Beyond Baroque is proud to present a dual book launch and reading by Chicana poets ire’ne lara silva and Angelina Sáenz in celebration of their new poetry collections! The fifth collection by 2023 Texas State Poet Laureate ire’ne silva, the eaters of flowers (Saddle Road Press), compiles poems exploring family and personal grief following the death of her brother. The second collection by Angelina Sáenz, Maestra (FlowerSong Press), navigates the current public school landscape through poems highlighting narratives of mentors, students, and working class parents of color.

The poets will be joined by Chicana poet and scholar Jen Yáñez-Alaniz, whose research focuses on academic decolonization, and Inglewood-born-and-raised poet féi hernandez, author of Hood Criatura. Book signings will follow the readings.

Doors Open: 6:30 PM Readings: 7:00 PM

About the authors

ire’ne lara silva is the 2023 Texas State Poet Laureate and the author of five poetry collections, furia, Blood Sugar Canto, CUICACALLI/House of Song, FirstPoems, and the eaters of flowers; two chapbooks, Enduring Azucares and Hibiscus Tacos; and a short story collection, flesh to bone, which won the Premio Aztlán. ire’ne is the recipient of a 2021 Tasajillo Writers Grant, the 2021 Texas Institute of Letters Shrake Award for Best Short Nonfiction, a 2017 NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant, and the final Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Award, and also was the Fiction Finalist for AROHO’s 2013 Gift of Freedom Award. Currently a Writer at Large for Texas Highways magazine, ire’ne is working on a second collection of short stories titled the light of your body. Her first comic book, VENDAVAL, will be released by the Chispa Imprint of Scout Comics in April 2024. www.irenelarasilva.wordpress.com

Angelina Sáenz, M. Ed, MFA, is an award-winning public school teacher and poet whose work focuses on memory, mujeres, and motherhood. She is a UCLA Writing Project fellow, an alumna of the VONA/Voices Workshop for Writers of Color, and a Macondo Writer’s Workshop Fellow. Her poetry has appeared in outlets such as Diálogo, Split this Rock, Out of Anonymity, Angels Flight | literary west, Every Other, Cockpit Revue Paris, and The Acentos Review. Her debut book of poetry, Edgecliff, and her second collection, Maestra, are published by FlowerSong Press.

Jen Yáñez-Alaniz, a Chicana Mestiza activist, educator, poet, and PhD Fellow in Culture, Literacy, and Language at UT San Antonio, co-founded Welcome: A Poetry Declaration to promote language justice and equity through poetic translingualism. Her research focuses on ChicanaMestiza researcher positionality and poetry autoethnography. Yáñez-Alaniz has contributed to various journals, anthologies, and works like “Matrilineal Poetics: Toward an Understanding of Corporeality and Identity” featured in Latinas in Hollywood Herstories. She authored the poetry chapbook Surrogate Eater and was featured in the forthcoming Corazón Collective anthology. Her upcoming chapter in Decolonizing Academic Writing through Translingualism explores academic writing’s sensual, surrogate, and consumptive aspects.

féi hernandez (b. 1993, Chihuahua, Mexico) is a trans, Inglewood-raised, formerly undocumented immigrant. féi is the author of the full-length poetry collection, Hood Criatura (Sundress Publications, 2020). They are a 2023 LAMBDA LITERARY fellow and 2022 Tin House Scholar. féi has been published in Poetry Foundation, Poets.Org, Autostraddle, PANK Magazine, Somewhere We are Human, TransLash Media & Narrative, and more. féi is the founder of The House of Etéreo and within it, Spirit School for the Divinely Gifted, a spiritual learning space for trans and queer BIPOC spiritual practitioners.

Masks are encouraged while inside our center.

Event attendees are expected to behave in a respectful and considerate manner while in our space. Beyond Baroque reserves the right to remove individuals from our events, virtual or otherwise, if they are not respecting the space, fellow attendees, or performers.

Please arrive early.