SAVE THE DATE: Tuesday, August 18

 One Poem: A Protest Reading in

Support of Black Lives

  

The founding members of the Poetry Coalition, a network of 25+ poetry organizations from across the United States, are honored to present One Poem: A Protest Reading in Support of Black Lives on Tuesday,August 18 at 8 PM EST via live broadcast. In this nationwide reading curated by the coalition, a poet invited by each founding member organization will share a poem in support of Black lives.

Letras Latinas, the literary initiative at the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies, has invited Emma Trelles to perform her poem, “How We Lived.”

 

 

Emma Trelles is the daughter of Cuban immigrants and the author of Tropicalia (University of Notre Dame Press), winner of the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize, a finalist for Foreword/Indies poetry book of the year, and a recommended read by The Rumpus. She is currently writing a second book of poems, Courage and the Clock.  Her work has been anthologized in Verse Daily, Best American Poetry, Best of the Net, Political Punch: Contemporary Poems on the Politics of Identity, and others.  Recent poems appear or are forthcoming in the Poetry Coalition’s "One Poem: A Protest Reading in Support of Black Lives"; the Santa Barbara Literary Journal; the South Florida Poetry Journal; SWWIM;  Zócalo Public Square; the Colorado Review; and  Spillway.  A CantoMundo Fellow and a recipient of an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, she lived and worked for many years as an arts journalist in South Florida and now lives with her husband in California, where she teaches at Santa Barbara City College and curates the Mission Poetry

Full Roster of Poets

Prisca Afantchao

Sojourner Ahebee

Kazim Ali

Kimberly Blaeser

Jericho Brown

Meera Dasgupta

Kwame Dawes

Tongo Eisen-Martin

Safia Elhillo

Martín Espada

Sesshu Foster

Kimberly Jae

Raina J. León

Mwatabu S. Okantah

Alberto Ríos

Terisa Siagatonu

Matthew Thompson

Emma Trelles

Nikki Wallschlaeger

Monica Youn

avery r. young

This virtual event is free. Attendees will have the opportunity to contribute funds to support organizations nationwide working against injustice.

 RSVP for One Poem: A Protest Reading in Support of Black Lives

 

About the Poetry Coalition

The Poetry Coalition is a national alliance of more than 25 organization dedicated to working together to promote the value poets bring to our culture and the important contribution poetry makes in the lives of people of all ages and backgrounds. Members are nonprofit organizations whose primary mission is to promote poets and poetry, and/or multi-genre literary organizations that serve poets with disabilities and of specific racial, ethnic, or gender identities, backgrounds, or communities. All members present poets at live events. Each March, members present programming across the country on a theme of social importance. The Poetry Coalition is coordinated by the Academy of American Poets and we are grateful to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for its support of this work.

Darrel Alejandro Holnes wins the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize

Darrel Alejandro Holnes

Letras Latinas, the literary initiative of the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies, is pleased to announce that Darrel Alejandro Holnes as the latest recipient of the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize. Named after the late Chicano poet from Fresno, the Prize is a collaboration with University of Notre Dame Press and supports the publication of a first book by a Latinx poet residing in the United States. The ninth edition of the Prize was judged by John Murillo, with assistance from screeners Yesenilla Montilla and Roberto Carlos Garcia.

Murillo’s award citation reads:

“Darrel Alejandro Holnes is a poet of promise and vision.  And Stepmotherland is a promising and visionary debut.  In this first collection, Holnes displays an impressive range of both subject and sensibility.  Whether working in more traditional lyric, narrative, and lyric-narrative modes, or experimenting with nonce forms derived from theater, geometry, and even dictionary entry formats, Holnes’ poems exhibit a lively imagination and keen intellect.  At turns erotic, often political, and always vulnerable, Stepmotherland  provides the reader a fresh perspective on the myriad ways in which history—whether personal or national—can, by its very nature, blur the lines between witness and participant, between doer and done to.”

