
ABOUT
Rosa Alcalá is a poet and translator from Paterson, NJ who has given readings, talks, and workshops in both the U.S. and Latin America. Her third and most recent book of poetry MyOTHER TONGUE was described in the New York Times as capturing “the messy emotions and miscommunications that move between languages” and a reminder of “how little precedent there is for honest writing [about mothers and daughters], compared with the epic traditions of fathers and sons.” Her poems have appeared in The Nation, Poetry, and American Poetry Review, among other journals, and are included in a number of anthologies, including Best American Poetry (2019 & 2021); American Poets in the 21st Century: Poetics of Social Engagement, edited by Claudia Rankine and Michael Dowdy; and The Poem Is You: 60 Contemporary American Poems and How to Read Them by Stephanie Burt. The recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowship, and runner-up for a PEN Translation Award, she is the editor and co-translator of New & Selected Poems of Cecilia Vicuña. Recently a Guest Editor for the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series, she is currently a Consulting Editor for the University of Chicago Press’ Phoenix Poets Series. She is Professor and Chair of the Department of Creative Writing and Bilingual MFA Program at the University of Texas at El Paso.