Associate director of the Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House, Dolapo Demuren, was awarded the 2025 Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship this summer for his manuscript American Love Sonnets.
Demuren’s chapbook explores themes of filial and paternal relationships, as well as how social, environmental and generational factors influence love poetry through those connections.
Demuren, who attended the University of Maryland before transferring to Johns Hopkins to complete his undergraduate degree, began his writing career at DeMatha Catholic High School in Hyattsville. He was elated when he found out he won the fellowship.
“As a writer, a lot of times you kind of have yourself as the barometer,” he said. “So, it was great to have outside recognition.”
Laura Lauth, one of Demuren’s former professors and the founding director of the Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House, said Demuren showed extreme promise during his time at this university and was one of the best students she ever had.
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“His work is moving,” Lauth said. “It’s deeply engaged in, kind of, issues of our culture and this moment in time where we need voices that are deeply conscious of injustice.”
Lauth said Demuren dedicated time to revising not only his own work, but the work of his peers, which she said demonstrated “the final mark of outstanding students.”
“He gave excellent feedback to his peers, and he was a really committed, energetic member of our community as well,” Lauth said.
As an instructor, some of Demuren’s students said he is charismatic, encouraging and deeply dedicated to the success of his students.
“In the classroom, he’s very laid back — he’s chill, but his lectures are really well thought out as well,” Lucy Bryan, a junior philosophy major and Writers’ House member, said. “The content itself isn’t difficult, but it really makes you think … and he’s really funny, too,”
Demuren said he gets a lot of his inspiration from film. The works of Taiwanese filmmaker Edward Yang are of particular interest to Demuren, who said he finds them to be insightful exploration of perspective, influence and individual systems of belief.
Demuren also finds inspiration in poets past, present and future.
“The work that I’m writing is a conversation between myself, Langston Hughes, Walt Whitman and generations that come after me,” he said.
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Demuren said he hopes to publish the larger poetry collection that subsumes his award-winning chapbook.
For fledgling writers and poets, Demuren suggests finding mentors who support their passions, believe in them and allow them to engage in greater artistic conversation.
“The work that we’re creating, it’s like we’re in one big conversation,” Demuren said. “And a cool way to know where you can fit in that conversation is to engage with people who are already engaging, you know, in that conversation.”
