A reading by visiting poet Natalie Scenters-Zapico and Albuquerque Poet Laureate Michelle Otero

5:00 pm bosque walk with the poets, starting at NW corner of NHCC parking lot

6:30 pm poetry reading, Salon Ortega

A partnership between the NHCC, Letras Latinas (Notre Dame) and the Academy of American Poets Poetry Coalition, this reading and book signing links poetry with the concept of democracy and features Natalie Scenters-Zapico and Albuquerque Poet Laureate Michelle Otero. “What is it then, between us” is a quote from Walt Whitman— the father of free verse, Bard of Brooklyn, the voice of Democracy — who was born 200 years ago, in 1819.

Poet Natalie Scenters-Zapico is a fronteriza from the sister cities of El Paso, Texas, U.S.A., and Cd. Juárez, Chihuahua, México. Her first book The Verging Cities (Center for Literary Publishing 2015) won the PEN American/Joyce Osterweil Award, Great Lakes Colleges Association’s New Writers Award, NACCS Foco Book Prize, and the Utah Book Award. She has won fellowships from the Lannan Foundation (2017), CantoMundo (2015), and a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation (2018). Her poems have appeared in a wide range of anthologies and literary magazines including Best American Poetry 2015, POETRY, Tin House, Kenyon Review, and more.

Michelle Otero, Albuquerque’s fourth Poet Laureate, is the author of Malinche’s Daughter, an essay collection based on her work with women survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault in Oaxaca, Mexico as a Fulbright Fellow. She works with fellow artists and local farmers to implement the Community Table project, which combines art, local agriculture, and economic development as a platform for neighborhood revitalization.