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At Latino Poetry – Places We Call Home, poets Elizabeth Acevedo, Juan J. Morales, Alexandra Lytton Regalado, and Dan Vera, in conversation with Georgetown University professor Ricardo Ortiz, explored how poetry confronts the crisis of cultural erasure—recovering sacred myths, bearing witness to history, and preserving identity through language. Through their readings and reflections, they mapped a collective struggle: to remember, survive, and leave a living record for those who come next.
Memory, Myth, and Erasure
Elizabeth Acevedo opened the evening by reading "Lassi Guapa," a poem rooted in Dominican mythology. She described how she had to search for lost folklore, remarking, "We who have forgotten all our Sacred Monsters." Acevedo emphasized how colonization and cultural forgetting had severed vital stories from the Dominican imagination, and she used poetry to re-enter those erased spaces.
Natalie Diaz's work, which Acevedo also presented, offered another route into myth. Díaz reimagines biblical figures like Eve and Mary through an Indigenous lens, confronting the "received stories of the Bible" and proposing alternatives grounded in Native American identity. The readings made clear that myths can be reclaimed and reshaped to affirm histories.
Poetry as Witness and Resistance
Throughout the event, the poets returned to the idea that poetry is a form of witness. Alexandra Lytton Regalado read "Laame Mesa," responding to political violence in El Salvador. She connected past atrocities with present corruption, describing a "perpetual tapestry" of suffering that poetry alone seems able to expose.
Dan Vera described poetry as a "talisman against erasure," an act of standing against a climate where histories are deliberately distorted. Reflecting on his poem "Small Shame Blues," he underscored how poetry captures the absences and presences within personal and collective memory.
Ricardo Ortiz's question about what poetry must do at this moment drew a unified response: poetry must offer clarity against the "onslaught of language" meant to conceal the truth. As Acevedo put it, "This moment is about language entirely," and the poets agreed that metaphor, myth, and story allow survival where direct speech is dangerous.
Language, Translation, and Identity
Language loss and recovery formed another thread throughout the evening. Vera spoke about the "small shame" of not having all the words to translate love and memory across generations. Morales reflected on growing up without fluent Spanish and the insecurities that brought.
Alexandra Lytton Regalado described how, in times when narratives are suppressed in their home countries, the work of translation becomes essential. She said that in such moments, writers, translators, and editors must take on "the work of activism" by bringing these stories into new languages and wider audiences. Translation, she emphasized, helps censored histories survive and reach beyond borders.
Urgency in the Face of Censorship
The conversation turned directly to the contemporary attacks on literature and memory. Elizabeth Acevedo, whose work has been banned, noted that censorship often targets books "we would least expect," showing that writers cannot anticipate or avoid the forces seeking to silence them.
Elizabeth Acevedo reflected on the unpredictable nature of censorship, noting that even the book she thought would be the least controversial was banned. She described feeling humbled by the bravery of earlier writers like Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and Lucille Clifton, saying, "I can only be as brave as I can possibly be in the steps that I'm following of these writers who were writing under circumstances that I think were incredibly difficult to say the truth, and they still did it." Juan J. Morales added that although poetry is underestimated, it remains potent precisely because of its ability to crystallize truths.
Dan Vera warned that funding cuts and political attacks on the arts must be met with solidarity and creativity, drawing on historical models where art and community thrived even without institutional support.
The Work Ahead
By the end of the evening, the poets had affirmed how Latino poetry serves as a foundation for memory, survival and dignity. Dan Vera captured the spirit of persistence, describing poetry as an act of bearing witness—"holding up a talisman against erasure"—and lifting the stories of communities facing disappearance. The poets offered no easy answers, only the conviction that the work of remembering and resisting must continue across generations.
To view the program, click below.