A native of Panama and currently based in New York City, Holnes is a previous recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry. His poems have previously appeared in American Poetry Review, Poetry Magazine, The Caribbean Writer, Callaloo, Best American Experimental Writing, and elsewhere in print and online. Holnes is a Cave Canem and a CantoMundo fellow. His poetry has also earned him scholarships to the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, the C.P. Cavafy Poetry Prize from Poetry International, and residencies nationwide including at the MacDowell Arts Colony. He is an Assistant Professor at Medgar Evers College and he teaches at New York University.  Find more at darrelholnes.com  

“It is an honor to be the 9^th recipient of the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize from Letras Latinas for my book of poems STEPMOTHERLAND. This book is over a decade in the making and it is the product of love and support from my many communities of writers, friends, and family who have supported my development over the years. My thanks to the judge, John Murillo, for selecting my manuscript for this prize from a list of finalists that includes poets I greatly admire, and others whose work I look forward to reading. Thanks to the Prize’s initial screeners, Yesenia Montilla and Roberto Carlos Garcia. And many thanks to the Montoya family and the Institute for Latino Studies at Notre Dame for establishing this prize. It’s exciting for me to join a family of past winners whose work extends the legacy of Andrés Montoya, a poet and an activist whose poetry renowned poet Rigoberto González named as some of “the best to come out of our community.” I hope to represent Montoya's legacy well with STEPMOTHERLAND, a collection of poems about coming of age, coming out, and coming to America.”

Once again, Letras Latinas would like extend its congratulations to the other finalists for the 9th edition of the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize:


Dr. Grisel Y. Acosta is an Afro-Latinx associate professor at City University of New York-BCC, where she teaches creative writing and Latinx literature. She was born in Chicago to a Colombian father and Cuban mother, both community leaders in Logan Square. Dr. Acosta edited the Routledge anthology, Latina Outsiders Remaking Latina Identity. Her work is also in Kweli Journal, Red Fez, The Acentos Review, American Studies Journal, VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, Paterson Literary Review, The Lauryn Hill Reader, Pembroke Magazine, MiPoesias, and forthcoming sci-fi anthology, The Latinx Archive. She is a Macondo Fellow and a Geraldine Dodge Foundation Poet. 

JP Infante is a teacher and writer in New York City. His poetry and prose can be found in PEN America Best Debut Short Stories for 2019, Kweli, The Poetry Project, Acentos Review, Post (blank) mag, Rigorous, Dominican Writers, Ritmo Que Late Anthology, Uptown Collective, Manhattan Times, Bronx Free Press, The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext Anthology and elsewhere. He’s been awarded the PEN Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, Bernard L. Einbond Memorial Prize, and the Aaron Hochberg Family Award. He also won DTM magazine’s “Latino Identity in the US” essay contest.

Jasminne Mendez is a poet, performer, playwright, educator, and award winning author. Mendez has had poetry and essays published by or forthcoming in The New England Review, The Acentos Review, Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast, The Rumpus, and others. She is the author of two mixed genre collections Island of Dreams(Floricanto Press, 2013) which won an International Latino Book Award, and Night-Blooming Jasmin(n)e: Personal Essays and Poetry(Arte Publico Press, 2018). She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and has received fellowships from Canto Mundo and the Kenyon Review Writer's Workshop among others. She is an MFA graduate of of the Rainier Writer's Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University, and a University of Houston alumni. 

Caridad Moro-Gronlier is the editor of Grabbed: Writers Respond to Sexual Assault forthcoming from Beacon Press in 2020 and an Associate Editor for SWWIM Every Day. She is the author of Visionware (Finishing Line Press). Recent work can be found at The Best American Poetry Blog, Rhino, Go Magazine, Fantastical Florida and others. She is the recipient of an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant, a Florida Artist Fellowship and nominee for two Pushcart Prizes, The Best of the Net and a Lambda Literary Award. She teaches Dual Enrollment for Florida International University and is an English Professor for Miami Dade College. She resides in Miami, FL with her wife and son.

