Los Angeles Review, Letras Latinas, & Beyond Baroque invite you to this special in-person celebration of LATINX DIGITAL POETICS: An Electronic Literature Folio. Published in the Los Angeles Review, the digital anthology features newly commissioned works of six poets, among them Tina Escaja, Leonardo Flores, Loss Pequeño Glazier, and Urayoán Noel.

To celebrate this groundbreaking work, contributors Anthony Cody and J. Michael Martinez will be presenting their new works in addition to readings from their most recent publications. Local poets Vickie Vertiz and heidi andrea restrepo rhodes will be opening the event with a special set of selected readings from their newest collections. As the evening’s guest of honor, Chicano poet and former L.A. Poet Laureate Luis J. Rodriguez will be delivering a brief response to these cutting-edge works transcending language, format, and tradition. The program will be hosted by Los Angeles Review’s Poetry Editor, Brent Ameneyro.

Latinx poetry has a rich history of working in avant-garde or innovative spaces—from Juan Felipe Herrera’s experimental forms and Mónica de la Torre’s innovative approaches to translation and collaboration, among many others—this legacy continues in the 21st century, which is particularly well-represented in digital poetry.

As a form of electronic literature, digital poetry is a genre of literature made of works that are designed to be experienced on a computer or digital device. Throughout the month of May, LAR will be publishing these artworks on its website.

This folio is made possible thanks to Letras Latinas, the literary initiative at the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies, and The Poetry Foundation.

Readings: 7:00 PM. Reception: 8:30 PM

About the authors

Anthony Cody is the author of The Rendering (Omnidawn, 2023) and Borderland Apocrypha (Omnidawn, 2020), winner of the 2018 Omnidawn Open Book Contest selected by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge and the 2021 American Book Award.

J. Michael Martinez is the author of three poetry collections, most recently “Museum of the Americas,” with a fourth, “Tarta Americana,” forthcoming from Penguin Press in fall 2023. A multimedia artist, Martinez is an assistant professor of poetry at San Jose State University’s MFA creative writing program.

Vickie Vértiz is an award-winning Mexican American poet, writer, and professor whose work has appeared in the New York Times magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. Her book Palm Frond with Its Throat Cut won the 2018 PEN America literary prize in poetry. She is the author of Auto/Body (University of Notre Dame Press, 2023), winner of the Sandeen Prize. A graduate of Williams College, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of California, Riverside, she teaches in the Writing Program at UC Santa Barbara.

heidi andrea restrepo rhodes is a queer, Colombian/Latinx, poet, artist, scholar, & activist. Her poetry collection The Inheritance of Haunting was selected by Ada Limón for the 2018 Letras Latinas Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize for a first book for a Latina/o/x poet & was published by University of Notre Dame Press in 2019. Her chapbook, ephemeral won the 2022 Lorca Latinx Poetry Prize and will be published in 2023 by EcoTheo Collective.

Luis J. Rodríguez was born in 1954, in El Paso Texas to Mexican Immigrant Parents. He is a poet, journalist, memoirist, and author of children’s books, short stories, and novels. His documentation of urban and Mexican immigrant life has made him one of the most prominent Chicano literary voices in the United States. Rodríguez grew up in Los Angeles, where in his teen years he joined a gang, lived on the streets, and became addicted to heroin. In his twenties, after turning his back on gang violence and drugs, Rodríguez began his career as a journalist and then award-winning poet, writing such books as the memoir Always Running, 1993. Rodríguez maintains an arts center, bookstore, and poetry press in L.A., Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore where he continues writing and working to create community honoring ancestral wisdom in the San Fernando Valley.

About The Organizations

The Los Angeles Review, an annual print and online literary journal established in 2003, is the voice of Los Angeles, and the voice of the nation. With its multitude of cultures, Los Angeles roils at the center of the cauldron of divergent literature emerging from the West Coast. Perhaps from this place something can emerge that speaks to the writer or singer or dancer or wild person in all of us, something disturbing, something alive, something of the possibility of what it could be to be human in the 21st century. We invite both published and emerging writers to submit their work to our editors, and we thank you for being part of the Los Angeles Review.

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. Letras Latinas is a founding member of the Poetry Coalition, an alliance of organizations working together to promote the values poets bring to culture and the important contribution poetry makes in the lives of people of all ages backgrounds.

This event is Free & In-Person at Beyond Baroque. 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.

If you can’t join us in-person the event will be livestreamed on Beyond Baroque’s YouTube channel at the scheduled time of the event.

Please RSVP if you are planning to attend this event. We accept walk-ins, but priority will be given to people that have registered. Limited seating is available; we recommend arriving early.