Poetry & Film
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Saludos y bienvenidos,
thank you for taking the time to look me up. Please take a look around & find a collection of my work: a series of poems, images & collaborations that are a dialogue of my lived experience when my family worked as migrant farmworkers in Yolo County, California. This collection and the rest of my work has been in the making as far back as when I learned to speak English in Idaho when my parents picked apples there during the 1980's. My amá crossed the border & desert with her 30 day old son in her arms in 1986. My grandfather died tilling the fields in Yuba City during the 1950's, when he was part of the bracero program. The fields took a toll on my abuelita's body developing cirrhosis when she never drank a drop of alcohol. She worked the fields in Yolo County from the 1960's until she passed on. Overall, this is the writer that I am. My work tastes of pesticides, love, sweat, blood, and llanto. It relates to everything that we eat and are, it is about the stink of el azadón, the queer & brown in el azadón, everything to do with la x on our bodies, the femmecides around us, the femmecide of our earth & the nopal on my forehead. Quite honestly it is a life of migration = love. The poems are in constant conversation with each other. Like the descendants of the nopal, they are the ancient un/remembered human heart. What inspired me to write was and is, survival. |
Writing holds a responsibility to be a witness to my people. To be a witness of the natural world & to use this gift on behalf of love |
This is a fotograph of my mother, my sister and I in Grimes, California in the early 80's. Much of the work there was with tomatoes and corn.
Recipient of the 2021 Nomadic Press Bay Area Literary Award in Poetry
Publications, Interviews, y más
Chapbooks
Ruidos = To Learn Speak limited edition published by Ally Cat Books Resident Writers Collection December 2019
yolotl published by Spooky Actions October 2012
Scattered Poems
(take a moment & please click on the text to see what's available on the web)
Lungfelthroat published by Blush-Lit October 2020
Dante's Dream, On overthrowing capitalism # 2, colonization+capitalism = penetration, & This is a violent land published by Elderly Magazine: End Capitalism edition July 2020
Fragments, a poem film published by Small Press Traffic May 2020
Ruidos = To Learn Speak, &
las mariposas y sus duendes
a collection of mirroring poems published by Night Music Journal Vol. 6 November 2019
Fugue, an immersive play in collaboration with Detour Dance where a series of monologues/elegies for our LGBTQA familia in the SF's Mission district were performed December 2017
War America War published by Backwords Press 2016
Interviews & Reviews
Featured writer in Night Music Journal November 2020
“There Needs to Be a Paradigm Shift.” With South of Market Community Action Network April 2018
Interview with Backwords Press Spring 2016
Detour Dance brings LGBTQ Tales to Life on the streets of the Mission Dec 2017
on yolotl by Dr. Michael Cross, The Disinhibitor
"Three reasons why yolotl kicks ass" by Jenny Drai, Stitched, Stapled,Bound
y más
We are Many...
Recorded Readings
* Paru-paru y Colibri, a poetry reading celebrating the launching & completion of the first yearly Paru-paru y Colibri Poetry workshop:
a safe space for us LGBTQA brown black immigrant folks to share in poem, Pride weekend June 2020
* Paul Corman-Roberts, Lourdes Figueroa & Poet Laureate Kim Shuck at the San Francisco Public Library January 2018
Featured Readings
Eve's at the Beat Museum November 2020
Nomadic Press Reading Series November 2020
Poem Jam with Poet Laureate Kim Shuck October 2020
Berl's Brooklyn Poetry Bookshop February 2020
Speaking Axolotl Reading Series in Oakland, Ca 2019
Litquake's Poetic Tuesday with Baruch Porras June 2019
Pan Dulce Poets October 2019
Noche de Poetas September 2019
Borderlands Lectura Spring 2017
Lyrics and Dirges 2016
Cruzando Fronteras with Carayan Press 2012
Upcoming Readings 2021
...stay tuned
Poetry Workshops
Paru-paru y Colibri: A six week multilingual poetry workshop that envisions love, tenderness & gentleness as a form of dialogue to create & read poetry. Fully embracing poetry as a way of healing and forming our narratives. A space specifically made for us LGBTQA Brown Black immigrant folks where we can safely create our poems and reach to our queer ancestors with an emphasis on our oral hirstories. It is a full roundtable of oral hxstories for the purpose of creating a healing community through each other's song & through the study of the one's that have paved the way for us. All of this further deepening our connections with each other, & establishing our narratives in the spaces and places we encompass & make with our bodies. Importantly, it is a reckoning, and a recreation toward a world that is genuinely love, accepting each other as whole human beings, whole human bodies, an entirety of evolution and spirit. A stipend is provided. Current language capacity is Tagalog and Spanish. This workshop was launched with the support of San Francisco Arts Commission & collaboration with South of Market Community Action Network. Be on the look out for the next workshop dates in 2021...
