CWU English and Philosophy alum claims top honor in National Poetry Series

Weston Morrow didn’t have any grand ambitions following high school.

When he applied to Central Washington University, he was mainly picking a direction and walking in it with the hope of finding his next step in life, wherever it might be.

The path he started down in 2009, when he enrolled as an English Literature and philosophy major, has led him to the winner’s circle of the prestigious National Poetry Series (NPS), a literary program that sponsors the publication of five books a year chosen from thousands of submissions.

Where he’d expected a box to check on his path to a career, Morrow instead found deep inspiration and caring during his three years at CWU.

“So many things happened during that time that made it possible for me to grow and become a better person,” he said. “The mentorship I was met with in the English department, in the philosophy department, at the Observer, and working at OPR was just an incredible opportunity.”

The NPS, first established in 1978, has become an important mechanism for identifying up-and-coming poets to highlight on the national stage. Even ending up in the top 50 of the competition is an honor, and initially, that was all Morrow set out to do.

“That was pretty much the whole reason I submitted, was to try and end up on that finalist list as a nice little feather in my cap,” said Morrow, who graduated from CWU with his bachelor’s degree in 2012. “When that happened, I was already over the moon, and never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d go on to win the whole thing.”

As a winner, Morrow will see his book of poetry, Cloud Builder, published by the University of Georgia Press, an imprint that has hosted many of his favorite authors.

“The National Poetry Series is very well respected, so it comes with that immediate recognition that this is an accomplishment in its own right,” he said. “I think the real joy of it is getting my manuscript published with the University of Georgia Press, which is behind so many of my favorite books, and seeing five years of my work reach such a broad audience. My book is going to be real, and people are going to read it.”

Morrow started writing the first poem for his book the summer after he finished his M.A. at CWU in 2020, just before enrolling at the University of Illinois for his M.F.A. At that point in his life, he found fascination in the transient things in life, particularly the clouds that give Cloud Builder its name.

“At the time, I was fascinated by paintings of clouds, and this idea of trying to capture something that’s in constant motion,” Morrow said. “It’s a fascinating subject to choose, because it’s such an ephemeral thing that disappears into the background for most people.”

Morrow first saw his passion for writing take hold during his undergraduate studies, where he was exposed to contemporary literature, as well as the journalism that would go on to give him his start on the printed page.

“Working for The Observer changed my life entirely,” Morrow said. “It was this chance to write in a format that I could carry with me beyond school. After college, I went into newspaper writing as a result, and while that ultimately wasn’t what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, it kept me writing for long enough to remember what I loved about it in the first place, and eventually put me on track to working on creative writing and fiction.”

The mentors and friends he met during his years in Ellensburg broadened Morrow’s worldview and kick-started the trains of thought that would eventually coalesce into his soon-to-be-published poetry collection.

“The struggle for the speaker in the book is this question of looking backwards and thinking about the past so much that we forget the people in front of us, and what we owe to them,” he said. “I think that’s something I learned during those years at CWU, that feeling of what I owed to the people around me. The teachers and the people I went to school with showed me what it means to care.”

Morrow currently works as a senior lecturer in English and creative writing at Ohio State University, working on his next manuscript in his free time. As he pours his worldview onto the page, he reflects on the long string of rejections that led to this personal and professional victory.

“What the world sees is the success, but what they don’t see are the hundreds of rejections for poetry submissions that led up to it,” Morrow said. “That’s the process, and if you feel like you’re struggling and wondering whether you’re on the right track, failing means that you’re doing it right."