Palabra Pura: Poems as Stories, Stories as Poems

Featuring Dawn Herrera Helphand and Denise Ruiz, Poems as Stories, Stories as Poems explores the ways that poetry opens up narrative possibilities. At once funny and fierce, thoughtful and bizarre, this month’s Palabra Pura, curated by Coya Paz, brings verse and storytelling together through the words of two powerful women.

Dawn Herrera Helphand is a poet, a mother and a full-time lover. Dawn was most recently seen onstage as “Pink Slime” in “Unnatural Spaces,” the Guild Complex’s performance-poetry incubator. A Mellon Mays Fellow, Dawn is pursuing a Ph.D. with the University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought, investigating the relationships between freedom and power, ethics and politics.

Denise Ruiz is a poet, mother, and agitator. Denise recently wrote and performed in Unnatural Spaces, from the Guild Complex’s Poetry-Performance Incubator. She believes in real talk and cute clothes.

Coya Paz is poet, director, and lip gloss connoisseur. She is the Lead Artist for the Poetry Performance Incubator at The Guld Complex, a founding member of Proyecto Latina, and a member of the artistic team at Free Street Theatre. She teaches in The Theatre School at DePaul University.