migration

Luis Alberto Urrea reads from Vatos (2000) and Nobody's Son: Notes from an American Life (2002), along with a poem that would later be collected in The Tijuana Book of the Dead (2015).

Patricia Spears Jones reads poems from across her career as published in A Lucent Fire: New & Selected Poems (2015), along with uncollected work at the 2017 Thinking Its Presence conference. She also reads one poem from Stardust, landmines, and cartoons: Poems from 2006 to 2014 (2015).

Khaled Mattawa reads poems from a manuscript in progress, including a poetic sequence on human trafficking and global migration. Some poems would go on to appear in Fugitive Atlas (2020). 

Rubén Martínez discusses being at an impasse in writing, what he describes as surgimiento in Spanish, or emergence. His talk touches on his personal experience and writing, as well as work by other writers and artists.

Gabriel Dozal reads from his first book, The Border Simulator (2023), which considers the US-Mexico border with humor through the voices of several characters. Dozal also reads poems from what he describes as a B-side to the book—related poems that don't appear in the published version. This reading was originally given alongside Maddie Norris, Gabriel Palacios, and Margo Steines, all fellow alumni of the University of Arizona creative writing MFA program.