Palabra Pura

Palabra Pura continues its 2012 season with its first guest-curator evening with open mic and featured readers. Tonight's theme: Mutant Body/Cuerpo Migrante. The evening will present the body as a space for multiple questions related to the state of transition. What does the body leave behind in its translation/transfer? What does it acquire or adapt? […]

Curated by Yolanda Nieves with featured poets Lisa Alvarado & Kristiana Rae Colón Curator Dr. Yolanda Nieves, Assistant Professor, English, Wilbur Wright College Chicago, is creative director of The Vida Bella Ensemble, is part of Teatro Luna’s PlayLab series and her La Matadora/Steel Flags will be produced by Chicago’s Landmark Project Fall 2011. She won the […]

Curated by Gregorio Gómez and featuring Nora Leon and Martin Rubio Jr.   Curator Gregorio Gomez is the MC of Chicago's most infamous and longest running underground poetry venue at "WEEDS".  Gregorio who emigrated from Veracruz, Mexico has been a major influence in the development of the spoken word and many venues of Chicago's poetry […]

Exploring Afro-Latino poetry - curated by Marta Collazo and featuring Jeanette. Curator Marta Collazo is a Puerto Rican woman born and raised in Lorain, Ohio. She has lived in the Chicago area for the last fourty years. Collazo studied Communications and Literature at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is a social activist, a […]

This evening will showcase two poets with a passion for cross-cultural experiences – poetry that travels. Curator Francisco Aragón is Director of Letras Latinas, the national literary program of the Institute for Latino Studies, University of Notre Dame, and has been a member of the Institute since 2003. He has published, edited or contributed to […]

Three Poets and a master percussionist demonstrate the continuing contributions of Puerto Ricans to Chicago literature. This evening is curated by Eduardo Arocho and features poet Judy Diaz, poet/musician David Hernandez, and percussionist and musician Peter Vale. Curator Eduardo Arocho has been writing and performing poetry since 1992. He has been featured in many venues […]

The Guild Literary Complex continues its seventh year of its Palabra Pura bilingual poetry series with “Migrating Words: Contratiempo Poets” on October 17, 2012. The event is curated by Dr. Jochy Herrera and features poets from contratiempo magazine. The event will include poetry in Spanish, English and a combination of both. Featured readers will include Jorge Montiel, Silvia Goldman, and […]

This installment of Palabra Pura will explore the effect on individuals and communities of not fitting in to preconceived Latino identities. It is curated by Jennifer Patiño and featuring poets Beatriz Ruiz, Anthony Michael Cooremans and RIK Vazquez.           Beatriz J Ruiz was born and raised in Chicago and Guanajuato.  She is a […]

The Guild Literary Complex (GLC) continues the eighth year of Palabra Pura with an evening of bilingual poetry titled, “Whether in Chicago.” Curated by Rafael Franco, this event asks us to consider what role, if any, weather plays, whether significantly or not, in writing and how that writing might weather the winds of literary exploration. The […]

Dawn Herrera   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 […]

Join us this April for "Telling Our Stories Through the Body," curated by Erika Sánchez and featuring Juana Iris Goergen and Ruben Quesada. More details below. Erika L. Sánchez Erika L. Sánchez is a poet and freelance writer living in Chicago. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Illinois at Chicago, was a […]

Join us for a monthly bilingual poetry series, guest curated by Raul Dorantes and featuring Mark Litwicki, Martha Cecelia Rivera, and Febronio Zatarain. On Wednesday, May 15, 2013, Palabra Pura presents “Noche de novelas/Night of Novels,” curated by Raúl Dorantes. This is a rare opportunity to hear three outstanding Chicago writers read excerpts of their novels […]

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

Afro-Latino(a)s/Caribbeans are challenged to reconcile what are seen as conflicting identities. The Guild Literary Complex sheds poetic light on the topic with “The Diaspora Daughters Speak,” the July installment of our monthly bilingual poetry series Palabra Pura, curated by Sandra Posados and featuring poets Yolanda Nieves and Maya Emma Nnena Ruth Odim (Maya Odim). “The […]

Poets meet muse at the September installment of our monthly bilingual poetry series, Palabra Pura, curated by Irasema Gonzalez and featuring poets Diana Pando and Xánath Caraza. “Inspiration” takes place Wednesday, September 18, 2013, at 7:30 PM at La Bruquena restaurant, 2726 W. Division. The program will be spoken in English and Spanish. Admission is […]

We very pleased to be partnering with Poetry Foundation and Red Hen Press for this month's Palabra Pura. Celebrate the inaugural winner and judge of the Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize. Judge Orlando Ricardo Menes directs the creative writing program at the University of Notre Dame. His third full-length collection, Fetish, won the 2012 Prairie […]

