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04/15/2015 08:00 AMChris currently has two chapbooks of poetry scheduled for publication this summer—a far cry from his high school days when he admits, “I wasn’t a very good student.”
A North Haven native, Chris played football for the North Haven Indians from 2004 to 2008 and is a graduate of the University of New Haven and Southern Connecticut State University. Chris also played for the Chargers and has been an assistant coach for the North Haven football team for the past five years.
“I wanted to play football, but my mother really wanted to make sure I went to college,” Chris says.
While taking a college creative writing course, Chris was fortunate enough to have renowned poet Randall Horton as his professor.
Horton “was a cool guy that wasn’t your typical stuffy academic. He had an interesting life story, lived a tough road, and didn’t get educated until later in life,” Chris says. “He had really authentic stories and an authentic voice, and I could completely relate to him.”
Chris adds, “I felt that [his story] was like my story because I didn’t have the typical college experience."
Horton inspired Chris to seek a masters in fine arts, the highest degree you can get in literature.
Chris earned his MFA from Southern Connecticut State University while working as a teacher in reading intervention at Fair Haven Middle School. He's currently pursuing his mater's degree in education from Saint Joseph's University. He says he always knew coaching and teaching were in his future.
The surprise for Chris was becoming an author. His mother, Dolores Grillo, is very proud.
His two chapbooks, When Rain Fills the Chasm (Finishing Line Press), and The Six-fold Radial Symmetry of Snow (Zoetic Press), will resonate with those who, “don’t quite fit in,” he says.
His chapbooks tell a fictional coming-of-age story complete with high school football heroics, the disappointments of growing older, love, loyalty, hardship, and ultimately hopefulness set against the backdrop of New Haven County.
North Haven, as well as New Haven’s famous Modern Apizza Restaurant, and references to other New Haven landmarks, such as Long Wharf Harbor, Morris Cove, and Tweed Airport, are scattered throughout the poems.
Chris recently read his poetry to students and faculty at the University of New Haven as well as at New Haven’s Engineering & Science University Interdistrict Magnet School, and says he couldn’t be happier about the responses he’s received to his work.
Prior to these two chapbooks, Chris’s poetry, as well as fiction, has also been (or will soon be) featured in national magazines and anthologies including Extracts, Drunk Monkeys, Noctua Review, Biline, Spry, and Lunch Ticket Press.
Chris is also a proud 2014 Best Indie Lit New England winner, and a 2014 Best of Net nominee.
The backbone of Chris’s writing is his hometown of North Haven and he says that he has always felt a strong connection to the “humble and enduring” qualities of his community, and hopes he conveys those qualities in his forthcoming books.
When not teaching or coaching, Chris enjoys escaping into his writing, working on future poetry pieces.
Chris says the “supportive, tight-knit, loyal community” in North Haven helped him realize that “lofty goals and lofty aspirations are certainly attainable, that things are only impractical if you let them be impractical...Even for a working-class kid” who came to class “with cement on his shoes.”
To nominate a Person of the Week,contact Jaki Lauper at j.lauper@shorepublishing.com.