Erwin Arroyo is a poet, translator and literary researcher, based in London. He is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Poetry Lighthouse, and PhD researcher at Queen Mary Univerity of London. His doctoral research focuses on Modernist and Contemporary poetry, with particular attention to Creative Health.

In 2025, he was selected for the Poetics Lab Programme at the London Writers Centre, an intensive six-month advancement programme featuring workshops and seminars led by award-winning poets including Pascale Petit, Malika Booker, Victoria Kennefick, Alycia Pirmohamed, Sarah Howe, Richard Scott, Nii Ayikwei Parkes, Anthony Anaxagorou, Fiona Benson, and Caroline Bird.

Originally from Mexico, he graduated in English from Université Paris Nanterre and King’s College London before completing a Master’s degree in English Literature and Linguistics, where his research explored notions of work and idleness in Victorian literature and poetry - including Chalrles Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell. During his years in Paris, he worked as a translator and interpreter in English, Spanish, and French. He was also awarded the BNP Paribas Award for New Entrepreneurs for founding The Poetry Lighthouse.

His literary interests range from Victorian literature to Modernist and Contemporary poetry, with particular attention to themes of diaspora, migration, identity, and belonging. Among the writers and poets who have shaped his work are Virginia Woolf, Mary Shelley, Franz Kafka, Hilda Doolittle, Claude McKay, T. S. Eliot, Rumi, Sylvia Plath, Ocean Vuong, Sarah Howe, and Li-Young Lee.

Outside literature, he is passionate about musical theatre, likes hanging out with friends, having a nice gym session, or taking a stroll around his favourite parks.

Published poems:

• Silence bears no fruit — Magma Poetry

• Ode to the California Dogface Butterfly — Nature of Our Times, Paloma Press

• Syntax of a Tide — The Winged Moon

• New York City at Night — Ink Sweat & Tears

• A Girl Learns Geometry in Afghanistan — Wildscape Lit

• Gregor Returns (after Kafka’s Metamorphosis) — Apricot Press

• Grocery Store, 11:03pm — Apricot Press

• the girl who swallowed a star — Angry Gable Press

• A Man and his Midnight — Cosmic Daffodil Journal

• English is my second language — Short list finalist; The Goodlife Review

• How to Eat the Moon — Jewel City Review

• One Wish — Jewel City Review

• Ask the Graystone Trees — Jewel City Review

• Only In Our Minds We Live In The Past — Respublica Politics magazine

• Average Lives — The Poetry Lighthouse

• Deja-vu is you — The Poetry Lighthouse

• Her Wrinkled Hands — The Poetry Lighthouse

• The Last Drop in the Glass — The Poetry Lighthouse

Articles and academic essays:

• Epic, Scripture, and the Human Condition: Gilgamesh in Dialogue with the Bible — The Poetry Lighthouse

Translations (Spanish & French to English):

• Moonbeam (“Claire de Lune” by Paule Verlaine)— The Poetry Lighthouse

• Civilisation (“Civilizacion” by Jaime Torres Bodet) — The Poetry Lighthouse

• Ambition (“Ambicion” by Jaime Torres Bodet) — The Poetry Lighthouse

• August (“Agosto” by Jaime Torres Bodet) — The Poetry Lighthouse

Short Stories:

• Till We Meet Again — The Poetry Lighthouse

Research thesis:

• Work and Idleness in Victorian Literature — Nanterre University Press

Interviews (YouTube videos & Podcasts):

• Ecopoetry with Luisa A. Igloria | The Poetry Lighthouse

• Diasporic and Medical poetry with Romalyn Ante | The Poetry Lighthouse

• “The Beautiful Keeps Breathing” with Claire Coenen | The Poetry Lighthouse

• Poetry in educational settings with Juelz Davenport | The Poetry Lighthouse

• Poetry and mental health with Ally Loyns | The Poetry Lighthouse