Bloomfield College Professor, Poet Nominated For Pushcart Prize

BLOOMFIELD, NJ — Paul La Torre, a creative writing professor at Bloomfield College, has been nominated for a prestigious Pushcart Prize.

Bloomfield College offered a congratulatory message for La Torre, who is also an activist and spoken word performer. He was nominated for his poem, “Dark Arts.”

The Pushcart Prize award, published every year since 1976, honors small presses and writers of short stories, poetry and essays.

The college wrote:

“This past summer, with the help of BC students and alumni, he published Quaranzine, a pandemic-relief literary magazine, I Can't Breathe, a social justice literary magazine, and each year he serves as lead editor of Bloomfield College's annual literary magazine, BC Underground. His first book of poems, Disappearing Boy, was published in March 2020 by Three Mile Harbor Press. Paul's work--which focuses on mental health, disorder, body image, social justice and advocacy--centers many of the issues he is passionate about teaching. Paul graduated from Bloomfield College in 2011, returning in 2016 to teach a community he calls home.”

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