Vanessa Angélica Villarreal Is A Finalist
By Brian Dunlap
Vanessa Angélica Villarreal is the author of Beast Meridian (Noemi Press, 2017) a poetry collection that confronts and refutes the violence of erasure and assimilation, rooted in the borderlands of her birth. This violence and erasure is a physical space where “the speaker confronts her life in the eternal hallway of the subconscious,” as poet Sara Borjas says in her review of the book. For this confrontation and refutation Villarreal’s poetry collection was named, earlier this month, as a finalist for the 2019 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, which recognizes the work of a poet of promise with $10,000.
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Vanessa Angélica Villarreal just signed on as nonfiction editor at LA’s own Gold Line Press. She’s an innovative poet who isn’t constrained by genre; her work is electrifying, form-melting, challenging. I asked her about Gold Line’s upcoming chapbook contest and her work as an editor.