One Poem Festival: Celebrating 20 Years of Letras Latinas

Letras Latinas, the literary initiative at the Institute for Latino Studies (ILS), has strived to enhance the visibility, appreciation and study of Latinx literature both on and off the campus of the University of Notre Dame. Since 2004, the organization has emphasized programs that support newer voices, foster a sense of community among writers, and place Latinx writers in community spaces.

One Poem Festival at Beyond Baroque culminates the nation-wide celebration of Letras Latinas' 20th anniversary. Over the 2024 calendar year, events marking this special anniversary have taken place at Arts Club of Washington in Washington D.C., the Poetry Center at the University of Arizona, the Poetry Foundation in Chicago, Illinois, among others.

The final grand finale event will take place at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center in partnership with Alternative Field, Red Hen Press, and Tia Chucha Press, featuring a powerful gathering of twenty prominent and contemporary voices in Southern California, curated by Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo and Luivette Resto. The line up features Annalicia Aguilar, William Archila, Rocío Carlos, Anatalia Vallez, Luis J. Rodriguez, Erika Ayón, Lisbeth Coiman, Yago S. Cura, Blas Falconer, Vickie Vértiz, Jenise Miller, Olga García Echeverría, Christopher Soto, Cynthia Guardado, Adolfo Guzman Lopez, Annalicia Aguilar, Lisbeth Coiman, and Raul Herrera Jr. The event will be MC'ed by poet and Letras Latinas associate, Brent Ameneyro.

Each performer will be offering one single poem in the Wanda Coleman Theater. A chapbook anthology will include all the poems from the reading and will be available on the evening of the performances, printed by Alternative Field.

Following the performances, join us for a reception with food & drinks.

Doors Open: 6:30 PM I Readings: 7:00 PM I Reception: 8:30 PM

Livestream: If you can’t join us in-person the event will be livestreamed on at the scheduled time of the event.

Annalicia Aguilar is a Mexican American/mixed-race indigenous poet, screenwriter, playwright, producer, and educator. She has her MFA in Screenwriting for Film and Television and her BFA in Acting from AMDA College of the Performing Arts. She has been a featured poet for the Trenches Full of Poets Series, the Los Angeles Poet Society, Sim's Library of Poetry, and The Community Literature Initiative. She teaches Performance Techniques for Poets workshops and guest lectures about topics such as Social Media Marketing for Poets. Her debut book of poetry, Broken, But Holding, will be published in April 2025 with Riot of Roses Publishing House.

William Archila is the winner of the 2023 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry for his collection S is For. He is the author of The Art of Exile and The Gravedigger’s Archeology. He was awarded the 2023 Jack Hazard fellowship. His work has appeared in AGNl, APR, Copper Nickle, Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Poetry, Pleiades and elsewhere. He has work forthcoming in The Georgia Review, TriQuarterly, Poetry Northwest and Ploughshares.

Erika Ayón emigrated from Mexico when she was five years old and grew up in South Central Los Angeles. She graduated from UCLA with a B.A. in English. She is a former PEN Emerging Voices Fellow. She has taught poetry to middle and high school students. Her work has appeared in The Acentos Review, Dryland, Chiricú Journal, Coiled Serpent Anthology, and elsewhere. Her debut poetry collection Orange Lady published by World Stage received Honorable Mention for Poetry at the 2019 International Latino Book Awards.

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is the daughter of Mexican immigrants and author of Incantation: Love Poems for Battle Sites (Mouthfeel Press) and Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge (Sundress Publications). A former Steinbeck Fellow and Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange winner, Bermejo's poetry and essays can be found at Acentos Review, Huizache, LA Review of Books, The Offing, [Pank], Santa Fe Writers Project, and other journals. She teaches poetry and creative writing with Antioch University, MFA and UCLA Extension and is the director of Women Who Submit. Inspired by her Chicana identity, she works to cultivate love and comfort in chaotic times.

Rocío Carlos was born and raised in Tovaangar/ Los Ángeles. She is the author of (the other house), Attendance and A Universal History of Infamy: Those of This America. In addition to being a teacher of the language arts, Rocío often collaborates with visual artists and her work has found its way into exhibitions at LACMA, Ave. 50 Studios, the L.A. County Library, and The ONE Archive Foundation’s Pride Publics as well as many journals and magazines. She lives in the chaparral with her partner and cats and her favorite trees are the olmo (elm)and aliso (sycamore).

Lisbeth Coiman is a warrior of internal battles and a trekker of intersecting paths in the route to becoming a word artist. Born in Venezuela, she earned her BA in Languages at Universidad Metropolitana, Caracas, and her Masters in Adult Ed at Northwestern Oklahoma State University. Her debut book, I Asked the Blue Heron: A Memoir (2017) explores the intersection between immigration and mental health. Her poetry collection, Uprising / Alzamiento (Finishing Line Press, 2021) raises awareness of the humanitarian crisis in her homeland. A member of Women Who Submit, Coiman lives in Los Angeles, CA.

Yago S. Cura is a public librarian in South Central Los Angeles and owner of HINCHAS Press (www.hinchaspress.com) whose most recent titles are Renault 30, Tlacuilx: Tongues in Quarantine, X LA Poets, Yago's poetry has appeared in Huizache, U.S. Latino Review, Borderlands, FIELD, COMBO, Boom: California, and Lungfull!.In 2022, Yago appeared on episodes of popular podcasts PUNKAST and OVERDUE.

Olga García Echeverría (She/Her/Ella). Soy hija del mar y el cielo nublado. Creator and destroyer of language. Poeta y ensayista escribiendo entre culturas y lenguas. Author of Falling Angels: Cuentos y Poemas. My work has also been published in The Sun Magazine, Latino Book Review, Imaniman: Poets Writing on the Anzaldúan Borderlands, U.S. Latino Literature Today, entre otros. I live, dream and teach in the City of Angeles.

