Queering Latinidad: The Poetics of Lineage, Inheritance, & Belonging
with Xochi Quetzali Cartland
“If we can't imagine a free, liberated world in language, how can we build one?” - George Abraham
It’s been a hard year. Between ICE terrorizing our neighborhoods and federal and state legislators stripping LGBTQ+ rights, belonging in this country is feeling more impossible than we can remember. And yet, there’s promise in impossibility. How can we, as poets, cuentistas, and artists, build belonging on and off the page?
In this 90-minute workshop, we will read poems by Natalie Diaz, Julian Randall, Eduardo Corral, and Denice Frohman. Writing prompts inspired by their work will invite us to reflect on the spaces that embrace us — and the ones that refuse us — and what they teach us about ourselves, the world, and what comes next.
Xochi Quetzali Cartland is a queer Chicana poet and seamstress from the DMV. She holds a BA from Brown University in Literary Arts, and her work has appeared in HAD, Muzzle, Oroboro/Death Rattle Literary, and elsewhere. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, Xochi was a finalist for the ONLY POEMS 2024 Poet of the Year Award, the runner-up for the 2025 The Missouri Review Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize, and has received fellowships from Brooklyn Poets, National Arts Strategy, Lambda Literary, Latinx in Publishing, The Writer’s Center, and the Arts Club of Washington. She is a 2026 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargeant Rosenberg Poetry Foundation Fellow. Find more of her work at xochicartland.net.
Co-sponsored by The Mosaic and Pride Center for Hispanic Heritage Month and Student Belonging Week.
The Mosaic and Pride Center and all events are open for full participation by all individuals regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or any other protected category under applicable federal law, state law, and the University's nondiscrimination policy.