Deborah Paredez, who teaches in the Writing Program at the School of the Arts, knows a thing or two about poetry, specifically Latinx poetry. Her latest book, Year of the Dog, is a volume of poetry that tells her story as a Latina daughter of the Vietnam War. Paredez is also the author of, among other books, Selenidad: Selena, Latinos, and the Performance of Memory, and the cofounder and former director of CantoMundo, a national organization devoted to Latinx poets and poetry.
In honor of National Hispanic Heritage Month, Columbia News asked Paredez to list some of her favorite volumes of Latinx poetry.
These are some recent and forthcoming books by Latinx poets that I've read lately:
M. Soledad Caballero, I Was a Bell
Ricardo Maldonado, The Life Assignment
Tomás Q. Morín, Machete
Urayoán Noel, Transversal
Willie Perdomo, Smoking Lovely
Emily Perez, What Flies Want
Alexandra Lytton Regalado, Relinquenda
Books by other Latinx poets to which I return:
Anthony Cody, Borderland Apocrypha
Natalie Diaz, When My Brother Was an Aztec
Aracelis Girmay, The Black Maria
Some of my favorite (non-Latinx) poets:
Lucille Clifton
Tyehimba Jess
M. NourbeSe Philip
Danez Smith
Natasha Trethewey
