool for healing. Participants leave with new work that names what hurts—and what keeps them here.
Purpose:
This workshop encourages writers to approach grief and mental health with honesty and courage. By examining how trauma lives in memory and the body, participants learn to transform silence into language and isolation into connection. The goal is not perfection—but survival, clarity, and voice.
Schedule:
Opening Reading: Naming the Ache – 10 minutes
Selections from A Grief Reminder, Dear Father, and Spirit of Many Novenas Brief discussion: the difference between accepted grief and unresolved grief.
Mental Health & Survival Mode – 10 minutes
Excerpt from PTSD Barrio Edition Conversation about “when you’re always surviving, you can’t dream.”
Prompt 1: Two Griefs – 10–15 minutes
Inspired by Spirit of Many Novenas. Write about two different losses—one you understand, one you don’t.
Prompt 2: The Body Remembers – 10–15 minutes
Inspired by Gout, Madness, or The End. Students write about how grief or anxiety shows up physically in the body.
Prompt 3: What I Don’t Say Out Loud – 10–15 minutes
Inspired by PTSD Barrio Edition and the closing confessional sections of the book. Write the truth you usually soften when someone asks, “How are you?”
Sharing & Community Reflection – 20–30 minutes
Emphasis on listening, consent, and supportive feedback.
Optional Closing Exercise: Writing Toward Survival – 10 minutes Write a short piece that ends with breath, heartbeat, prayer, or endurance.
Total Time: 70–120 minutes (flexible)
BOOKING
To inquire about booking Edward Vidaurre for a paid reading or workshop: