Afro-Latinx Poetry Now
Talks * Conversation * Performance
Date: September 27-28, 2022
Location: McKenna Hall, University of Notre Dame
The summer of racial reckoning that reverberated across the United States in 2020 after the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd prompted cultural organizations around the country to undergo long overdue periods of self-scrutiny. “Afro-Latinx Poetry Now” is one response to this reflection—on the part of Letras Latinas, the literary initiative at the Institute for Latino Studies, in partnership with the Initiative on Race and Resilience, at the University of Notre Dame.
The six sessions that made up this two-day gathering strove to create space to center Blackness within the literary community. The visiting poets will be joined by six scholars, who will each illuminate the poets’ oeuvre, respectively, at two sessions. In addition to performing their poems at evening sessions, the poets each delivered talks on an Afro-Latinx poet of their choosing. In all, then, the work of twelve artists were celebrated. These in-person sessions were live-streamed and recorded for maximum amplification. The recordings are available below.
See Event Schedule
“Afro-Latinx Poetry Now” was made possible thanks to the generosity of private benefactors, in addition to campus co-sponsors.
Day 1
Session 1: Poets on Poets
Session 2: Scholars on Poets
Session 3: An Evening of Poetry
Day 2
Session 4: Poets on Poets
Session 5: Scholars on Poets
Session 6: An Evening of Poetry
Featured poets
Featured scholars
Francisco Robles
University of Notre Dame
Pablo José López Oro
Smith College
Marisel Moreno
University of Notre Dame
Yomaira C. Figueroa
Michigan State University
Judith Rodriguez
Indiana University
John Alba Cutler
University of California, Berkeley
Presenting sponsors
- Institute for Latino Studies
- Initiative on Race and Resilience
Co-sponsors
- Creative Writing Program
- Department of Africana Studies
- Department of American Studies
- Department of English
- Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
- Institute for Scholarship and the Liberal Arts, Henkels Lecture Fund
- José E. Fernández Hispanic Caribbean Studies Initiative
- Literatures of Annihilation, Exile, and Resistance
- The Graduate School