Our monthly bilingual poetry night returns to its usual destination: the always-fabulous La Bruquena! Join us for this final Palabra Pura of the year as multimedia artist Miquel Lopez Lemus presents a cantologia on love. Twenty-seven (!) Palabra Pura poets contributed a new poem on the theme for this published collection, and many will be on hand to […]

The Guild Literary Complex is pleased to kick off the ninth season of PALABRA PURA with “One Poet / One Poem”. 2014 guest curators reveal their plans and past readers share a poem during this annual party celebrating poetry (and fiction) in more than one tongue. Contributing authors include: Rey Andújar  |  Beatriz Badikian  |  […]

Wednesday, April 16 7:30 p.m.–9:00 p.m. La Bruquena, upstairs 2726 W. Division St. From left to right: Laurie Ann Guerrero, Eduardo Arocho (curator), Rich Villar. First Class: Celebrating the first full-collections of poetry by two emerging Latino Poets: Rich Villar, author of Comprehending Forever, and Laurie Ann Guerrero, author of A Tongue in the Mouth of the […]

Lost & Found: Letters, Poems, and Marginalia of Cross Cultural Experience This evening, Palabra Pura will travel to Mexico City, Korea, and Haiti via our writers to explore the Cross Cultural Experiences of a Dancer, an Educator, and a Poet. Curated by Maribel Mares. About the Artists   Darren Angle is a poet living in Chicago. […]

In response to the hangover from colonialism still lingering in the United States, a new literary space has been carved out where historically marginalized bodies, narratives and histories finally have their say; it has been named “Latino/a literature”. What happens, though, when some of the loudest voices inhabiting that space reproduce the very conditions they […]

The Guild Literary Complex is pleased to kick off the 10th season of PALABRA PURA with “One Poet / One Poem”. Don't let the name fool you—there will be fiction stories too!2015 guest curators reveal their plans and past readers share a poem (or short story) during this annual party celebrating poetry and fiction in […]

Chicago is a complicated place, a city where senseless acts of violence and random acts of kindness happen every day, where some can dare to dream and others dream of escaping their nightmares. Luis Tubens and young poets from Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos High School will lead us in an exploration of the urban realities […]

Sharing California roots, a love of poetry, and a feminist devotion to their mothers, Tijuana native Brian Martin and L.A. native Arturo “Tootie” Alvarez blend English and Spanish to pay homage to their mothers. From a mother’s reminder to always use condoms to her struggle to raise her family on her own to the demoralizing beauty […]

This month's Palabra Pura is curated by Daniel Borzutzky, who believes that this month's performers, Duriel E. Harris and Rodrigo Toscano, are two of our present moment's most innovative, most dynamic and powerful and surprising poets and performers. "For these two artists, no distinction can be made between their poetics and their performativity. They write […]

Performers Adam Gottlieb and Angelina Llongueras use their original music, poetry and experience as activists, here and in Spain, to pursue the question: Does English matter? For English expression in Latino/a cultural and political communities, when does the implied "Spanish Only" remain empowering, and when does the English-dominant Latino/a activist need to transgress? This month's […]

For featured authors Diego Báez and Amy Sayre Baptista, violence inhabits their lives and what they write about. This is a violence that divides our culture and us; this is a colonization of our identity as a man, as a woman, and as a Latina/o. What does it mean to be Latina/o? These poets sing […]

According to this month's curator, Emilio Maldonado, challenging each other and the status quo is the responsibility of the committed artist, and he has programmed author/activists Aricka Foreman, Christina Obregon, and Raina Wodatch, and to engage the theme Who stands with us? "During this current wave of open aggression and hostility it is important to […]

More information on October's Palabra Pura will be available late summer 2015.

    Curated by Cynthia Pelayo October 21 @ 7:30 PM - 9:00 PM $5 | La Bruquena Restaurant, 2726 W. Division in Humboldt Park This month’s curator, Cynthia Pelayo, provides the Guild Literary Complex with our October theme of Memory and Ghosts, featuring readings by Diana Pando, Adriana Galvan. Pelayo explains the theme this way: “historically, autumn has […]

PALABRA PURA: NOSSA AMÉRICA NOVEMBER 18 @ 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm | $5 La Bruquena Restaurant, 2726 W. Division in Humboldt Park   The last Palabra Pura for 2015 features the theme “Nossa América,” with readings by Rodrigo Garcia Lopes, Jack Martínez and AKaiser.  November’s curator Patricia Anzini quotes American poet Walt Whitman as […]

Una celebración de la larga e importante tradición poética de las mujeres uruguayas. Las poetas uruguayas Silvia Goldman y Silvia Guerra compartirán su poesía y la poesía de sus madres y abuelas poéticas en una lectura bilingüe con las poetas y traductoras Mary Hawley y Jesse Lee Kercheval. A celebration of the long and important […]