Romancero Books is pleased to launch their first live event: A Queer Poetry Reading with Leo Boix, Virna Teixeira, Adriann Ramírez and Natalia Figueroa.
To celebrate LGBT+ History Month join us for an evening of queer poetry written by Latinxs writers (Argentine, Brazil, Mexico and Chile) living in the UK and presented by Jorge Gárriz, Romancero Books’ director. Their poems talk about exploring love, sex, gender, desire, immigration, and diaspora.
This event will primary be in English with some poems in Spanglish.
Leo Boix is a Latinx bilingual poet, translator and educator born in Argentina who lives in the UK. He is a recent fellow of The Complete Works, a national mentoring programme aimed at poets from minority backgrounds, which included poets such as Kayo Chingonyi, Sarah Howe and Warsan Shire, among others. His poems have been included in many anthologies, such as Ten: Poets of the New Generation (Bloodaxe), The Best New British and Irish Poets Anthology 2019-2021 (Eyewear Publishing) and Un Nuevo Sol: British Latinx Writers (flipped eye), and have appeared in POETRY, PN Review, The Poetry Review and Modern Poetry in Translation. Boix is co-director of Invisible Presence, an Arts Council England national scheme to nurture new Latinx writers in the UK. He is a board member of Magma Poetry, co-editor of its Resistencia issue showcasing the best Latinx writing, and an advisory board member of the Poetry Translation Centre in London. He was the recipient of the Bart Wolffe Poetry Prize 2018 and the Keats-Shelley Prize 2019. Leo will be reading poems of his latest book Ballad of a Happy Immigrant, published by Chatto Press.
Natalia Figueroa (Chile, 1983). Bachelor, MA and PhD in Literature at Universidad de Chile. Her poetry book Una mujer sola siempre llama la atención en un pueblo (Chile, 2014; Spain, 2017), won the Best Poetry Book Prize in 2015 awarded by the Minister of Culture in Chile. She translated from the modern greek Το τραγούδι της αδελφής μου and Ημερολόγια Εξορίας, both from Yannis Ritsos, and Με το πρόσωπο στον τοίχο, from Miltos Sahtouris. In 2018 was published her research Ideologías excluyentes en la literatura chilena (Exclusionary ideologies in Chilean literature). She is a co-organizer of the Female Writers Meeting Islas nuevas, of Poemas para náufragos y viajeros, both in Chile, and of the international women's meeting Mount Sappho. In 2021 she published her second book of poems, Experimentos acerca de la repetición de los días (Experiments on the repetition of days).
Adriann Ramírez grew up in El Centro, California close to the Mexican border before ultimately moving to London in 2016. They began making short films in San Francisco while working towards their degree in dance and choreography, while simultaneously working as a principal dancer with PUSH Dance Company in 2013. Their first short film, CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’, premiered at the 2014 Frameline International LGBTQ Film Festival and went on to show at various film festivals around the USA and UK. In 2018 they created Lavender Language, an ongoing series of conversations where they speak with queer artists about their creative process and how they maintain careers in artistic fields. HOT TEARS THROUGH VELVET RAGE, their debut book of poetry and photography, was published by Polari Press in 2021.
Virna Teixeira born in Fortaleza, Brazil. Poet, translator, and publisher. She started doing handmade pamphlets in Brazil (Arqueria Editorial), and now runs a small press in London, Carnaval Press, specialised in Brazilian poetry in translation. Her poetry books and poetry pamphlets were published in Brazil, Portugal, Mexico, Peru, Argentina and UK. She has presented her work in several poetry festivals in South America, and also in the U.S. and Europe. Experience as a curator in international poetry festivals in São Paulo and Lisbon. Recently, she organised in London the Untamed sessions - poetry and visual performances - with Serbian poet Ana Seferovic. Since 2018, she edits and designs a bilingual literary and visual arts magazine, Theodora, with extensive collaborations between international poets, writers and visual artists.
In the UK her poetry has been published on Painted, Spoken; The Projectionist Playground and Datableed. Portuguese publisher and artist João Concha illustrated poems for her book Neverland is Too Far Away (Carnaval Press, 2016). Her poems were selected for Triste in Spanish and English, a hybrid feminist performance in Lisbon involving dance and text written by lusophone female writers, created by coreographer, performer and poet Sónia Baptista.
Copies of the books Ballad of a Happy Immigrant, HOT TEARS THROUGH VELVET RAGE, Una mujer sola siempre llama la atención en un pueblo, Experimentos acerca de la repetición de los días and My Doll and I will be available for purchasing at the end of the event.
Please note we only accept card payments.
Warm thanks to our official sponsor, The Embassy of Argentina in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, to our favouirte queer café in Dalston, Atlas Grinds and to our beloved graphic designer - John Philip Sage.
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