Palabra Pura: “Blood, Family, and Tears / Sangre, Familia y Lágrimas”

Our monthly bilingual poetry event. Curated by Johanny Vázquez Paz featuring Dinorah Cortés-Vélez and Teresa Vázquez.

Dinorah Cortés-Vélez

Dinorah Cortés-Vélez is from Isabela, Puerto Rico. She has resided in Wisconsin since 1997. She is an Assistant Professor of Latin American literature at Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, USA. She earned her doctoral degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a dissertation on the ethical and political uses of humor in Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Her research interests include Colonial and contemporary Latin American literature. In 2011, she published her first novel, El arca de la memoria: una biomitografía, (The Chest of Memory: A Biomythography) with Isla Negra Publishers (San Juan, Puerto Rico). Her second book of fiction, Cuarentena y otras pejigueras menstruales (Quarantine and Other Menstrual Trifles) is about to be published.

Teresa Vázquez

Teresa Vázquez is an Assistant Professor and the Humanities Program Chair at Ivy Tech Community College Northeast in Fort Wayne. In 2000, she released a CD Chapbook of poetry and soundscapes entitled A Woman Loving, with funding from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs.  Her work has also appeared in MARCH Abrazo Press’s Between the Heart and the Land/Entre el corazón y la tierra, an anthology of Midwest Latina writers. Teresa has performed at the Printer’s Row Book Festival, the Guild Complex, the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Def Poetry Jam Showcase, the Green Mill, The HotHouse, and N.A.M.E. Gallery in Chicago, and the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, TRIAAC’s Acoustic Spokenword Café, and at IPFW in Fort Wayne.  She holds a Bachelor’s in Creative Writing from Oberlin College, and an MFA in Studio Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Johanny Vázquez Paz (curator)

Johanny Vázquez Paz was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Her latest book, Querido voyeur, was published by Ediciones Torremozas (Madrid, Spain). Her previous book, Streetwise Poems /Poemas callejeros (Mayapple Press, 2007) won Honorable Mention in the 2008 International Latino Book Awards (California). In November, 2012, her collection, “Sagrada familia” (Sacred Family), won first prize in the poetry category at the Consenso Short Story and Poetry Contest of Northeastern Illinois University. She also won second prize in the same contest for her story “La muda” (The Mute). She co-edited the anthology Between the Heart and the Land / Entre el corazón y la tierra: Latina Poets in the Midwest published by MARCH/Abrazo Press in 2001. Her work has been included in the anthologies City of Big Shoulders (University of Iowa Press, 2012), Ejército de rosas (Boreales, 2011), En la 18 a la 1, (Vocesueltas, 2010), The City Visible: Chicago Poetry for the New Century (Cracked Slab Books, 2007), and Poetas sin tregua (Ráfagas, 2006), among others. She currently teaches Spanish at Harold Washington College in Chicago.The author invites everyone to her blog TINTA DERRAMADA at: http://johannyvazquezpaz.blogspot.com/