Ruben Quesada is an American poet and critic. He was born and raised in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, California. He is the winner of the 2023 Barrow Street Editors Prize. His poetry appears in ''

The Best American Poetry ''The Best American Poetry'' series consists of annual poetry anthologies, each containing seventy-five poems. Background The series, begun by poet and editor David Lehman in 1988, has a different guest editor every year. Lehman, still the genera ...

'' and has earned multiple

Pushcart Prize The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize published by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are ...

nominations; his writing and criticism appear in ''The New York Times'', ''

Harvard Review ''Harvard Review'' is a biannual literary journal published by Houghton Library at Harvard University. History In 1986 Stratis Haviaras, curator of the Woodberry Poetry Room at Harvard University, founded a quarterly periodical called ''Erato ...

'', ''

Guernica Guernica (, ), officially Gernika () in Basque, is a town in the province of Biscay, in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country, Spain. The town of Guernica is one part (along with neighbouring Lumo) of the municipality of Gernika-Lumo ...

'', ''

The American Poetry Review ''The American Poetry Review'' (''APR'') is an American poetry magazine printed every other month on tabloid-sized newsprint. It was founded in 1972 by Stephen Berg and Stephen Parker in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The magazine's editor is Elizab ...

'', ''

TriQuarterly ''TriQuarterly'' is a name shared by an American literary magazine and a series of books. The journal is published twice a year under the aegis of the Northwestern University Department of English and features fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama ...

'', ''

Ploughshares ''Ploughshares'' is an American literary journal established in 1971 by DeWitt Henry and Peter O'Malley in The Plough and Stars, an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1989, ''Ploughshares'' has been based at Emerson College in Bost ...

'', ''

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus. The magazine's publisher, Kirkus Media, is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fiction, no ...

'' and ''

Cimarron Review ''The Cimarron Review'' is a major American literary journal published quarterly by the Oklahoma State University. It was founded in 1967, and its current editor is Lisa Lewis. The magazine has its headquarters in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Contribut ...

''.

Career

Quesada is the founder of the Latinx Writers Caucus at the Association of Writing & Writing Programs (AWP). Its initial advisory board included founding members of CantoMundo Poetry, Macondo Writers, and Letras Latinas. The caucus is dedicated to supporting Latinx and Latin American writers throughout their careers. Quesada has taught Latinx literature, literary translation, editing, and creative writing at several institutions, including

Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...

The School of the Art Institute The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is a private art school associated with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to an art students' cooperative founded in 1866, which grew into the museum ...

, Vermont College of Fine Arts, and

Columbia College Chicago Columbia College Chicago is a Private college, private art college in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1890, it has 6,493 students (as of fall 2021) pursuing degrees in more than 60 undergraduate and graduate degree programs. It i ...

. In 2018, Quesada published a chapbook of original poetry and literary translations of Spanish poet

Luis Cernuda Luis Cernuda Bidón (September 21, 1902 – November 5, 1963) was a Spanish poet, a member of the Generation of '27. During the Spanish Civil War, in early 1938, he went to the UK to deliver some lectures and this became the start of an exile ...

titled ''Revelations,'' inspired by the medieval book by Christian mystic Julian of Norwich, ''

Revelations of Divine Love ''Revelations of Divine Love'' is a medieval book of Christian mysticism, Christian mystical devotions. Containing 87 chapters, the work was written between the 14th and 15th centuries by Julian of Norwich, about whom almost nothing is known. ...

''. He is also author of ''Next Extinct Mammal'' (Greenhouse Review Press, 2011), and translator of ''Luis Cernuda: Exiled from the Throne of Night'' (Aureole Press, 2008). In 2019, along with poet Spencer Reece, Ruben co-founded the Lorca Latinx Poetry Prize, in partnership with the Unamuno Literary Festival hosted b
Desperate Literature
in Madrid, Spain. Quesada has been involved in various literary organizations and initiatives, including serving on the board of the

National Book Critics Circle The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) is an American nonprofit organization (501(c) organization, 501(c)(3)) with more than 700 members. It is the professional association of American book review editors and critics, known primarily for the N ...

from 2021 - 2023, where he was chair of the award in nonfiction for the 2022 publishing year. In 2022, Quesada published an anthology, ''Latinx Poetics: Essays on the Art of Poetry'', by University of New Mexico Press. It "explores the ways in which a people's history and language are vital to the development of a poet's imagination and insists that the meaning and value of poetry are necessary to understand the history and future of a people." In 2023, The Offending Adam published a digital chapbook of poems titled ''Jane / La Segua''. The poems reinvent

La Segua LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second most populous city in the United States of America. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music *La (musical note), or A, the sixth note *"L.A.", a song by Elliott Smit ...

, a colonial myth rooted in racism and class from Costa Rica. Dr. Quesada is currently an editorial advisor for Jack Leg Press and teaches in the low-residency Pan European MFA in Creative Writing at Cedar Crest College.

Works

Poetry

''Brutal Companion'' (Barrow Street Press, 2024) ISBN 978-1-962131-03-2 ''Next Extinct Mammal'' (Greenhouse Review Press, 2011) ISBN 978-0965523998

Chapbooks

''Jane / La Segua''
The Offending Adam
2023) ''Revelations'' (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2018) ''Exiled from the Throne of Night: Selected Translations of Luis Cernuda''

2008)

Anthologies

''Latinx Poetics: Essays on the Art of Poetry'' (University of New Mexico Press, 2022)

External links

Author's websiteProfile at Poetry FoundationProfile at The Academy of American Poets

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Quesada, Ruben Living people 21st-century American poets American magazine editors American online publication editors American male poets American people of Costa Rican descent American gay writers Eastern Illinois University faculty Hispanic and Latino American poets LGBTQ Hispanic and Latino American people LGBTQ people from California American LGBTQ poets Texas Tech University alumni University of California, Riverside alumni Poets from Los Angeles Year of birth missing (living people) 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers American male non-fiction writers