Martin Hill Ortiz, a native of Santa Fe, New Mexico, is a professor of Pharmacology at the Ponce Health Sciences University in Puerto Rico where he lives with his wife and son. A score of his short stories have appeared in print, anthologies and online journals. His sixty-page poem, Two Mistakes, won the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid poetry award. He has authored four mystery thrillers, including Never Kill A Friend from Ransom Note Press. Along with his scientific background, he has worked in theater, having run a comedy troupe in South Florida.

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Letras Latinas, the literary initiative at the Institute for Latino Studies (ILS), strives to enhance the visibility, appreciation and study of Latinx literature both on and off the campus of the University of Notre Dame—with an emphasis on programs that support newer voices, foster a sense of community among writers, and place Latinx writers in community spaces.

Letras Latinas partners with Split This Rock...

This "event" was originally slated to take place on the evening of Wednesday, March 25th at Busboys and Poets at 450 K Street in Washington, D.C. Instead, Letras Latinas has commissioned our two distinguished poets to put together a DIY video of themselves reading their poetry. They will each post their video on the web sometime during the last week of March. To be sure, this is an experiment of sorts--an effort at creativity and resourcefullness; call it a gesture of resilence in these unprecedented times. Our hope, of course, is that each of these videos will take on a life of its own, complementing each other. We'd love to get a sense how many people these videos will reach. So, it goes without saying that we would welcome your feedback.

HEIDI ANDREA RESTREPO RHODES is a queer, second-generation Colombian/Latinx immigrant, poet, artist, scholar, and activist. She is the author of the poetry collection The Inheritance of Haunting (University of Notre Dame Press, 2019), which won the 2018 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize. Her book was recently profiled in Poets & Writers annual Debut Poets feature. Her creative work has been published, exhibited, and performed in As/Us, Pank, Raspa, Word Riot, Feminist Studies, Huizache, the National Queer Arts Festival, The Sick Collective, the Bureau of General Services-Queer Division, SomArts, and Galería de la Raza, among other places. She was a semi-finalist for the 2017 92-Y/Unterburg Poetry Center Discovery Contest. She is currently a doctoral candidate in Political Theory at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Born in Arizona and raised in California, she currently lives in Brooklyn. She can be found on Instagram at: @vessels.we.are

TERI ELLEN CROSS DAVIS is the author of Haint, (Gival Press, 2016) winner of the 2017 Ohioana Book Award for Poetry. Her second book, A More Perfect Union, won the 2019 Charles B. Wheeler Prize, awarded by The Journal, and is forthcoming. She is a Cave Canem fellow and a member of the Black Ladies Brunch Collective. She has received fellowships to attend the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Hedgebrook, Community of Writers Poetry Workshop, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. She is the recipient of a Meret grant from the Freya Project and a 2019 Sustainable Arts Grant. Her work can be read in: Academy of American Poets, Auburn Love’s Executive Order, Avenue, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Figure 1, Gargoyle, Harvard Review, Kestrel, Little Patuxent Review, Natural Bridge, North American Review, MiPOesias, Mom Egg Review, Pacifica Literary Review, PANK, Poet Lore, Poetry Ireland Review, and Tin House. She is the 2019-2020 HoCoPoLitSo Writer-in-Residence for Howard County, Maryland, adjunct professor at George Washington University, and the Poetry Coordinator for the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington D.C. She lives in Maryland with her husband, poet Hayes Davis and their two children.

