Mission Poetry VIRTUAL Series: Three Poets In Spring

The 15th season of the Mission Poetry Series wraps with a virtual reading on Saturday, May 25, 2024 at 1 p.m. in partnership with Santa Barbara Public Library.

Three Poets in Spring features these award-winning authors: Presidential Inaugural Poet and author Richard Blanco and the co-winners of this year’s Alta California Chapbook Prize Fred Arroyo and Amelia Rodriguez.  Hosted on Zoom by the Santa Barbara Public Library, this virtual reading is free and open to the public. The event offers complimentary digital broadsides and a Q&A chat with our featured poets. The event is in webinar format and no sign-up is required. This reading is made possible by the City of Santa Barbara, the Santa Barbara Poetry Fund, and the Santa Barbara Foundation.

RICHARD BLANCO was selected by President Obama as the fifth Presidential Inaugural Poet in U.S. history—the youngest, first Latinx, immigrant, and gay person to serve in that role. In 2023, Blanco was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Biden from the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is the author of many collections of poetry, including his most recent, Homeland of My Body: New & Selected Poems (Penguin Random House, 2023). He has also authored the memoirs For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet’s Journey and The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood.  He has received numerous awards, including the Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize, the PEN American Beyond Margins Award, the Paterson Prize, and a Lambda Prize for memoir. He serves as Education Ambassador for The Academy of American Poets and is an Associate Professor at Florida International University. In April 2022, Blanco was appointed the first-ever Poet Laureate of Miami-Dade County.

AMELIA RODRIGUEZ is a lesbian poet and journalist from the Coachella Valley, California. She is the author of The First Amelia, co-winner of the Alta California Chapbook Prize from Gunpowder Press. Her creative work explores queerness, religion, and familial and personal mythmaking. She holds a degree in Writing & Literature from UC Santa Barbara’s College of Creative Studies. The 2023 recipient of the San Diego Press Club’s Rising Star Journalist Award, Amelia is now the associate editor at San Diego Magazine, where she covers art, culture, and obscure women’s sports. Her articles and poetry have also appeared in Rolling Stone, Palm Springs Life, Spectrum Literary Journal, and other publications. She lives with her girlfriend in San Diego, where she spends her days perusing art exhibitions, eating strawberries, and maintaining her four-year Duolingo streak.

FRED ARROYO is the author of Alba and Other Songs, co-winner of the third annual Alta California Chapbook Prize from Gunpowder Press. His Sown in Earth: Essays of Memory and Belonging was shortlisted for 2021-2022 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. He is also the author of Western Avenue and Other Fictions, and The Region of Lost Names. His writing has appeared in the anthologies Camino del Sol: Fifteen Years of Latina and Latino Writing and The Colors of Nature: Essays on Culture, Identity and the Natural World. Fred is currently working on a book of poems, Emigrant Creek and Other Songs, and a collection of short fiction, The Book of Manuels.

MPS program curator Emma Trelles is the recipient of an Established Artist Fellowship from the California Arts Council (2023) and the 9th Poet Laureate of Santa Barbara (2021-2023). She is a Poet Laureate Fellow at the Academy of American Poets (2022-2023), one of 22 poets in the United States appointed for their creative and community work. The daughter of Cuban immigrants, and originally from Miami, she is the author of Tropicalia  (U. of Notre Dame Press), winner of the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize, and has just completed a second book of poems, Courage and the Clock. She coordinates the Writing Center at Santa Barbara City College and is the series editor of the Alta California Chapbook Prize, open to Latinx poets in U.S. and published in bilingual editions in the spring by Gunpowder Press.