Afternoon Workshop with PEGGY ROBLES-ALVARADO: Botánica and Verses

Part of the 2018 Latinx Poetry Reading and Workshop Series at Harvard University

About the Workshop

Botánica and Verses is a one hour generative judgement- free writing workshop facilitated by award winning performance poet, author and initiated Priestess Peggy Robles -Alvarado that focuses on writing developed through the use of fresh herbs, herbal folklore and body-centered prompts. Participants will learn the traditional uses of several herbs to heal the body and will be guided to produce and share original writing in any style that restores the connections between the earth, body and the creative spirit.

About the Poet

PEGGY ROBLES-ALVARADO is a tenured New York City educator with graduate degrees in elementary and bilingual education. She is a 2017 Pushcart Prize nominee, a CantoMundo, Academy for Teachers and Home School Fellow as well as a two-time International Latino Book Award winner and author of Conversations With My Skin and Homage to the Warrior Women. As a former teen mother and an initiated priestess in the Lukumi and Palo spiritual systems, Peggy uses her incredible rhythmic energy to celebrate womanhood and honor cultural rituals. She is a 2014 BRIO performance poet award winner and in 2016 she was named one of the 25 Most Influential Women of the Bronx, a BCA Arts Fund, and Spaceworks Bronx Community Artist Grant recipient. Peggy has been published in 92Y’s #wordswelivein, NACLA, ¡Manteca! An Anthology of Afro-Latin@ Poets, The Center for Puerto Rican Studies, The Bronx Memoir Project, The Other Side of Violet Anthology and the forthcoming anthology Latina Voices. She has been featured on HBO Habla Women, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Poets & Writers Connecting Cultures Reading, and The BADD!ASS Women Festival. Through Robleswrites Productions she has produced and edited the following anthologies: The Abuela Stories Project (2016) and Mujeres, The Magic, The Movement and The Muse (2017) as well as directed the performance of Live Big Girl at The National Black Theater. For more information please visit Robleswrites.com and Abuelastories.com.

The Inaugural Latinx Poetry Reading and workshop series in the Spring of 2018 was organized by Melissa Castillo-Garsow to promote a diversity of voices at Harvard, celebrate Latinx voices in poetry, and foster poetic connections with the greater Boston area. This event is sponsored by the Provostial Fund for Arts and Humanities, Observatorio Cervantes, the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, the Committee on Ethnicity, Migration and Rights; the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS) and the Committee on Degrees in History and Literature.

Latina Poetry Reading in Celebration of Women’s History Month

Featuring Carmen Bardeguez-Brown, Elisabet Velasquez with Victoria Alicea DelValle. 

Part of the 2018 First ever Latinx Poetry Reading and Workshop Series at Harvard University.

Carmen Bardeguez-Brown work was showcased in the documentary, Latino Poets in the United States. She has been invited to read at The Nuyorican Poets Café, The Fez, Mad Alex Foundation, The Soho Arts Festival, Long wood Gallery, The Kitchen, La Casa Azul, New Year’s Alternative Poetry Marathon at Dixon Place, The Boricua College Poetry Series, Caribbean Theater, Word Festival 2013 and many other venues in the tri-state area. She is the author of two poetry books: Straight from the Drums: Al Ritmo del Tambor could be and Dreaming Rhythms Despertando Silencios. Her third book of poetry: Meditation on Love, Dance and Loss will be published late this year.

Elisabet Velasquez is a Puerto Rican writer, mother, from Bushwick, Brooklyn. Her poems have appeared in numerous publications including NBC, Huffington Post, Muzzle, Latina and Vibe Magazine. She is a VONA alum a 2017 Poets House Fellow and the author of the chapbook PTSD.

Opening for the event on Thursday is Boston native, Victoria Alicea DelValle! DelValle is a 17- year old Puerto Rican poet, artist, and B-girl born and raised in South End’s Villa Victoria. She has participated in Louder Than A Bomb, a huge youth poetry slam festival, for the past three years placing third place with her team the first year and second just last year.  She received MassLEAP’s Phyllis Wheatley Award, for challenging injustice with work that reflects on the social and political history of the place she is from. She has been a part of the Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción’s Slam Team and currently slams with The Institute of Contemporary Art’s Performing Arts Crew.

The Inagural Latinx Poetry Reading and workshop series in the Spring of 2018 was organized by Melissa Castillo-Garsow to promote a diversity of voices at Harvard, celebrate Latinx voices in poetry, and foster poetic connections with the greater Boston area. This event is sponsored by the Provostial Fund for Arts and Humanities, Observatorio Cervantes, the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, the Committee on Ethnicity, Migration and Rights; the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS) and the Committee on Degrees in History and Literature.

Poet SIMONE JOHN launches collection: Testify, joined by poet KRYSTEN HILL

Porter Square Books welcomes SIMONE JOHN with local poet KRYSTEN HILL as JOHN launches her first full-length poetry collection: Testify.

JOHN’s first full-length book of poems experiments with documentary poetics to uplift stories of black people impacted by state-sanctioned violence.  Testify is ultimately a book of witness. It “burdens” its readers “with knowing.” Combined, both chapters serve as an unflinching critique of race and gender supremacy in the United States.

This event is not ticketed.