Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Join me at these events

Join me at these events!

January 14, 2018 Poets Against Walls Generative Writing Workshop: @ The McAllen Creative incubator : Hosted by Resistencia en la frontera: Poets Against Border Walls 601 N. Main St., McAllen, TX-2-4pm

January 15, 2018 8th Annual MLK Day at Cine El Rey @ 4pm


January 19, 2018 IV Aniversario, Enero Rojo Lunar Anthology release @ 1010 S Standard Ave, San Juan, TX @ 6:30PM

January 20, 2018 Austin Poetry Society- Guest Speaker from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. at theYarborough Branch Library, 2200 Hancock Dr, Austin.

January 25, 2018 Poetry Celebration Featuring Edward Vidaurre McAllen Poet Laureate 2018 @ The Dustin Michael Sekula Memorial Library 6-8pm

January 27, 2018 Stop the Wall: Rally to Save Santa Ana NWR
Hosted by Save Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge 11am-2pm


February 8, 2018 Love & Chocolate Poetry Night from 6-8pm @ The Dustin Michael Sekula Memorial Library

February 23, 2018 People’s Poetry Festival Corpus Christi, TX
Bridges Not Borders 12:15-2:00 Panel
Women, Gender and Health 2:15-4:15 Panel

March 2, 2018 2018 Festival of International Books and Arts (FESTIBA) Community Day from 6:00 pm to 10:00 pm in the City of Edinburg Courtyard located at 415 W. University Dr. in Edinburg, Texas.

April 26-29, 2018 The Rio Grande Valley International Poetry Festival (11th Annual)

On-Going: Called to Rise Anthology: Call for Submissions
The McAllen Poet Laureate invites submissions from students throughout the lower Rio Grande Valley for a new poetry anthology by and for youth: Called to Rise.


We call on students in elementary school, middle school, and high school to submit poetry that reflects and conveys their lives living at this particular time in the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. The theme is “healing and hope”.

Poetry Celebration Featuring 2018 Poet Laureate of McAllen, TX


Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Called to Rise Anthology Call for Submissions



Called to Rise Anthology
Call for Submissions


The McAllen Poet Laureate invites submissions from students throughout the lower Rio Grande Valley for a new poetry anthology by and for youth: Called to Rise.

We call on students in elementary school, middle school, and high school to submit poetry that reflects and conveys their lives living at this particular time in the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. The theme is “healing and hope”.

The anthology will be divided into three different sections for elementary school, middle school, and high school poems. It is expected that the anthology will be published in hardcopy, perfect-bound form as well as in a digital format and distributed widely. The anticipated publication date for the anthology is early Fall, 2018.

Selected contributors will receive one free copy of the anthology, with additional copies available for sale. In addition, contributors will be invited to read at a book release reception along with the editors.

Guidelines
1. Poems may be written in any form and be of any length. However, given page constraints, shorter poems will have a better chance of selection.
2. The theme is “healing and hope” but this can be interpreted loosely. We invite students to be as creative as they’d like.
3. Students may submit with their parents permission or parents may submit on behalf of their children.
4. Only one submission per student.
5. A submission consists of a maximum of five (5) poems.
6.There is no guarantee of selection. The number of entries selected for inclusion depends on space constraints and the number of submissions.

How to Submit
DEADLINE: March 27, 2018
Selected contributors will be notified of their selection no later than May 1, 2018.

Submissions should be sent as a pdf file attachment to:

Subject Line: Called to Rise Anthology



The submission email should include a very short cover letter including the following information:

1. Name of student
2. Grade level at the time of submission
3. School at which student is enrolled at the time of submission
4. Home city/town
5. Contact information, including email address and phone number

Contributors will be asked to submit a form signed by their parents (for those students under 18 years of age) granting all first publication rights to the publishing press.

Questions can be sent to mcallenpoetlaureate@gmail.com.

The Editors
Entries selected for contribution to the anthology will be selected by the past, current, and future Poet Laureates of McAllen, Texas.

Lina Suarez was the 2015-2017 Poet Laureate of McAllen, Texas. A native of the Rio Grande Valley, her poetry is a hybrid of rancheras, polkas, pop, rock, and musica internacional. She is a past recipient of the Mexicasa Writing Fellowship and co-author of the Texas State Library’s Bilingual Programs chapter. She is the author of the YA book Cuentos Wela Told Me: That Scared the Beeswax Out of Me!. Her work appears in such venues as ¡Juventud!: Growing up on the Border and Along the River III: Dark Voices from the Río Grande.

Edward Vidaurre is the 2018 Poet Laureate of McAllen, Texas and the author of four books. I Took My Barrio On A Road Trip (Slough Press 2013), Insomnia (El Zarape Press 2014), Beautiful Scars: Elegiac Beat Poems (El Zarape Press 2015), and Chicano Blood Transfusion (FlowerSong Books, 2017). Vidaurre is the founder of Pasta, Poetry, and Vinoa monthly open mic gathering of artists, poets, and musicians. He resides in McAllen, TX with his wife and daughter.

Rodney Gomez is the 2019 Poet Laureate of McAllen, Texas and the author of Citizens of the Mausoleum (2018), Baedeker from the Persistent Refuge (2019), and the chapbooks Mouth Filled with Night (winner of the Drinking Gourd Chapbook Prize from Northwestern University), Spine (selected by Ada Limón as winner of the Gloria Anzaldúa Poetry Prize), and A Short Tablature of Loss (selected by Eduardo Corral as winner of the Rane Arroyo Prize). His work has appeared in Poetry, The Gettysburg Review, Blackbird, Pleiades, Denver Quarterly, Puerto del Sol, and other journals. He is the son of migrant farm workers and the first in his family to attend college. A proud member of the Macondo Writers’ Workshop and the Chocholichex writing collective, he was educated at Yale, Arizona State, Berkeley, Cornell, and the University of Texas Pan American. He reviews poetry and nonfiction for Latino Book Review and works at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. He lives with the love of his life, Sara, in McAllen.

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