We are very excited to direct your attention to the new, revamped blog, Letras Latinas Blog 2 (LLB2). Please visit the new site here: https://www.letraslatinasblog2.com/ LLB2 offers insight and commentary on contemporary letters, especially poetry. We aspire to publish reviews, interviews, brief essays, and roundtable discussions. We also occasionally re-frame material presented elsewhere on the web, including past Letras Latinas collaborations. LLB2 is the next iteration of Letras Latinas Blog, which we hope you continue to visit and share with your friends a ..read more

Golden Ax by Rio Cortez $18.00 | Penguin Books | Aug 30, 2022 | 80 Pages | ISBN: 9780143137139   Laura Villareal (LV): I never know where to begin when reviewing a poetry book. Often I’m overwhelmed with all the exciting moves and turns of a book and want to speak on them all at once. Let’s begin, perhaps, with initial impressions?   Alfredo Aguilar (AA): Unsurprisingly, I found myself drawn to this book’s first section with its descriptions and meditations on and inside of the specific landscapes of Utah. I was struck by how place is used as somewhere to begin thin ..read more

One of my roles during my time as the 2022/2023 Letras Latinas Poetry Coalition Fellow is to act as Managing Editor of Letras Latinas Blog. As such, I’d like to introduce the newest contributors to our blog: Laura Villareal and Alfredo Aguilar. These two poets will be working together to produce six reviews in an atypical format for a new series which they’ve named Warp & Weft: Reviews in Conversation. This bi-monthly series will allow Villareal and Aguilar to write candidly in conversation, creating an enthralling blend of down-to-earth plática and thoughtful explication. In their debu ..read more

  Day 1 The beginning of the gathering: poets and scholars getting to know one another at breakfast TV screens around campus flashed the headshots of the poets, and attendees were welcomed by a large printed poster outside the hall where poets and scholars presented Francisco Aragón introducing Yesenia Montilla, Darrel Alejandro Holnes, and John Murillo at the start of Session 1 Darrel Alejandro Holnes paying homage to Lorenzo Thomas’s book  Yesenia Montilla presenting on the poetry of Aracelis Girmay John Murillo presenting on the poetry of Nancy Morejón Franci ..read more

There are many definitions of testimonioas it pertains to Latin American literature. I can’t pretend to have a comprehensive definition myself, and I especially don’t have a definition better than the many scholars who have written about this topic, but I can share my interpretation. One might, for example, identify an oppressive situation and write a testimonio to establish a clear narrative in opposition. Alternatively, one might witness a gathering where underrepresented voices are celebrated and write a testimonio in support of the narrative; in other words, to bear witness and join the co ..read more

  Announcing the 2022 Lorca Latinx Poetry Prize Winner and Honorable Mentions Carmen Giménez selects ephemeral by heidi andrea restrepo rhodes   MADRID, SPAIN (October 7, 2022) — The Lorca Latinx Poetry Prize, Letras Latinas, and EcoTheo Collective are thrilled to announce the winner of the 2022 Lorca Latinx Poetry Prize, which supports the publication of an English-Spanish language chapbook by an emerging Latinx poet with no more than one full-length collection in print. The 2022 Prize is awarded to heidi andrea restrepo rhodes for her chapbook ephemeral. Honorable mentions are ..read more

Photo Credit: Tin House via https://tinhouse.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/9781953534194-20220307020417.jpg “[Falta] can mean a love that is not here, as in: ‘me haces falta,’ or ‘I miss you’ which I always hear as: ‘you make me miss you.’” –Daisy Hernández, The Kissing Bug (Tin House, 2021) In The Kissing Bug, author Daisy Hernández investigates Chagas, a neglected disease that disproportionately affects Latinxs, tackling issues with healthcare in the U.S. and her complex relationship with her Tía Dora, who passed as a result of the illness. Like other works I’ve written about in ..read more

Photo Credit: HarperCollins via https://www.harpercollins.com/products/a-woman-of-endurance-dahlma-llanos-figueroa?variant=39419449704482 “She knew with undeniable certainty that she would withstand all that they could devise to destroy her. They would not take her true self…she would survive.” —Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa, A Woman of Endurance (Amistad, 2022) A Woman of Endurance is Puerto Rican author Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa’s latest novel. It follows the turbulent life of Pola, an African woman who is sold into slavery, as she heals in spite of the inhumanity of her situation thanks to the s ..read more

Letras Latinas, the literary initiative of the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies, is pleased to announce that Jordan Pérez, from Atlanta, GA, is the tenth recipient of the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize. Named after the late Chicano poet from Fresno, the Prize is a collaboration with University of Notre Dame Press and supports the publication of a first book by a Latinx poet residing in the United States. Jordan Pérez The tenth edition of the Prize was judged by Alexandra Lytton Regalado and Sheila Maldonado, with the assistance from preliminary judges Adela Najarro and A ..read more

  Photo Credit: Nightboat Books via https://nightboat.org/book/desgraciado/ “Stripped of its mother tongue, my body is compliant. My body searches for its organs in the rubble of the oppressor. My body sifts through language patching shards together until there is an echo of…the mother song.” —Angel Dominguez, Desgraciado: (the collected letters) (Nightboat Books, 2022) In Desgraciado: (the collected letters), Angel Dominguez confronts the lasting physical, historical, and sociopolitical violence of colonization in a series of letters to Spanish colonizer, Diego de Landa. The lett ..read more