I AM DELIBERATE / AND AFRAID/ OF NOTHING

FEATURING

heidi andrea restrepo rhodes

&

Teri Ellen Cross Davis

Wednesday, March 25^th

6:30 PM

@

Busboys and Poets/450K

450 K St. NW

Washington, D.C. 20001

free and open to the public

 

heidi andrea restrepo rhodes is a queer, second-generation Colombian/Latinx immigrant, poet, artist, scholar, and activist. She is the author of the poetry collection The Inheritance of Haunting (University of Notre Dame Press, 2019), which won the 2018 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize. Her book was recently profiled in Poets & Writers annual Debut Poets feature. Her creative work has been published, exhibited, and performed in As/Us, Pank, Raspa, Word Riot, Feminist Studies, Huizache, the National Queer Arts Festival, The Sick Collective, the Bureau of General Services-Queer Division, SomArts, and Galería de la Raza, among other places. She was a semi-finalist for the 2017 92-Y/Unterburg Poetry Center Discovery Contest. She is currently a doctoral candidate in Political Theory at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Born in Arizona and raised in California, she currently lives in Brooklyn. She can be found on Instagram at: @vessels.we.are

Teri Ellen Cross Davis is the author of Haint, (Gival Press, 2016) winner of the 2017 Ohioana Book Award for Poetry.  Her second book, A More Perfect Union, won the 2019 Charles B. Wheeler Prize, awarded by The Journal, and is forthcoming. She is a Cave Canem fellow and a member of the Black Ladies Brunch Collective. She has received fellowships to attend  the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Hedgebrook, Community of  Writers Poetry Workshop, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. She is the recipient of a Meret grant from the Freya Project and a 2019 Sustainable Arts Grant. Her work can be read in: Academy of American Poets, Auburn Love’s Executive Order, Avenue, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Figure 1,  Gargoyle, Harvard Review, Kestrel, Little Patuxent Review, Natural Bridge, North American Review, MiPOesias, Mom Egg Review, Pacifica Literary Review, PANK, Poet Lore, Poetry Ireland Review, and Tin House. She is the 2019-2020 HoCoPoLitSo Writer-in-Residence for Howard County, Maryland, adjunct professor at George Washington University, and the Poetry Coordinator for the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington D.C.  She lives in Maryland with her husband, poet Hayes Davis and their two children.

LETRAS LATINAS, the literary initiative at the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies, joins SPLIT THIS ROCK to co-present—on the eve of its Festival—this “Pre-Festival Event” as part of the POETRY COALITION’s 2020 March program, named after Audre Lorde’s arresting lines.

US Emerging Critics Workshop: Emily Perez, Letras Latinas Fellow

Emily Perez

Letras Latinas, the literary initiative at the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies, is pleased to designate Denver-based poet and critic, Emily Perez, as a Letras Latinas fellow—in order to attend the inaugural US Emerging Critics Workshop, which will take place in Atlanta, GA on November 4-6. Perez will be joined by other emerging critics, all of whom will be mentored by established critics from various publications.

The Emerging Critics program originated in the United Kingdom in association with the Ledbury Poetry Festival, and was co-founded by the UK-based poets and critics Sandeep Parmar (Liverpool) and Sarah Howe (London). The alumni of the UK program went on to place work at such publications as The Guardian, TLC, The Telegraph, and elsewhere. The publishing partners in the US program include Poetry and The Los Angeles Review of Books, among others.

"Since the Ledbury Emerging Critics program began in 2017, our 12 critics of colour are responsible for more than doubling the number of poetry reviews written by people of colour—from 3.4% to 8.3% in less than two years. But improving the numbers is only part of the program's aim to generate a critical culture that is not only inclusive but also knowledgable and representative of the diversity of poetry being written today," said Parmar, who, along with Howe, will serve as faculty at the US workshop. They will be joined by Don Share (Poetry), Parul Sehgal (NY Times), Vidyan Ravinthiran (Harvard University), and Jeffrey Levine (Tupelo Press).

