Free Event

Poesia Para la Gente is an ekphrastic reading by Latinx women poets in honor of Arte Para la Gente: The Collected Works of Margaret Garcia. This special intimate event will be hosted by the prolific Marsha de la O.

Melinda Palacio’s novel, Ocotillo Dreams received the Josephine Miles Award. Her poetry book, How Fire Is a Story, Waiting, a finalist for the Milt Kessler and Paterson Prizes, received First Prize in Poetry at the 2013 ILBA. The cover portrait is included in Arte Para La Gente by artist Margaret Garcia. In 2015, her work was featured at Academy of American Poets,. Bird Forgiveness is her latest poetry book. During the pandemic, she started writing songs.

Crystal AC Salas is a Xicanx poet, essayist, educator, and community organizer. A 2021 California Arts Council Individual Artist Grant Recipient, her chapbook Grief Logic is forthcoming in April 2022 from Gunpowder Press.

Emma Trelles is the poet laureate of Santa Barbara and the author of Tropicalia (U. of Notre Dame Press), winner of the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize. She is writing a second collection of poems titled Courage and the Clock. The daughter of Cuban immigrants, she has received fellowships from CantoMundo and the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs. She teaches at Santa Barbara City College and curates the Mission Poetry Series.

Luzmarie Espinosa is the poet laureate of Ventura County and has been an activist for social change through art for decades. In 1979, she became a member of the Royal Chicano Air Force, a Sacramento-based art collective involved in theater and performance poetry, which advanced the cause of the United Farm Workers movement. She also taught and performed with Danza Azteca on the Central Coast and performed in theater productions throughout California, including Teatro Inlakech of Oxnard.

Corinne Contreras is a performance poet who goes by Crn. Crn is a poet from the San Francisco Bay Area, currently residing on California’s central coast. They began writing poetry in grade school as a means of entertaining friends. Crn’s style still aims at entertainment with the hopes of evoking the reader to think about choices we make when weighing our First World Problems.

Proof of vaccination will be required on arrival for in-person attendees over 12 years of age. Masks will not be required for this event. If you would like a mask, we’re happy to provide one for you.

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