We the People of the United States…Ensure Domestic Tranquility

Blas Falconer is the author of four poetry collections, including Rara Avis (Four Way Books 2024), and a co-editor of two essay collections, The Other Latin@: Writing Against a Singular Identity and Mentor and Muse: Essays from Poets to Poets. His poems have been featured by Poetry, Harvard Review, and The New York Times, and his awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Tennessee Arts Commission, and Poets and Writers’s Maureen Egen Writers Exchange. He is the Editor in Chief for Poetry International Online and teaches in the MFA program at San Diego State University.

Valerie Martínez is the author of five books of poetry including two book-length works (Each and Her and Count), a chapbook of poetry and prose (A Hundred Little Mouths), and a book of translations (of Uruguay’s Delmira Agustini). Her poems have been published widely in anthologies, journals, and magazines, including The Best American Poetry, Touching the Fire: Fifteen Poets of Today’s Latino Renaissance, Ley Lines, Puerto del Sol, and Poetry. Valerie taught poetry and literature for over 20 years, including at the Universities of Arizona and Miami, Ursinus College, and the College of Santa Fe. She was the Poet Laureate of Santa Fe, New Mexico, from 2008-2010.

Dan Vera is a writer, editor, watercolorist, and literary historian. The recipient of the Oscar Wilde Award for Poetry and the Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize, he’s the co-editor of Imaniman: Poets Writing In The Anzaldúan Borderlands (Aunt Lute Books) and author of two books of poetry, Speaking Wiri Wiri (Red Hen Press) and The Space Between Our Danger and Delight (Beothuk Books). His work is featured by the Poetry Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts and included in college and university curricula, various journals including Notre Dame Review, Poet Lore, and Beltway Poetry Quarterly; and in anthologies including Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology, The Traveler’s Vade Mecum, and The Queer South: LGBTQ Writers on the American South. The CantoMundo and Macondo Writing Fellow has been a featured reader around the country including the Dodge Poetry Festival, the Poetry Foundation, and New York City’s Poets House. The longtime chair of Split This Rock Poetry, he currently serves on the board of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP).

Sami Miranda is a poet, teacher and visual artist who has made DC his home for over 35 years. His work has been exhibited in Madrid, Puerto Rico, and throughout the DC metropolitan area and is currently on exhibit at the Molina Family Gallery at the Smithsonian Museum of American History. He is the author of three collections of poetry, and his poetry has been published in journals and anthologies. His latest collection Protection Form Erasure received an honorable mention from the International Latino Book Awards. He has co-directed and co-produced 4 short films that have been included in festivals across the US and internationally and he has performed his poetry and facilitated writing workshops in Spain, Mexico, St. Martin and across the US.