Award-winning poet Ilya Kaminsky will serve as the principal host in the pilot workshop in the United States. “Poetry@Tech, at the Ivan Allen College, Georgia Institute of Technology is thrilled to host this gathering on our campus here in Atlanta. We applaud this program's advocacy for greater access for literary culture. It is crucial to support this on-going important discussion of how and what value society gives to the arts, to expand reading culture and to invigorate the wider critical conversation about literature and diversity, “ said Kaminsky.

Emily Perez will be joined by emerging critics Abraham Encinas, a graduate student at UCLA, and Shamallah Gallagher of Athens, GA, whose criticism has appeared in Black Warrior Review, Gulf Coast Review, The Rumpus, and other publications. “I am thrilled to have Letras Latinas’s support for my participation in the inaugural US session of the Ledbury Emerging Poetry Critics Program. Not only will I meet some of my poetry and book reviewing heroes, but I will begin to build a network of peers I can rely on to help navigate my ongoing questions. My concerns range from the practical to the philosophical, from mechanics to style.  I feel like a self-taught musician who will finally have a few lessons with the masters; these sessions will inevitably hone my thinking and my craft. I am eager to absorb every moment,” said Perez, whose poetry reviews have appeared in The Boston Review, The Rumpus, and RHINO, among other publications. As a poet, she is also the author of House Made of Sugar, House Made of Stone, and the chapbooks Background Migration Route and Made and Unmade.

“I’ve long admired Emily Perez’s poetry criticism. I immediately thought of her when first learning of this workshop. Deborah Parédez and I were both present at the Poetry Coalition presentation that Sandeep Parmar gave a year ago at Kent State in Ohio. At its conclusion, we briefly conferred, and concurred, that Emily, a CantoMundo fellow, would be an ideal candidate for it. We’re delighted that it's worked out. Letras Latinas is proud to be sponsoring her participation,” said Francisco Aragón, a faculty fellow at Notre Dame's Institute for Latino Studies.

Letras Latinas strives to enhance the visibility, appreciation, and study of Latinx literature both on and off the campus of the University of Notre Dame—with an emphasis on programs that support newer voices, foster a sense of community among writers, and place Latinx writers in community spaces.

To learn more about the US Emerging Critics Program, please visit: 

https://poetry.gatech.edu/workshops

 

We Are Now Open for Submissions.....

John Murillo

Letras Latinas, the literary initiative at the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies, is pleased to announce the Final Judge for the 2020 edition of the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize.

A collaboration with University of Notre Dame Press since 2004, the Prize supports the publication of a first book by a Latinx poet residing in the United States.

Our winners, judges, and books, thus far have been:

Sheryl Luna

selected by Robert Vazquez

for Pity the Drowned Horses (2005)

Gabe Gomez

selected by Valerie Martínez

for The Outer Bands (2007)

Paul Martínez Pompa

selected by Martín Espada

for My Kill Adore Him (2009)

Emma Trelles

selected by Silvia Curbelo

for Tropicalia (2011)

Laurie Ann Guerrero

selected by late Francisco X. Alarcón

for A Tongue in the Mouth of the Dying (2013)

David Campos

selected by Rhina P. Espaillot

for Furious Dusk (2015)

Felicia Zamora

selected by Edwin Torres

for Of Form & Gather (2017)

Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes

selected by Ada Limón

for The Inheritance of Haunting (2019)

Some changes are afoot for this our 9^th edition of the Prize, which honors the legacy of Chicano poet Andrés Montoya.

SUBMIT

We will also, for the first time, be counting on the collaboration of two guest screeners.

 Statement from our Final Judge:

“I am both honored and humbled to sign on as judge of this year’s Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize.  At a time when there appears to be an all-out war on brown people in this country—when children are caged, mothers disappeared, and fathers gunned down on the regular, not to mention the daily, less sensational, degradations of living under a white supremacist regime—it is as imperative now as it’s ever been that we make ourselves heard, seen, and felt.  Now more than ever we need our artists, our culture workers, our poets.  To play, then, even a small part in helping usher into the world one of these necessary voices is a privilege.  It is a sacred duty, one I will carry out to the best of my ability and treat with all the seriousness it deserves."

