Join us for a book release and poetry reading with Poet Caridad Moro-Gronlier 'and friends' to celebrate the release of her debut collection Tortillera (TRP, 2021). Tortillera is filled with candid, colorful, unflinching poems - about the queer experience of coming out while Cuban. Also reading in the event are Mia Leonin, Elisa Albo, Emma Trelles, Silvia Curbelo, Rita Maria Martinez, Alexandra Regalado and Francisco Aragon. This event is hosted by Francisco Aragon of Letras Latinas/Notre Dame University. Also reading with Caridad are fellow poet participants in PINTURA : PALABRA, a multiyear initiative designed to promote new writing by selected Latino writers who were provided access to the Smithsonian American Art Museum exhibit Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art for inspiration.
ABOUT TORTILLERA (TRP; 2021) - The word tortillera means lesbian in Español. The moniker is familiar to most Spanish speaking cultures, but especially particular to the Cuban experience. In most Cuban-American households to be called a tortillera (whether one is one or not) is the gravest of insults, the basest of adjectives, a cat call that whips through the air like a lash whose only intention is to wound, to scar. Many a first-generation Cubanita (the ones who are into other girls, anyway) has suffered, denied, wailed over the loaded term, but in Caridad Moro-Gronlier’s debut collection, Tortillera, she not only applies the term to herself, she owns it, drapes it over her shoulders and heralds her truth through candid, unflinching poems that address the queer experience of coming out while Cuban.
