Now this piece really has something powerful to say!” An awed spectator at the 2018 Luna Fest was cheering for Torey’s collaboration with Media Arts student Brandon Ellis, projected onto the majestic Gallier Hall downtown. Based on Torey’s poem “The Sins of a Clockmaker” the piece’s vision, urgency and fierce originality energized the crowd.

The Creative Writing faculty has watched Torey’s fearless artmaking evolve over his nearly three years here. When he first arrived at NOCCA, he was shy and smart, a student with insights that he often kept to himself. Since then, he’s grown into a confident young man with a voracious appetite for literature and critical thought, becoming a leader in and outside of the Creative Writing program. He also tutors young writers at 826 New Orleans where he’s a member of the youth council. Kind, joyful and generous, Torey is one of the hardest working students we know.

Watching Torey develop his writing has been inspiring. His independent study of Toni Morrison was transformational. When one faculty member asked him this fall what had changed with his writing over the summer, he said that after reading Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, he realized he couldn’t wait any longer to become the writer he deserves and desires to be. And he hasn’t. He’s become a writer willing to take risks even if he’s uncertain of the outcome, a young man with a keen intellect and an ear for lyricism.

Seeing Torey’s poetry illuminated and magnified across Gallier Hall for Luna Fest felt prescient, a reflection of the expansiveness of his vision and also of his goals for himself and his hopes for the world.