Palabra Pura, Curated by Diana Pando

Discover two emerging Chicago poets whose palabras unearth a rich excavation of their Mexican roots. Pulling from these raices they explore gender, geography, and guns that eventually collide onto the page to create border-crossing poetry that migrates between Chicago and Guanajuato, Mexico.

About the Artists

Jennifer Patiño was born on the Southwest Side of Chicago and grew up eating off dinnerware her family resourcefully “collected” from Midway airport. Her family is from the state of Guanajuato, land of the pansas verdes and Jose Alfredo Jimenez caminos. She followed her own caminos as a kid, playing on train tracks and somehow miraculously never died. Instead, she graduated from Columbia College with a bachelors degree in Art History, minors in Latino/Hispanic Studies and Poetry and lots of debt. So much debt. She has written articles, sex columns and rants for Gozamos, published in the South Loop Review, and in Sixty Inches From Center, an arts nonprofit dedicated to archiving and documenting artwork happening outside of Chicago’s mainstream art institutions.  She became a member of the Directorial Board of Sixty Inches From Center in 2012. Patiño is a poet, essayist, arts lover, columnist, and feminista, who is passionate about mental health issues, human rights, literacy, and the power that comes from knowing your history. She loves watching Scandal, playing chess with life size pieces, and watching terrible movies.

Beatriz J. Ruiz is from both Chicago and Guanajuato and neither at the same time.  She adores reading for Palabra Pura and her work has recently appeared in Cantologia 1: Amor (Pandora/Lobo Estepario Press) and Triquarterly.  No es monedita de oro pero si es poeta, hocicona y cabrona.  

About the Curator

Diana Pando is a writer from Chicago who loves telling stories. She recently published her poem Mythology of Flesh and Turquoise Serpents in the Offerings of Flesh Anthology by Mujeres de Maiz (2014 – California). Currently, she is a co-founder of the Chicago Latino Writers Initiative and a founding member of Proyecto Latina. She  also teaches her signature writing workshop Puro Cuento and is part of the Con Tinta literary advisory boards.