The University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies (ILS) is partnering with the Library of America (LOA) to present an evening of poetry and conversation on Wednesday, Oct. 16 at 5 p.m. The program will showcase two poets — 2023 National Humanities Medal awardee Richard Blanco, and award-winning poet, editor, and critic Rigoberto González, whose most recent book as an editor, Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology, was released last month.

The reading and discussion will take place in the Reyes Family Board Room in McKenna Hall and is free and open to the public. Susana Plotts-Pineda, the LOA’s Latino Poetry Project Fellow, will serve as moderator and deliver remarks about “Places We Call Home,” a major humanities initiative planned for 2024-2025 centered on the LOA’s groundbreaking anthology. A reception and book signing will follow at 6:30 p.m.

“The goal of this initiative is to encourage readers to connect with the vibrant and multifaceted strands of the Latino poetic tradition,” said Plotts-Pineda. “The programs, which range from library discussion groups to large-scale launches at major festivals, are meant to bring the work of more than 180 poets, spanning a myriad of cultures, languages, and facets of diasporic experience to people's lives and communities in personal, embodied, and meaningful ways.”

Francisco Aragón, the founding director of the ILS’ literary initiative, Letras Latinas, has been laying the additional groundwork in the South Bend community by arranging three book club discussions with the St. Joe County Public Library. The discussions, led by recent Notre Dame MFA graduate Alaina Johansson, will take place in the weeks leading up to the Oct. 16 event.

“Given that we are in the middle of election season, what emerged from my conversations with Melody Lutz at the downtown branch was the idea of adopting Richard Blanco’s poetry collection, How to Love A Country, as our book club selection,” Aragón said. “Our hope is that these book discussions among members of the public will coax them to venture onto campus to experience Richard’s poems in person. Engaging with local citizens in this manner is Letras Latinas’ way of taking to heart Notre Dame’s strategic framework, which challenges the university to make a difference in South Bend.”

The mid-October program completes Notre Dame’s Hispanic Heritage Month activities.

The campus event will also count on the special collaboration of Emma Trelles, the former poet laureate of Santa Barbara, California, who will be traveling to Notre Dame from Southern California to introduce Blanco, a fellow Cuban-American poet. Trelles will also conduct an oral history interview with Blanco and be the subject of an interview herself — conducted by 2024-25 Letras Latinas Poetry Coalition fellow, Cloud Cardona, who is visiting from San Antonio, Texas.

Current Notre Dame MFA candidate Emiliano Gomez will introduce González, a fellow California native. And, on the morning of Oct. 16, Blanco and González will jointly visit Aragón’s undergraduate literature course, “Latinx Poetry Now.”

Blanco’s most recent volume, Homeland of My Body, assembles his new and selected poems and was published in 2023 by Beacon Press. Blanco was also President Barack Obama’s second inaugural poet in 2013. He is currently an associate professor at Florida International University and serves as education ambassador for The Academy of American Poets.

González’s most recent collection, To the Boy Who Was Night, also gathers his new and selected poems and was published by Four Way Books earlier this year. In all, González has published 18 books as an author, editor, and critic. He is a distinguished professor of English at Rutgers University-Newark. Among his many other distinctions are fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

The event on Oct. 16 is the seventh installment in a nine-episode series to mark Letras Latinas’ 20^th anniversary. The remaining two events are slated to take place in Washington, D.C., in November, and Venice, California, in December, respectively.

December will also mark the release of Letras Latinas’ anniversary folio in POETRY Magazine, featuring the work of more than 25 poets. This “One Poem Festival” in print was guest-edited by Aragón and Letras Latinas associate Laura Villareal. Both Aragón’s and Villareal’s own poetry also appear in the Library of America anthology.

Originally published by Institute for Latino Studies at latinostudies.nd.edu on October 01, 2024.