"Every project is a movement, a ritual full of lessons and love. I dive in with my whole body, the entirety of what has made me, made you, essentially made us-- siempre letting the heart & lung of the work guide me." |
Artist Bio: Lourdes Figueroa is an oral poet.
Her poems are a dialogue of her lived experience when her family worked in el azadón in Yolo County. The words el azadón are used by the ones who work in the fields — the work of tilling the soil under the blistering sun. She is the author of the chapbooks yolotl and Ruidos = To Learn Speak, completed during her Alley Cat Books Residency. She received her MFA in Poetry at the University of San Francisco. She is a recipient of the 2021 Nomadic Press Literary Award in Poetry selected by emeritus poet Laureate Kim Shuck. She works and lives in Oakland with her wife, filmmaker, Peggy Peralta. She is a native of limbo nation. Lourdes continues believe in your lung and your throat. *Lourdes continues to work as an interpreter, translator, & advocate, & the occasional camera assistant. The entirety of her poem is not separate from her day to day lived experience. *Yolo is a Patwin Native American name, the tribal name is Yo-loy meaning "a place abundant in rushes" |