15. Ruben Quesada: Promotion for Poets

The Chapbook

Noah & Ross sit down with poet, translator, editor, & teacher Ruben Quesada to talk about his new substack PROMOTION FOR POETS.

Links of interest from this episode:

Ruben Quesada website

Be sure to sign up for Promotions for Poets (substack)

Revelations (Sibling Rivalry Press) by Ruben Quesada

Charles Olson essay on Projectice Verse

Headwaters (WW Norton) by Ellen Bryant Voigt

The Art of Syntax (Graywolf) by Ellen Bryant Voigt

Ruben Quesada is a neurodivergent, gay, Latinx poet. A native Angeleno, Ruben was raised by Costa Rican immigrant parents. He is the author of Revelations, Next Extinct Mammal, and translator of Exiled from the Throne of Night: Selected Translations of Luis Cernuda. He is a recipient of an Individual Artist grant from the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events at the City of Chicago. He is producing a short documentary film on Latinx poetry.

After receiving a PhD in English, Ruben moved to Illinois in 2012. Soon after, with the mentorship of founding members from Canto Mundo Poetry, Macondo, and the Institute of Latino Letters | Letras Latinas, Ruben founded the Latinx Caucus at the AWP (Association of Writing & Writing Programs) Conference. Since 2015, the Latinx Caucus has been led by a leadership team of poets and writers who represent intersectional identities from the Americas.

In 2015, Ruben moved to Chicago to launch the Logan’s Run Readings series. This series was the nation’s only Latinx literary salon and featured poets and writers including Daniel Borzutzky, Erika L. Sanchez, David Campos, Wendy C. Ortiz, and Diego Báez. For the past 15 years, Ruben has taught literature and creative writing. He’s taught at Vermont College of Fine Arts, University of California-Riverside, The School of the Art Institute, Columbia College Chicago, Northwestern University, and UCLA Writers’ Program. He teaches as an Associate Teaching Fellow at the Attic Institute.

Ruben has written for Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review, Harvard Review, The Rumpus, Cobalt, and Chicago Review of Books. Recently, he worked as poetry editor at AGNI and guest editor at PANK. In his spare time, he manages Mercy Street Readings, a live, literary broadcast. He is editing a special folio of LGBTQIA+ poetry for the spring 2022 issue of Pleiades magazine.

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