Episode 15: Crossing Borders and Digital Realities with Poet Gabriel Dozal

11/13/24 • 70 min

In this engaging podcast episode, host Daniel Chacon sits down with poet Gabriel Dozal to discuss Dozal’s book The Border Simulator and explore themes of identity, technology, and the concept of borders. Their conversation dives into Dozal's inspirations, blending personal experiences of crossing the U.S.-Mexico border with an imagined digital landscape where borders feel like a "simulation." The two delve into how technology, from language models to social media, shapes both personal expression and public interaction, and they explore Dozal’s playful poetic experiments with language. This candid talk covers everything from the influence of AI in writing to Dozal’s unique approach to navigating and representing the border experience.

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Episode 14: A talk with poets ire'ne lara silva and Jen Yáñez-Alaniz

On this episode of Words on a Wire, host Tim Z. Hernandez talks with poets ire'ne lara silva and Jen Yáñez-Alaniz.
ire’ne lara silva, 2023 Texas State Poet Laureate, is the author of five poetry collections, furia, Blood Sugar Canto , CUICACALLI/House of Song, FirstPoems, and the eaters of flowers, two chapbooks, Enduring Azucares and Hibiscus Tacos, a comic book, VENDAVAL, and a short story collection, flesh to bone, which won the Premio Aztlán. ire’ne is the recipient of a 2021 Tasajillo Writers Grant, a 2017 NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant, the final Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Award, and was the Fiction Finalist for AROHO’s 2013 Gift of Freedom Award. Most recently, ire’ne was awarded the 2021 Texas Institute of Letters Shrake Award for Best Short Nonfiction. Her second short story collection, the light of your body, will be published by Arte Publico Press in Spring 2025. http://www.irenelarasilva.wordpress.com

Jen Yáñez-Alaniz is a poetactivist, community organizer,and a third-year PhD Fellow at the University of Texas at San Antonio’s Culture Literacy and Language Program, and a Mexican American Studies Graduate Certificate Student. Her research interests include cultural preservation and decolonial praxis. Exploring themes of sensuality, surrogacy, and consumption, Jen blends creative and academic expression using Gloria Anzaldúa’s autohistoria-teoría to honor embodied experiences that are often confined within linguistic boundaries. Jennifer’s literary contributions include "Matrilineal Poetics: Toward an Understanding of Corporeality and Identity," featured in Latinas in Hollywood Herstories. She has published widely in journals and anthologies, including an extensive critical biography of Carmen Tafolla in Chicana Portraits: Critical Biographies of Twelve Chicana Writers (University of Arizona Press), and her poetry chapbook Surrogate Eater (Alabrava Press) was launched in 2023.