Early Beast Meridian cover version. Design by Vanessa Angélica Villarreal.

Early Beast Meridian cover version.
Designed by Vanessa Angélica Villarreal.

PUBLICATIONS

Woman with a digitalized image of her face as if to symbolize an avatar, with a video game controller as a background.

“You might be thinking, It’s a video game. It’s really not that serious. And maybe that’s true, but as with any story, it’s what we bring with us that’s serious. I read the game through the screen of my pain as it reflected back my own monstrosity: Mexican womanhood is a state of powerlessness, where suffering and forgiveness are idealized in the form of the Mary, and grief and rage are made monstrous in La Llorona — two myths forged in relationship to men.”

“And what I experienced as poetry came first through the song my father wrote for me when I was two years old, a song whose melody is a turning helix in my blood, another way of speaking my name. Do you have a song like that, written for you? It is the rarest gift I have ever received. It created me.”

“And what I experienced as poetry came first through the song my father wrote for me when I was two years old, a song whose melody is a turning helix in my blood, another way of speaking my name. Do you have a song like that, written for you? It is the rarest gift I have ever received. It created me.”

“This will have to do—bisabuela never had any stories about her life to tell. Instead, she lived for the dreams of her daughters. Instead, she wept.”

“This will have to do—bisabuela never had any stories about her life to tell. Instead, she lived for the dreams of her daughters. Instead, she wept.”

“Blackness and cultural specificity is often erased under the guise of Latinx representation, a demand for inclusivity that, in an effort to appeal to the mainstream, flattens potentially complex characters and their contexts into mere identities, surfaces to project empathy onto.”

“Blackness and cultural specificity is often erased under the guise of Latinx representation, a demand for inclusivity that, in an effort to appeal to the mainstream, flattens potentially complex characters and their contexts into mere identities, surfaces to project empathy onto.”

“The shared Black-Latinx struggle calls for solidarity,” Hispanic Heritage Month Op-Ed for MLK50 Propublica, October 15, 2020.

“We must begin to restore our relationships via unconditional solidarity with Black lives and Indigenous sovereignty, in recognition of our shared heritages and histories as colonized people.We must first attend to the specific conditions of ongoing…

“We must begin to restore our relationships via unconditional solidarity with Black lives and Indigenous sovereignty, in recognition of our shared heritages and histories as colonized people.

We must first attend to the specific conditions of ongoing violence in Black, Indigenous and migrant Latinx communities, as well as the colonial subjecthood of Puerto Rico. Through specificity may we find unity — until then, tu lucha es mi lucha, or your struggle is my struggle. Black lives matter.”

2019

Poetry

The Paris Review, March 20, 2019, Whiting Awards. “A Field of Onions: Brown Study.”

The New York Times, May 19, 2019. “Witness.”

[PRINT.] The Los Angeles Review of Books No. 22 (Print). “A Palace of Waiting Rooms: Legend.”

Academy of American Poets, Poem-a-Day, June 25, 2019. "Portrait of Atlantis as a Broken Home."

Poetry Magazine, September 2019. “f = [(root] [future]).” Winner of the Poetry Foundation Friends of Literature Prize.

Reviews and Interviews

Autostraddle, May 20, 2019. Natalie Adler, “The Perfect Queer Poem: For Making an Altar, Vanessa Angélica Villarreal’s ‘Corpse Flower.’”

Southern Indiana Review, April 2019. Amie Whittemore, “The Meter Reader: Kate Tufts Round-Up.”

Kingsley & Kate Tufts Poetry Blog, October 15, 2019. Stacey Park, “Building New Traditions: A Conversation with Vanessa Angélica Villarreal.”

The Kenyon Review, November 12, 2019. Ruth Joffre, “The Earth Remembers: A Queer Poets Roundtable.”

2018

Poetry

Academy of American Poets, Poem-a-Day. "Corpse Flower."

The Rumpus, "Exercise in the Face of Divorce (after David Campos)." Video Poem.

The Boston Review, "Chirality."

Pinwheel Journal, "Guadalupe, Star-Horned Taurus" and "O, Casada."

Matter, "In The Interest Of Public Health" and "Anchor Baby." Nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Unmargin, "Destierro, Counterspell: A Bind of Grasses." Part of “Incantations: 14 Writers Cast Spells in Response to POTUS and SCOTUS Decision in Trump v. Hawaii.”

San Francisco Chronicle, “Escape: A Waxwing Migration.” State Lines California Poets Series.

 

Criticism

Buzzfeed News, "The Radical Displays Of Queer Sex, Love, And Family On 'Vida.'"

Bitch Media, “Witchcraft Is Capitalism’s New Trick: White Witches and the Commodification of Afro-Indigenous Witchcraft.”

 

Interviews

KTEP NPR, Words on a Wire, "Vanessa Angélica Villarreal." Radio Interview.

Women Who Submit, "Behind The Editor’s Desk: Vanessa Angélica Villarreal."

2017

Poetry

Poor Claudia, Malinche, Assimilation Room, after Frida Kahlo's The Wounded Deer, Estrellada

The Thought Erotic, BALLOT BALLET BULLOT BULLET

[PRINT.] Apogee, Issue 10: Towards a More Certain Survival, "Assimilation Progress Report."

Sporklet 8, from Spork Press. "Assimilation Rooms." 

Apogee, "Estrellada." Video Poem.

 

Essays, Reviews, and Criticism

The Operating System, On Muriel Leung, Lara Mimosa Montes, and Safiya Sinclair (National Poetry Month)

Buzzfeed Reader, "Valentina's Downfall On "Rupaul's Drag Race" Revealed Some Ugly Truths About The Show"

Epiphany, "Lopezia Insignis." [PUSHCART NOMINATED]

 

Interviews

Bitch Media, "Fierce As Fuck: The Future Of Poetry Is Brown & Queer."

Chicago Review of Books, "How Do Poets Choose a Title For Their Books?"

2016

Profile

PBS Newshour, Poet's Haunting Work Recalls the 'Trauma' of Assimilation — Vanessa Angélica Villarreal

 

Poetry

Waxwing, "A Field of Onions, Brown Study."

The Wanderer, four poems from Beast Meridian

 

Essay

NPM Daily, "MutaMutationbility: Mem(mem)ory anddna Poetrtry dnand Can(cancer)CancercerceCanrcer."

The Kenyon Review, "Inundation of Texts": Poets and Writers on Social Media.

2015

Poetry

The Feminist Wire, 3 Poems by Vanessa Angélica Villarreal

DREGINALD, I Appear to Myself in a Corn Tortilla, Scorpion, and Unspooled Tide

The Volta — Evening Will Come, La Cucaracha

 

Lyric Essay

The Poetry Foundation Harriet Blog, On Cecilia Vicuña

 

2014

Poetry

DIAGRAM, The Girlfriend

Caketrain, The Real Girl, Your New Best Friend, The Hairdresser, The Poet, Four Girl Trio

 

Interview

TIMBER Journal, Nothing Scarier than a Brown Titty: MILK AND FILTH, Prince, and the problem of Innovative Latin@ Writing: Vanessa Angelica Villarreal with Carmen Giménez Smith

Pre-2014

Review

The Colorado Review Online, Robert Fernandez, We Are Pharaoh reviewed by Vanessa Villarreal

 

Poetry + Microfiction

Western Humanities Review, Thirteen, Some Animal, The Ballad of Wild Bill Hickok

Nano Fiction, The Palace of Waiting Rooms

The Potomac Review #49, An Invention

Nexus, The Flood

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