Peter E. Murphy

Poet • Writer • Teacher

Prose

 

Up and Down,” “Funny Tea,” and “The Gun,” in Harpur Palate (Three flash essays from my forthcoming memoir, Once Upon a Time You Lived in a Castle).

Bad Atheist” in Pensive: A Global Journal of Spirituality & the Arts (If religion is supposed to unite people, why are we killing ourselves because of it?)

Their Last Argument” in The Sun (So, who’s the better dancer, Michael Jackson or Fred Astaire?)

The Contender” in Hippocampus (When you realize what he did to you)

Getting Bombed” in The Common (If I wasn’t going to die I would have to change my life.)

Storming the Castle” in Meet Me @19th Street (Winner of the Arch Street Press First Chapter Memoir Prize)

Donald Trump vs. Richard Cory in Atlantic City” in Guernica (What kind of inner life does Donald Trump have?)

Looking for Dylan” in the Schuylkill Valley Journal (Why is Dylan Thomas such a stranger in his native land, Wales?)

There’s Only One Straight Path in Central Park” in Litro (Who knew there were manholes in Central Park?)

“Everything I Write is True, Especially the Stuff I Make Up”  in The Masters Review (Tell a secret, tell a lie, and never tell anyone which is which.)

Foundation Talk” [PDF] in Gravel (Summer, but hardly vacation)

Fools Like Me” [PDF] in Foliate Oak (I don’t do nature)

Getting Over Dorothy” [PDF] in The Offbeat (The scariest movie ever made)

The Dent on Private Murphy’s Forehead” [PDF] in The New Welsh Review (If it wasn’t for WW II, I wouldn’t be here)

Poetry and Transformation” [PDF] in The Journal of Baha’i Studies (Not to be overly dramatic, but poetry saved my life)

Amateur Museum” in Sleet Magazine (Who knew that Paul Robeson was an honorary Welshman?)

The Funnies in Andrea Reads America (It didn’t matter that I lived on the top floor of a six story walk-up, I wanted a horse)

Six Ways To Make People Like You” [PDF] in The Lindenwood Review (Oh, Thelma, what have you done?)

Archived: Selected essays on teaching poetry

Of Millionaires and Mariners” [PDF] from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Teachers’ Digest (Why are the Ancient Mariner and Richard Corey hanging in Atlantic City?)

Breaking through the Abstract” [PDF] from Starting with Delight (Which is more difficult, operating a jackhammer or writing a poem?)

Poems-and-Poetry-Writing-Useful-For-Teaching-Shakespeare” [PDF] from The Shakespeare Quarterly (This was published so long ago, I hardly remember writing it)