CantoMundo is an American literary organization founded in 2009 to support Latino poets and poetry. [1] It hosts an annual poetry workshop dedicated to the creation, documentation, and critical analysis of Latinx poetry. [2]
CantoMundo was founded in 2009 in San Antonio, Texas when Norma Elia Cantú, Celeste Guzman Mendoza, Pablo Miguel Martínez, Deborah Paredez, and Carmen Tafolla, [3] inspired by the Cave Canem workshops for African-American poets, [4] organized a workshop for Latino writers. The first workshop was held at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2010. [5] From 2011 to 2016 the workshops were held at the University of Texas, Austin. [6] [5] From 2017 to 2019 Columbia University, in New York City served as home for the program and workshops. [7] In August 2019, the University of Arizona Poetry Center formally announced a three-year partnership to host the CantoMundo workshops in Tucson, Arizona beginning in 2020. [8]
CantoMundo is one of over 25 members of the Poetry Coalition, an alliance of nonprofit organizations that aim to promote poetry that is coordinated by the Academy of American Poets. [9] In January 2019, the Academy of American Poets allocated a portion of a $2.2 million endowment from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to the Poetry Coalition, some of which went to CantoMundo. [10]
During the four day writing conference, fellows are divided into two groups of 12-15 poets that engage in workshops with invited faculty members, attend keynote lectures, and participate in panel discussions. [11]
During the weekend, fellows also have the opportunity to share their work in front of an audience at the Friday and Saturday night readings which are free and open to the general public. [11] Readings are sponsored by Columbia University's Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity and the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Barnard College, and the Office of the Dean of Social Science in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. [12]
The organization has partnered with the University of Arkansas Press for an annual book prize. Edited by Deborah Paredez and Celeste Guzman, the first judge for the prize is celebrated poet Rafael Campo. [23]
Norma Elia Cantú is a Chicana postmodernist writer and the Murchison Professor in the Humanities at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.
Latino poetry is a branch of American poetry written by poets born or living in the United States who are of Latin American origin or descent and whose roots are tied to the Americas and their languages, cultures, and geography.
Chicano poetry is a subgenre of Chicano literature that stems from the cultural consciousness developed in the Chicano Movement. Chicano poetry has its roots in the reclamation of Chicana/o as an identity of empowerment rather than denigration. As a literary field, Chicano poetry emerged in the 1960s and formed its own independent literary current and voice.
The University of Arkansas Press is a university press that is part of the University of Arkansas and has been a member of the Association of University Presses since 1984. Its mission is to publish peer-reviewed books and academic journals. It was established in 1980 by Willard B. Gatewood Jr. and Miller Williams and is housed in the McIlroy House in Fayetteville. Notable authors include civil-rights activist Daisy Bates, US president Jimmy Carter, former US poet laureate Billy Collins, and National Book Award–winner Ellen Gilchrist.
Dan Vera is an American poet and editor.
Carmen Giménez, also known as Carmen Giménez Smith, is an American poet, writer, and editor.
Millicent Borges Accardi is a Portuguese-American poet who lives in California. She has received literary fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), Fulbright, CantoMundo, the California Arts Council, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Barbara Deming Foundation, and Formby Special Collections at Texas Tech University.
Letras Latinas is the literary initiative at the University of Notre Dame's Institute for Latino Studies (ILS), with an office on campus in South Bend, Indiana, as well as Washington, D.C. It strives to enhance the visibility, appreciation and study of Latino literature both on and off the campus of the University of Notre Dame, with an emphasis on programs that support newer voices, foster a sense of community among writers, and place Latino writers in community spaces.
Francisco Aragón is a Latino poet, editor and writer.
Deborah Paredez is an American poet, scholar, and cultural critic. She is the author of the poetry collections, Year of the Dog and This Side of Skin, and the critical study, Selenidad: Selena, Latinos, and the Performance of Memory. She is co-founder of CantoMundo, a national organization that supports Latinx poets and poetry. She lives in New York City where she is a professor of creative writing and ethnic studies at Columbia University.
Eduardo C. Corral is an American poet and MFA Assistant Professor in the Department of English at NC State University. His first collection, Slow Lightning, published by Yale University Press, was the winner of the 2011 Yale Younger Series Poets award, making him the first Latino recipient of this prize. His 2020 work, guillotine, was awarded the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for gay poetry and was longlisted for the 2020 National Book Award for Poetry.
Carmen Tafolla is an internationally acclaimed Chicana writer from San Antonio, Texas, and a professor emerita of bicultural bilingual studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Tafolla served as the poet laureate of San Antonio from 2012 to 2014, and was named the Poet Laureate of Texas for 2015–16. Tafolla has written more than thirty books, and won multiple literary awards. She is one of the most highly anthologized Chicana authors in the United States, with her work appearing in more than 300 anthologies.
Denice Frohman is a poet, writer, performer and educator, whose work explores the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality. Frohman uses her experience as a queer woman from a multi-cultural background in her writing. By addressing identity, her work encourages communities to challenge the dominant social constructs and oppressive narratives in place that are currently working against concepts of unity and equity. Her message is about claiming the power to be who you are. She was born and raised in New York City, and earned her master's degree in education from Drexel University.
The Macondo Writers Workshop is an association of socially-engaged master's level writers working to advance creativity, foster generosity, and serve community. Founded in 1995 by writer Sandra Cisneros and named after the town in Gabriel García Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, the workshop gathers writers from all genres who work on geographic, cultural, economic, gender, and spiritual borders. An essential aspect of the Macondo Workshop is a global sense of community; participants recognize their place as writers in our society and the world.
Ire'ne Lara Silva is a Chicana feminist poet and writer from Austin, Texas. Her parents were migrant farmworkers. She has published numerous works of poetry and her short story collection won the 2013 Premio Aztlán Literary Prize. A central theme of her work is Indigenous survival and perseverance despite colonization: "let's empower ourselves with that knowledge."
Laurie Ann Guerrero is a Chicana poet from San Antonio, Texas. She was the poet laureate of San Antonio from 2014 to 2016 and the Poet Laureate of Texas from 2016 to 2017. In the fall semester of 2017, she became the first writer-in-residence at Texas A&M University San Antonio and a "fully immersed faculty member. She will teach a contemporary American woman poets course, host numerous University writing workshops and mentor students while working on her next writing project."
Gloria Amescua is a Latina and Tejana writer from Austin, Texas. Amescua is most known for her poetry chapbooks, "Windchimes" and "What Remains." She won Lee and Low's Award Honor (2016) for her picture book manuscript in verse originally titled: Luz Jiménez, No Ordinary Girl. Her most recent book is Child of the Flower-Song People: Luz Jiménez, Daughter of the Nahua, a picture book illustrated by Duncan Tonatiuh and published by Abrams Books for Young Readers in 2021.
Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, born 1988, is a poet and activist. He lives in Marysville, California, with his wife and son.
David Campos (poet) is an American poet, writer, and producer of video poetry from California. His debut collection, Furious Dusk, won the 2014 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize from Letras Latinas, the literary initiative at the University of Notre Dame's Institute for Latino Studies (ILS).
Urayoán Noel is a translator, poet, and critic who is the author of poetry collections, poetry criticism and books. He has received fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Bronx Council on the Arts, the Howard Foundation, and CantoMundo.