Play on Language: A one day workshop were we tap into your inner and outer voice. The language you use outside your home, the language you use within your home and family members, the language you use when working, the language of your body and beyond. Ultimately creating poem with these voices and reckoning with them. First launched with Marin Academy Literary Festival February 2014.
A mini poetry workshop: This workshop is done within a class period, where the poem is made accessible and we create a poem together as a class, ultimately a poem in collaboration of our voices. This workshop was first launched with the College Alameda English Department, with English Professor Lily Davis.
Ruidos = To Learn Speak limited edition published by Ally Cat Books Resident Writers Collection December 2019
yolotl published by Spooky Actions October 2012
Scattered Poems
(take a moment & please click on the text to see what's available on the web)
Lungfelthroat published by Blush-Lit October 2020
Dante's Dream, On overthrowing capitalism # 2, colonization+capitalism = penetration, & This is a violent land published by Elderly Magazine: End Capitalism edition July 2020
Fragments, a poem film published by Small Press Traffic May 2020
Ruidos = To Learn Speak, &
las mariposas y sus duendes
a collection of mirroring poems published by Night Music Journal Vol. 6 November 2019
Fugue, an immersive play in collaboration with Detour Dance where a series of monologues/elegies for our LGBTQA familia in the SF's Mission district were performed December 2017
War America War published by Backwords Press 2016
Interviews & Reviews
Featured writer in Night Music Journal November 2020
“There Needs to Be a Paradigm Shift.” With South of Market Community Action Network April 2018
Interview with Backwords Press Spring 2016
Detour Dance brings LGBTQ Tales to Life on the streets of the Mission Dec 2017
on yolotl by Dr. Michael Cross, The Disinhibitor
"Three reasons why yolotl kicks ass" by Jenny Drai, Stitched, Stapled,Bound
y más
We are Many...
Recorded Readings
* Paru-paru y Colibri, a poetry reading celebrating the launching & completion of the first yearly Paru-paru y Colibri Poetry workshop:
a safe space for us LGBTQA brown black immigrant folks to share in poem, Pride weekend June 2020
* Paul Corman-Roberts, Lourdes Figueroa & Poet Laureate Kim Shuck at the San Francisco Public Library January 2018
Featured Readings
Eve's at the Beat Museum November 2020
Nomadic Press Reading Series November 2020
Poem Jam with Poet Laureate Kim Shuck October 2020
Berl's Brooklyn Poetry Bookshop February 2020
Speaking Axolotl Reading Series in Oakland, Ca 2019
Litquake's Poetic Tuesday with Baruch Porras June 2019
Pan Dulce Poets October 2019
Noche de Poetas September 2019
Borderlands Lectura Spring 2017
Lyrics and Dirges 2016
Cruzando Fronteras with Carayan Press 2012
Upcoming Readings 2021
...stay tuned
Poetry Workshops
Paru-paru y Colibri: A six week multilingual poetry workshop that envisions love, tenderness & gentleness as a form of dialogue to create & read poetry. Fully embracing poetry as a way of healing and forming our narratives. A space specifically made for us LGBTQA Brown Black immigrant folks where we can safely create our poems and reach to our queer ancestors with an emphasis on our oral hirstories. It is a full roundtable of oral hxstories for the purpose of creating a healing community through each other's song & through the study of the one's that have paved the way for us. All of this further deepening our connections with each other, & establishing our narratives in the spaces and places we encompass & make with our bodies. Importantly, it is a reckoning, and a recreation toward a world that is genuinely love, accepting each other as whole human beings, whole human bodies, an entirety of evolution and spirit. A stipend is provided. Current language capacity is Tagalog and Spanish. This workshop was launched with the support of San Francisco Arts Commission & collaboration with South of Market Community Action Network. Be on the look out for the next workshop dates in 2021...
Play on Language: A one day workshop were we tap into your inner and outer voice. The language you use outside your home, the language you use within your home and family members, the language you use when working, the language of your body and beyond. Ultimately creating poem with these voices and reckoning with them. First launched with Marin Academy Literary Festival February 2014.
A mini poetry workshop: This workshop is done within a class period, where the poem is made accessible and we create a poem together as a class, ultimately a poem in collaboration of our voices. This workshop was first launched with the College Alameda English Department, with English Professor Lily Davis.