Letras Latinas 20th Anniversary: Afro-Latinx Poetry Now (Panel)

Join us for the third installment of Letras Latinas’s year-long 20th Anniversary celebration, featuring Dr. Grisel Y. Acosta, Diannely Antigua, Jasminne Mendez, and Yesenia Montilla. The multi-day festivities will include a poetry reading the evening of Thursday, March 21 and a panel on Afro-Latinx Poetry Now the afternoon of Saturday, March 23. Both are hybrid events, which will be offered in-person and via livestream. 

Dr. Grisel Y. Acosta (she/they) is the author of Things to Pack on the Way to Everywhere (Get Fresh Books, 2021), a 2020 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize finalist. She is the editor of Latina Outsiders Remaking Latina Identity (Routledge, 2019) and creative writing editor at Chicana/Latina Studies Journal. Select work is featured in Platform Review,Best American Poetry, The Baffler,Acentos Review, Kweli Journal,Gathering of the Tribes Magazine, and forthcoming in Inkwell and the Hopkins Review. They are a full professor at CUNY-BCC, Macondo fellow, VONA alum, and Dodge Foundation Poet, and the recent recipient of a Sundress Academy for the Arts grant and residency.

Diannely Antigua is a Dominican American poet and educator, born and raised in Massachusetts. Her debut collection Ugly Music (YesYes Books, 2019) was the winner of the Pamet River Prize and a 2020 Whiting Award. Her second collection Good Monster is forthcoming in 2024 from Copper Canyon Press. She received her MFA at NYU and is the recipient of fellowships from CantoMundo, Community of Writers, and the Fine Arts Work Center Summer Program. Her poems can be found in Poetry, American Poetry Review, Washington Square Review, and elsewhere. She resides in Portsmouth, New Hampshire where she is the Poet Laureate.

Jasminne Mendez is a best-selling Dominican American poet, translator, playwright, and award-winning author of several books for children and adults, including the poetry collection City Without Altar (Noemi Press). Her other books have received prizes from the Texas Institute of Letters, the Writer’s League of Texas, and the International Latino Book Awards. She is an MFA graduate of the creative writing program at the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University and a University of Houston alum.

Yesenia Montilla is an Afro-Latina poet and a daughter of immigrants. She received her MFA from Drew University in poetry and poetry in translation. She is a CantoMundo graduate fellow and a 2020 NYFA fellow. Her work has been published in Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day,Prairie Schooner, Gulf Coast, and in Best of American Poetry 2021 and 2022. Her first collection The Pink Box was published by Willow Books and was longlisted for a PEN Open Book award. Her second collection Muse Found in a Colonized Body was published by Four Way Books and was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award in 2023. She is an adjunct professor at Juilliard and lives in Harlem, New York.

In-Person Attendance
Masks are strongly encouraged and available at check-in for those who would like to wear one. The Foundation reserves the right to update this policy if community levels of COVID-19 increase significantly. Read our full COVID-19 Health & Safety Guidelines. Guests are encouraged to register in advance. 

Livestream Attendance
The livestream link will be shared with registered guests on the day of the event. In order to receive the livestream details, please register in advance here. 

The Poetry Foundation’s events are completely free of charge and open to the public. This event will include CART captioning and ASL interpretation. For more information about accessibility at the Poetry Foundation, please visit our Accessibility Guide.

Clockwise from top left: Dr. Grisel Y. Acosta by David Flores, Diannely Antigua by Tony Ochoa, Jasminne Mendez by Tasha Gorel, and Yesenia Montilla.