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Latino Poetry - Places We Call Home

A panel discussion for National Poetry Month featuring Elizabeth Acevedo, Dan Vera, Alexandra Lytton Regalado, and Juan J. Morales.

For National Poetry Month, join the Library and Letras Latinas - the literary initiative at the University of Notre Dame's Institute for Latino Studies - for a special poetry reading and celebration of the new publication Latino Poetry: The Library of American Anthology. In conversation with Georgetown University's Ricardo Ortiz, the evening will feature readings and discussion from poets Dan Vera, Elizabeth Acevedo, Francisco Aragon, Juan J. Morales, and Alexandra Lytton Regalado. 

Copies of the anthology and books by each poet will be available for sale and signing courtesy of Lost City Bookstore.

About the Anthology

For nearly five centuries, the rich tapestry of Latino poetry has been woven from a wealth of languages and cultures—a “tremendous continental MIXTURAO,” in the words of the poet Tato Laviera.

Now, in an unprecedented anthology edited by the poet and critic Rigoberto González, Library of America brings together more than 180 poets whose poems bear witness to the beauty and power of this vital and expanding tradition: its profound engagement with pasts both mythical and historical, its reckoning with the complexities of language, land, and identity, and its vision of a nation enriched by the stories of immigrants, exiles, refugees, and their descendants.

There are a brilliant array of contemporary voices here as well, spinning out the tapestry of Latino poetry in daring new directions. Taking the measure of this current renaissance, the anthology culminates with the most comprehensive survey of twenty-first century Latino poetry yet published.

For nearly five centuries, the rich tapestry of Latino poetry has been woven from a wealth of languages and cultures—a “tremendous continental MIXTURAO,” in the words of the poet Tato Laviera.

Now, in an unprecedented anthology edited by the poet and critic Rigoberto González, Library of America brings together more than 180 poets whose poems bear witness to the beauty and power of this vital and expanding tradition: its profound engagement with pasts both mythical and historical, its reckoning with the complexities of language, land, and identity, and its vision of a nation enriched by the stories of immigrants, exiles, refugees, and their descendants.

There are a brilliant array of contemporary voices here as well, spinning out the tapestry of Latino poetry in daring new directions. Taking the measure of this current renaissance, the anthology culminates with the most comprehensive survey of twenty-first century Latino poetry yet published.

About the Poets

Elizabeth Acevedo

Elizabeth Acevedo was the 2022 Young People’s Poet Laureate and the New York Times-bestselling author of The Poet X, which won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, the Michael L. Printz Award, the Pura Belpré Award, the Carnegie medal, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, and the Walter Award. She is also the author of With the Fire on High—which was named a best book of the year by the New York Public Library, NPR, Publishers Weekly, and School Library Journal—and Clap When You Land, which was a Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor book and a Kirkus finalist. She holds a BA in Performing Arts from The George Washington University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Maryland. Acevedo has been a fellow of Cave Canem, Cantomundo, and a participant in the Callaloo Writer’s Workshops. She is a National Poetry Slam Champion, and resides in Washington, DC with her love.

Dan Vera

Dan Vera is a writer, editor, watercolorist, and literary historian. Recipient of the Oscar Wilde Award for Poetry and the Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize, he’s the co-editor of Imaniman: Poets Writing In The Anzaldúan Borderlands and author of two books of poetry.A CantoMundo and Macondo Writing Fellow, he's been a featured reader around the country including the Dodge Poetry Festival, the Poetry Foundation in Chicago, and The Library of Congress and Folger Shakespeare Library.

Alexandra Lytton Regalado

Alexandra Lytton Regalado is a Salvadoran-American author, editor, and translator. She is the author of Relinquenda, winner of the National Poetry Series (Beacon Press, 2022); the chapbook Piedra (La Chifurnia, 2022); and the poetry collection Matria, winner of the St. Lawrence Book Award (Black Lawrence Press, 2017). A CantoMundo and Letras Latinas fellow, her work has recently appeared in Poetry, Best American Poetry, BOMB, World Literature Today, Agni, poets.org and Creative Nonfiction

Juan J. Morales

Juan J. Morales is the son of an Ecuadorian mother and Puerto Rican father and grew up in Colorado. He is the author of four poetry collections, including Dream of the Bird Tattoo, newly published by the University of New Mexico Press. Morales has received fellowships from CantoMundo, Macondo, Longleaf Writers Conference, and he has served as the editor/publisher of Pilgrimage Press. He lives in Pueblo, Colorado and is an Assistant Professor of English at Colorado College.

About the moderator

Ricardo L. Ortiz

Ricardo L. Ortiz is Professor of Latinx Literature and Culture in the English Department at Georgetown University, where he also directs the MA Program in Engaged and Public Humanities. He has published two books and over thirty journal articles and book chapters in Latinx literary/ cultural studies, including in The Yale Journal of Criticism, Social Text, Contemporary Literature, GLQ, and Aztlán. In 2022 Prof. Ortiz served as President of the Association of Departments of English.

 
This program is presented as part of Latino Poetry: Places We Call Home, a major public humanities initiative taking place across the nation in 2024 and 2025, directed by Library of America and funded with generous support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Emerson Collective.

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