Blas Falconer is the author of four poetry collections, including Rara Avis (Four Way Books 2024), and a co-editor of two essay collections, The Other Latin@: Writing Against a Singular Identity and Mentor and Muse: Essays from Poets to Poets. His poems have been featured by Poetry, Harvard Review, and The New York Times, and his awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Tennessee Arts Commission, and Poets and Writers. He is the editor-in-chief for Poetry International Online and teaches in the MFA program at San Diego State University. www.blasfalconer.com

Cynthia Guardado (she/her/hers) is a Los-Angeles born queer Salvadoran poet and professor. She is the author of two collections of poetry: Cenizas, (University of Arizona Press 2022) and ENDEAVOR, (World Stage Press 2017).

In 1994 Adolfo Guzman-Lopez co-founded the performance-poetry group The Taco Shop Poets. Since then he’s co-founded or led the Spine of Califas spoken word series, and Project 1521, a collaboration between poets and artists around the 500 anniversary of the Spanish defeat of the Aztecs. He hosted and reported The Forgotten Revolutionary, a true crime podcast set in the 1990s Chicano student movement.

Raul Herrera Jr. is a playwright, educator, and spoken word artist. His writing is featured in Get Lit Rising, Coiled Serpent published by Tia Chucha Press and, in 2017, he wrote Dante, a modern Hip-Hop adaptation of Dante’s Inferno, produced by Tim Robbins and The Actor’s Gang Theatre in Culver City. In 2019, Raul featured as a writer and performer in the film Summertime, directed by Carlos Lopez Estrada, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020. He plans to continue his pursuits in screenwriting and acting.

Jenise Miller is a Black Panamanian writer and urban planner from Compton, California. Her work explores art, archives, mapping, and intersectional history. She coordinates several projects on Compton arts, including PBS SoCal’s Compton: Arts and Archives series. Her writing is published in her poetry chapbook, The Blvd, as well as The Acentos Review, High Country News, Los Angeles Review of Books, and the L.A. Times.

Poet and human rights activist Alicia Partnoy is the author, translator or editor of twelve books and the chapbook Ecos lógicos y otros poemares. Her work is published in Spanish, English, Hebrew, Turkish, Bangla, and French. Partnoy is best known for The Little School: Tales of Disappearance and Survival, which is evidence in the trials against the genocide perpetrators in Argentina in the 70’s. Her most recent book, Happier as a Woman. Transforming Friendships, Transforming Lives, co-written with Dr. Martina Ramirez, is the testimony of her transgender friend. Partnoy is Professor Emerita at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

Luivette Resto is an award-winning poet, a mother of three revolutionary humans, and a middle school English teacher. She was born in Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico but proudly raised in the Bronx. She is a CantoMundo and Macondo Fellow and a Pushcart Prize nominee. She has three books of poetry: Unfinished Portrait, Ascension, and Living on Islands Not Found on Maps. Her work has been mentioned in the LA Times and Ms. Magazine. She is the associate editor of Tía Chucha Press, and she sits on the boards for Women Who Submit and Beyond Baroque.

Aleida Rodríguez was born on a kitchen table in rural Güines, Cuba. At nine, she was airlifted to the U.S. via Operation Pedro Pan. In 1967, she arrived in Los Angeles, where she founded rara avis magazine and Books of a Feather (1977–84) to showcase the work of underrepresented writers and artists, the first literary venture by a Latina lesbian in L.A. history. Garden of Exile won both the Kathryn A. Morton Poetry Prize from Sarabande Books and the PEN Center USA Literary Award. She is the recipient of a C.O.L.A.Literary Fellowship and NEA Fellowship in Poetry.

Luis J. Rodriguez is former Poet Laureate of Los Angeles. He has 17 multi-genre books, including eight poetry collections. He's best known for the bestselling memoir "Always Running, La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A." and its sequel, "It Calls You Back: An Odyssey Through Love, Addiction, Revolutions & Healing." In 2022 he received a California Legacy Fellowship and the Robert Kirsch Lifetime Achievement Award from the Los Angeles Times.

Christopher Soto is the author of "Diaries of a Terrorist," (Copper Canyon Press, 2022) and editor of "Nepantla: An Anthology for Queer Poets of Color" (Nightboat Books, 2018).

Anatalia Vallez is a writer, actor and creative alchemist from Orange County, California, with roots in Guerrero Mexico. Her work centers self love, ancestral connections and social justice. She is the author of a poetry collection: The Most Spectacular Mistake (FlowerSong Press, 2020) featured in the LA Times, LibroMobile and KPFK Radio’s Nuestra Voz. For her MFA thesis in TV Film and Theatre at Cal State LA she produced and performed in her own play, Las Sirenas at LATC. In November she will have completed her latest play, La Niña Del Volcan with support from the Wayward Artist EMBARK program.

Vickie Vértiz's writing has been featured in the New York Times magazine, Huizache, the Los Angeles Review of Books, KCET Departures, and the San Francisco Chronicle, among many publications. Her second book Auto/Body won the 2023 Sandeen Poetry Prize from the University of Notre Dame. She is a recipient of fellowships from the Mellon Foundation, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference, VONA, CantoMundo, and Macondo. Vértiz teaches writing at UC-Santa Barbara. She lives on Tongva Land in Los Angeles.

This event is free & in-person.

Event attendees are expected to behave in a respectful and considerate manner while in our space. Beyond Baroque reserves the right to remove individuals from our events, virtual or otherwise, if they are not respecting the space, fellow attendees, or performers.

Event Venue

Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, 681 Venice Blvd, Los Angeles, United States