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The event features three stellar poets whose work arose from the matrix of the civil rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s, sharing common themes yet each with a distinct voice: José Montoya’s multilingual, often humorous vernacular with a keen apprehension of the nature of American life; Lorna Dee Cervantes’ political passion combining concerns for craft and gendered experience; and Francisco X. Alarcón, the master of the short line form as well as the sonnet, one of the first to explore the poetic resonance of being Chicano and gay. These three poets, with their long and productive careers and unique voices, will give members of the ������ý community an opportunity to experience the diversity and richness of Chican@ cultural production. This will also provide an opportunity to honor José Montoya for his lifetime achievement.

Poets

José Montoya
Born in the mountains of New Mexico, Montoya was partly raised in Albuquerque and California. He is a multi-disciplinary artist:poet, painter and screenprinter, writer and musician. He is a founding member of the legendary cultural group, the RCAF (Rebel Chicano Art Front), based in Sacramento, and of the musical group Casindio. He is the author of El Sol y los de abajo (1972) and InFormation: 20 Years of Joda (1992), and is most widely known for his poem “El Louie.” A pioneer in Chican@ literature in the use of code-switching, including caló, Montoya also forms part of the American poetic tradition from Whitman to the beats. He is a professor of art at California State University of Sacramento.

Lorna Dee Cervantes
A fifth-generation Californian of Mexican and Native American (Chumash) heritage, she has been a pivotal figure throughout the Chican@ literary movement, notably with Mango, her literary journal and small press that brought many poets into print, including Sandra Cisneros. Her dynamic poetry shares kinship with that of Neruda in its engagement with political and natural forces. She is widely published, and has received two NEA poetry fellowships, a Lila Wallace Readers Digest fellowship, and two Pushcart prizes. She is the author of Emplumada (1981, American Book Award), From the Cables of Genocide (1991, Patterson Poetry Prize and the Latino Literature Award), and Drive: The First Quartet (2006, Pulitzer nominee and winner of the Balcones Poetry Award). A former associate professor of English at the U of Colorado, Boulder, where she directed the Creative Writing Program, she now lives in the Mission in San Francisco.

Francisco X. Alarcón
Raised in Guadalajara and now living in the San Francisco Bay Area, he is the author of ten volumes of poetry and several books of bilingual poetry for children. Some of his collections, along with new poems, appear in From the Other Side of Night/ Del otro lado de la noche (2002). His poetry, written in Spanish or English or both, participates in the poetic tradition of the Spanish mystic poets of the sixteenth century as well as Mesoamerican indigenous traditions. He has been the recipient of several literary prizes, including the Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award, the Pen Oakland Josephine Miles Award, and the UC Irvine Chicano Literary Prize. He currently teaches at the U of California, Davis, where he directs the Spanish for Native Speakers Program.