Collaborating with Eastext

​I'm very excited to share with you a new project I'm a part of in October, Eastext, a collaboration with artist Pablo Gimenez-Zapiola. 

I met Pablo when one of our Writespace volunteers shared his call for poets for an upcoming art project. I've always felt pulled toward ekphrastic work - that which responds or interprets artwork in some way. In fact, this is one of the more effective prompts I use in workshops and in my own writing experience. I love to visit museums and galleries and see what poetry comes from viewing artwork. Through Arts & Culture Texas and ARTHouston, I've even had the pleasure of writing about art. So Pablo's project seemed like a great fit. 

After our conversation it became clear to me that my involvement needed to be more than just ekphrasis. Pablo reached out to me with an idea - to use my current fascination with erasure poetry as a response to some of the news coming out of Houston's east end. In this way, the poetry I will be presenting is part of not just my own love of ekphrasis, but also a blending of worlds - my own with that of the artist's. For this, I am very grateful to be involved. I'm also thrilled to be reading alongside local poets Eloísa Pérez-Lozano (who I've had the pleasure of publishing in Writespace's In Medias Res anthology), John Pluecker, Vanessa Torres, and Gwendolyn Zepeda. 

I'll be reading my poetry October 13, 20, & 27, at 6:30pm. Event locations are to be found at the link below. 

For more information click here. 

Read the article in Arts&Culture Texas
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