What an honor to host this Palabra Pura event for
@guild.literary.complex . I could not be more excited for this line-up of incandescent, emergent poets:
@angelicajuliahhh is author of poetry chapbook Bilingual Bitch (Abode Press, 2025). Angelica received her doctorate at the Program for Writers at University of Illinois at Chicago and currently teaches in the English Department at Oakton Community College. She writes fiction, poetry, essays, and comedy. Angelica’s work is an exploration of the bilingual Latine identity, autistic self-expression, and mental borderlands. Angelica is also a comedian, improviser, and co-producer of “Antojitos Fest: Chicago’s Latin American Comedy Festival” and the monthly Latinx variety show “La Hora de Antojitos.
Loren Maria Guay is a poet and speculative fiction writer. Their debut collection, Living Fossils, was awarded the 2025 Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize and is now published with Texas Review Press; they are also a 2024 Periplus Fellow and have had work nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Microfictions. Born in Asunción, Paraguay and adopted to/raised in Brooklyn, Loren is currently a Ph.D. student in English and Education at the University of Michigan. They spend their time between Ann Arbor and Chicagoland.
@yazudpoems (they/them) is a Chicane poet, impatient collagist, abolitionist, and eldest sister. Born in Winston-Salem, NC, and based in Chicago, IL, they are working on their first chapbook, crossfade, dedicated to their dad’s black and yellow KORG M50 and the musicians who raised them. They are one of the founding members of Tanda Poetry Collective, a BIPOC-led poetry book club and workshop space for BIPOC poets. They also co-host a new reading series and open mic on the South Side called Canto-Kòjo. In Spanish, canto means “to sing,” and in Yoruba, kòjo means “to gather.” Yazud hopes to continue using poetry as a tool for gathering—to ensure our communities remain alive and celebrated.
