Performance poetry is a broad term, encompassing a variety of styles and genres. In brief, it is poetry that is specifically composed for or during a performance before an audience.
PatMora is an American poet and author of books for adults, teens and children. A native of El Paso, Texas, her grandparents came to the city from northern Mexico. She graduated from the University of Texas at El Paso, received Honorary Doctorates from North Carolina State University and SUNY Buffalo, and was awarded American Library Association Honorary Membership. A literacy advocate, in 1996, she founded Children's Day, Book Day , now celebrated across the country each year on April 30.
Sergio Troncoso is an American author of short stories, essays and novels. He often writes about the United States-Mexico border, working-class immigrants, families and fatherhood, philosophy in literature, and crossing cultural, psychological, and philosophical borders.
Hedwig Irene Gorski is an American performance poet and an avant-garde artist who labels her aesthetic as "American futurism." The term "performance poetry," a precursor to slam poetry, is attributed to her. It originated in press releases for experimental spoken word and conceptual theater Gorski created during 1979. She is a first-generation Polish American academic scholar and accomplished creative writer. The innovative poetry, prose, drama, and audio works are published and produced in a variety of media using standard and experimental forms.
Arturo Islas, Jr. was an English professor and novelist from El Paso, Texas, whose writing focused on the experience of Chicano cultural duality.
José Antonio "Tony" Burciaga was an American Chicano artist, poet, and writer who explored issues of Chicano identity and American society.
Frederick Luis Aldama is an American author, editor, and academic. He is the Jacob & Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities and founder and director of the Latinx Pop Lab at the University of Texas, Austin. At UT Austin is also affiliate faculty in Latino Media Arts & Studies and LGBTQ Studies. He continues to hold the title Distinguished University Professor as adjunct professor at The Ohio State University. He teaches courses on Latinx pop culture, especially focused on the areas of comics, TV, film, animation, and video games in the departments of English and Radio-Television-Film at UT Austin. At the Ohio State University he was Distinguished University Professor, Arts & Humanities Distinguished Professor of English, University Distinguished Scholar, and Alumni Distinguished Teacher as well as recipient of the Rodica C. Botoman Award for Distinguished Teaching and Mentoring and the Susan M. Hartmann Mentoring and Leadership Award. He was also founder and director of the award-winning LASER/Latinx Space for Enrichment Research and founder and co-director of the Humanities & Cognitive Sciences High School Summer Institute. In has been inducted into the National Academy of Teachers, National Cartoonist Society, the Texas Institute of Letters, the Ohio State University's Office of Diversity & Inclusion Hall of Fame, and as board of directors for The Academy of American Poets. He sits on the boards for American Library Association Graphic Novel and Comics Round Table, BreakBread Literacy Project, and Ad Astra Media. He is founder and director of UT Austin's BIPOC POP: Comics, Gaming & Animation Arts Expo & Symposium as well as Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Latinx Pop Magazine.
Alberto Baltazar Urista Heredia, better known by his nom de plume Alurista, is an American poet and activist. His work was influential in the Chicano Movement and is important to the field of Chicano poetry.
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.
José Luis Montalvo was a Chicano writer, poet, and community activist.
Alicia Gaspar de Alba is an American scholar, cultural critic, novelist, and poet whose works include historical novels and scholarly studies on Chicana/o art, culture and sexuality.
Mexican American literature is literature written by Mexican Americans in the United States. Although its origins can be traced back to the sixteenth century, the bulk of Mexican American literature dates from post-1848 and the United States annexation of large parts of Mexico in the wake of the Mexican–American War. Today, as a part of American literature in general, this genre includes a vibrant and diverse set of narratives, prompting critics to describe it as providing "a new awareness of the historical and cultural independence of both northern and southern American hemispheres". Chicano literature is an aspect of Mexican American literature.
Charles Taylor Jr. is an American author. He was born in Minneapolis, but lived most of his life in Texas. He no longer teaches creative writing at Texas A&M and started a small press called Slough Press, publishing from 1973 to 2011. His contribution to building the literature scene in Austin, Texas, includes activities as both a writer and publisher. He published leading poets, fiction, and non-fiction writers, whose books received numerous awards and were sometimes later published by larger presses. His poetry collection What do You Want, Blood? received the 1988 Austin Book Award. Taylor's novel, Drifter's Story, and his poetry book, Ordinary Life, explore the lives of the less privileged. He has taught in the NEA Poets-in-the-Schools Program and was CETA Poet-in-Residence for the City of Salt Lake.
Isabella Russell-Ides is an American poet, playwright, and novelist. She is the author of two novels of speculative fiction: White Monkey Chronicles and The Godma's Daughters, several award-winning plays, and one book of poetry: Getting Dangerously Close To Myself. Her first play, a country western musical, Nashville Road, premiered in Austin, Texas at Center Stage on Sixth Street . She was a notable voice in the Austin performance poetry scene in the 1980s. Her two-woman show, Jo & Louisa, won a 2019 DFW Critics Forum Award for Outstanding New Play. Coco & Gigi, her existential and feminist take on Waiting for Godot, won the 2008 DFW Critics Forum Award for Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Ensemble. She has also received critical acclaim for her works, Leonard's Car, Fortune Cookie Smash. She is noted for the poetic and heightened language of her texts.
Bernice B. Ortiz Zamora is a Chicana poet, "one of the preeminent poets to emerge from the Chicano movement of the 1960s and 1970s". She received a B.A. in English and French from Southern Colorado State College and an M.A. in English from Colorado State University in Fort Collins in 1972. In 1972, she enrolled in the English doctoral program at Marquette University and transferred to Stanford University the following year, where she ultimately received her Ph.D. in 1976. Besides being an accomplished poet, Zamora also taught classes in ethnic studies, Chicano studies, and literature at Santa Clara University, Stanford University, University of California, and University of San Francisco. She has served as a guest editor and co-editor for various publications, including the Chicano literary journal El Fuego de Aztlán, De Colores with José Armas, Flor y Canto IV with Armas, and Flor y Canto V with Michael Reed.
Latino literature is literature written by people of Latin American ancestry, often but not always in English, most notably by Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cuban Americans, and Dominican Americans, many of whom were born in the United States. The origin of the term "Latino literature" dates back to the 1960s, during the Chicano Movement, which was a social and political movement by Mexican Americans seeking equal rights and representation. At the time, the term "Chicano literature" was used to describe the work of Mexican-American writers. As the movement expanded, the term "Latino" came into use to encompass writers of various Latin American backgrounds, including Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and others.
This is a Mexican American bibliography. This list consists of books, and journal articles, about Mexican Americans, Chicanos, and their history and culture. The list includes works of literature whose subject matter is significantly about Mexican Americans and the Chicano/a experience. This list does not include works by Mexican American writers which do not address the topic, such as science texts by Mexican American writers.
Estela Portillo-Trambley was a Chicana poet and playwright. She gained recognition through the publishing of her many plays, prose, and poetry depicting the lives and plight of Chicana women in male-dominated societies.
Ricardo Sánchez was a writer, poet, professor, and activist. Sometimes called the "Grandfather of Chicano poetry," Sánchez gained national acclaim for his 1971 poetry collection Canto y Grito Mi Liberacion. Incarcerated in his twenties for stealing money to feed his struggling family, Sánchez read extensively and even learned Hebrew while at Soledad Prison in California. Upon his release in 1969, his poems were included in a poetry anthology. In 1971, his first solo collection of poetry was published, establishing Sánchez as one of the nation's most important Chicano poets.
