us-mexico border

Sandra Cisneros and translator Liliana Valenzuela read from Cisneros' Woman Without Shame (2022) and Valenzuela's Spanish-language translation, Mujer sin vergüenza (2022), selecting poems that consider womanhood, aging, and freedom as a woman. Valenzuela also reads poems of her own from Codex of Journeys: Bendito camino (2012) and Codex of Love: Bendita ternura (2020), which also consider womanhood, desire, and the act of looking.

Saretta Morgan reads extensively from Alt-Nature (2024), her first full-length collection. Rooted in southern Arizona, her poems consider the militarization of the US-Mexico border and the legacies of colonialism in American culture.

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.