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John Murillo is the author of the poetry collections, Up Jump the Boogie, finalist for both the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and the Pen Open Book Award, and Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry, forthcoming from Four Way Books in the spring of 2020. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Poetry, and Best American Poetry 2017 and 2019 among other venues.  His honors include a Pushcart Prize, the J Howard and Barbara MJ Wood Prize from the Poetry Foundation, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Cave Canem Foundation, and the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing.  He is an assistant professor at Wesleyan University and also teaches in the low residency MFA program at Sierra Nevada College.

Our guest screeners:

Poet, storyteller, and essayist, Roberto Carlos Garcia writes extensively about the Afro-Latinx and Afro-diasporic experience. His second poetry collection, black / Maybe: An Afro Lyric, is available from Willow Books.  Roberto’s first collection, Melancolía, is available from Červená Barva Press. Roberto is founder of the non-profit press Get Fresh Books Publishing and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Yesenia Montilla is an Afro-Latina poet & a daughter of immigrants. She received her MFA from Drew University in Poetry and Poetry in Translation. Her first collection, ,The Pink Box, was published by Willow Books & was Longlisted for a PEN award in 2016. She is currently a Co-Director of CantoMundo. She lives in Harlem NY.

 

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PINTURA:PALABRA -- a chapbook's journey

Letras Latinas has engaged the book art talents of Stephanie Sauer at ArtLyrics for the production and publication of this artisan chapbook. What follows is a photo gallery, with portions of the chapbook’s colophon serving as occasional captions.

PINTURA : PALABRA: an essay in VII movements by Rigoberto González (Letras Latinas, 2019) was designed by Stephanie Sauer of ArtLyrics in collaboration with Francisco Aragón. Sauer bound all copies by hand in her workshop in Brasília.

Each chapbook includes a flyleaf made from sustainably cultivated banana leaf fiber by artists Carmen Lúcia Prado and Leila Prado of Papel do Quintal in São Sebastião, Brazil.

Printing was done in offset in Gráfica Positiva in Brasília on Markatto Concetto Bianco 320g/m2 and Pólen Soft 80g/m2.

Binding was done with linen thread from Ireland. The text was typeset digitally in Poplar Std., Copperplate, and Garamond Premier.

This is a one-time only Edition of 100 + 40 with a publication year of 2019.

Forty chapbooks are destined to reside inside forty artistically designed boxes—each housing, as well, the six literary journals that published the portfolios that Rigoberto González has written his review/essay about.

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Photo Gallery

of

PINTURA : PALABRA 

poets&writers

&friends of 

PINTURA : PALABRA 

Laurie Ann Guerrero 

 John Chavez

 Caridad Moro

Manuel Muñoz

 Valerie Martínez

Eduardo C. Corral

Alexandra Lytton Regalado 

 Dan Vera

 Carolina Ebeid

 Xico González
 
Mia Leonin

 Lucha Corpi
photo credit: 
Julie Duff 

Michael Mejia

Maya Chinchilla

 Alex Ramirez

 Brenda Cárdenas

Maria Melendez Kelson

Carlos Parada Ayala

Adela Najarro 

Samuel Miranda

Elisa Albo

Fred Arroyo

 Nancy Aidé González

Gina Franco 

 Rita Maria Martinez

Roy Guzman

Emma Trelles

 Francisco Aragón

 Natalia Treviño

Odilia Galván Rodríguez

&

Javier Pinzón

(surviving spouse 

of the late Francisco X. Alarcón)

Maritza Rivera

Paco Marquez

Carmen Calatayud

Juan J. Morales

Juliana Aragón Fatula

photo credit: Tracy Harmon

Blas Falconer

Graciela Ramírez

Joseph Rios

JoAnn Anglin

Paul Aponte

Reyna Grande & Daisy Hernández