Luisa Muradyan

Biography

Luisa Muradyan is originally from Odesa, Ukraine, and came to the United States as a Jewish refugee. She is the author of I Make Jokes When I’m Devastated (SMU Project Poetica, 2025), When the World Stopped Touching (YesYes Books, 2027), and American Radiance (University of Nebraska Press, 2018). She holds a Ph.D. in Poetry from the University of Houston and won the 2017 Raz/ Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize. Additionally, Muradyan is a member of the Cheburashka Collective, a group of women and nonbinary writers from the former Soviet Union. Additional work can be found at Best American Poetry, the Threepenny Review, Ploughshares, and Only Poems, among others.

What is the relationship between Judaism and/or Jewish culture and your poetry?

I often write about my Jewish identity, both from the perspective of an immigrant from the Soviet Union and as a bridge to connect with my ancestors.

Published Works

When the World Stopped Touching (YesYes Books, 2027)

I Make Jokes When I’m Devastated (SMU Bridwell Press, 2025)

American Radiance (University of Nebraska Press, 2018)

Links to Sample Works

OnlyPoems, Selection of Poems 

The Sun, I Make Jokes When I’m Devastated 

Narrative, My Daughter’s Daughter is Sad 

Subject Matter

Childhood, Cultural Identity, Death, Diaspora, Eastern Europe, Family, Friendship, Grief & Elegy, History, Intergenerational Trauma, Jewishness, Loss, Love, Marriage, Motherhood/Fertility, Narrative, Parenting, Shoah, Genocide, Trauma, War, Visual Art, Feminism, Pop Culture, Sports, Violence, Immigration, Intimacy.

Profile created by Luisa Muradyan.