WEBVTT

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Thank you, Tyler.

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Good evening.

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As Tyler told you, my
name is Laura Villarreal.

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And I am a Letras
Latinas associate.

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My fellow associate is former
Poetry Coalition fellow Brent

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Ameneyro.

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And together, we work with
Francisco Aragón, the founding

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director of Letras Latinas.

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the literary initiative
at the University

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of Notre Dame's Institute
for Latino Studies.

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I'm delighted to be representing
Letras Latinas tonight.

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Our program this evening
is the second installment

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of Letras Latinas' year-long
20th anniversary celebration.

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And we're so glad to be
partnering with the Poetry

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Center for this special event.

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Our heartfelt thanks to
their staff, especially

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Paola Valenzuela.

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[APPLAUSE]

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Our slate of poets this
evening, whose work

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I'll be commenting
on in a moment,

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was co-curated by
both Francisco and

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the former literary director of
the Poetry Center, Diana Marie

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Delgado.

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All three of our poets
have previous ties

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to Letras Latinas.

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For example, Sheila Maldonado
was one of our two final judges

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of the most recent edition
of the Andrés Montoya

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Prize, our flagship
initiative that

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supports the publication
of a first book

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by a Latinx poet residing
in the United States.

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A few years ago, Gina
Franco was the recipient

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of a week-long Letras
Latinas ekphrastic poetry

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residency in DC.

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Edgar Garcia, a
couple of years ago,

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gave a poetry reading and
talk at the University

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of Notre Dame, an event
whose lead sponsor

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was Notre Dame's
creative writing program,

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a longstanding collaborative
partner of Letras Latinas

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programs on campus.

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In fact, Letras Latinos and
the creative writing program

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will be joining forces
in April to present

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Ada Limón, Carmen Giménez, and
Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes.

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But back to the three
poets this evening.

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I'm going to read condensed
versions of these highly

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accomplished writers' bios.

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And then they will read,
so we can immerse ourselves

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in poetry for the
remainder of the night.

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Our first reader
will be Edgar Garcia.

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Edgar Garcia was
born in California,

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to a family of Central
American extraction.

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He is the author
of several books,

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both scholarly and creative.

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His most recent is a
collection of essays

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called Emergency: Reading the
Popol Vuh in a Time of Crisis.

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He is an associate
professor of English

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at the University
of Chicago and works

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in the fields of
Indigenous and Latinx

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studies, American literature,
poetry, and poetics,

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and environmental criticism.

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He also teaches in the
Department of Creative Writing,

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where he serves as the Director
of Undergraduate Studies.

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Garcia's academic
background shines

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through in his creative
work, particularly

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in Skins of Columbus:
A Dream Ethnography,

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a collection of poems and
anthropological essays.

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He cross-examines history
through dream-led verse

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and essay.

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I say dream-led because he
spent each night for four months

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reading Christopher
Columbus's journal before bed

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and transformed his dreams into
poetic record the next morning.

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The results are fascinatingly
fragmented in dream logic,

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half remembered histories.

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Like most poets, Garcia
grapples with the never

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ending project of using the
past to better understand

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the present.

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On the topic of time,
he wrote, "Time itself,

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in the crisis of its inequality,
provokes a reckoning."

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Our second reader
will be Gina Franco.

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Gina teaches at
Knox College, where

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she was awarded the Philip
Green Wright/Lombard Prize

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for Distinguished Teaching.

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Her recent book, The Accidental,
winner of the 2019 CantoMundo

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Poetry Prize, reflects
on accident and its role

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in creating the lives we were
born into and in determining

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how those lives end.

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Her first book,
The Keepsake Storm,

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interrogates the uneasy alliance
between the vehemence of memory

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and the surrealism of
narrative, especially

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in light of language,
place, faith, and identity.

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While her bio contains the
subjects of her two books,

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I think it's
important to emphasize

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how intricately detailed
and syntactically rich

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her poems are.

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I am often stunned
by the way she

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weaves in poetic interjections
and questions that redirect

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or redefine the poem by
creating intentional pauses

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for our consideration.

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In her latest book,
The Accidental,

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her poems tend toward
questioning language itself.

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For instance, she writes,
"So how is it done:

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the I is seeking in itself
where what is already finished

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requires the finishing.

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The I determined in its
I to bring the I forth

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and in its own regard
and without sacrifice,

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the I in conception and
realization in equation."

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No matter what she writes
about, we as readers

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are implicated in
the verse and asked

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to assist the poet in
her poems' thinking.

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Perhaps this call
and response quality

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is an artifact of
her faith practice.

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Franco is an oblate
with the community

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of Saint John's monastic order.

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Our final reader will
be Sheila Maldonado.

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Sheila Maldonado is the
author of the poetry

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collections That's What You
Get and One Bedroom Solo.

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Her poems often embody
a restless spirit

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that arises from the
certainty that life

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must be lived on our own terms.

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Her line breaks are tuned
toward delight and surprise,

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as they turn quickly,
like the bicycle

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wheels in one of my
favorite poems by her,

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called "Gentry Caffeine II."

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Maldonado richly
describes the speaker

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of the poem riding her
bike through New York City

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as "Flying, no worry about
having no job, or man, or kid,

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or expectation, or ambition,
just flying, forgetting,

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the sun hitting my shoulders."

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This feeling of freedom sweeps
across the body of her work.

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She was born in Brooklyn
and raised in Coney Island,

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so New York is a
prominent feature as well.

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Maldonado is a CantoMundo fellow
and a Creative Capital awardee

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as part of a visual
writing collective.

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She has served as an
artist in residence

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on Governors Island for the
Lower Manhattan Cultural

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Council and a cultural
envoy in Honduras

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for the US State Department.

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She teaches English for the
City University of New York.

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She lives in El Alto,
Manhattan, where

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she is working on
an ongoing book

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project about a
lifelong obsession

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with the ancient Maya.

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Now that we have the
introductions out of the way,

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these brilliant poets
will fill the room

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with their exceptional poetry.

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Please help me in welcoming
our first reader, Edgar Garcia.

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[APPLAUSE]

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