The inaugural production of Mega Corazon took place on Thursday, April 24th, 2014.  Lineup included (with performance videos when available):

Carmen Tafolla is a poet, writer, and performance artist fromSan Antonio, Texas. The author of more than 20 books, including The Holy Tortilla and a Pot of Beans and What Can you Do with a Paleta? (for children, youth, and adults), Dr. Tafolla was named in 2012 by Mayor Julian Castro as the first Poet Laureate of San Antonio.  Her latest poetry book, Rebozos, won three International Latino Book Awards, and her new book This River Here: Poems of San Antonio, is being released this spring. She has performed her one-woman show throughout the US, and in England, France, Mexico, Spain, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Norway, and New Zealand.

VIEW PERFORMANCE HERE: 

Born in Dallas, Texas, Bryce Milligan has lived in San Antonio since 1977. He holds a MA from the University of Texas in Linguistics and Ancient Languages. Milligan is a prolific, award-winning author in numerous genres, ranging from children’s books to novels for young adults, and adult poetry and criticism. Milligan was the founding editor of Pax: A Journal for Peace through Culture (1983-1987) and Vortex: A Critical Review (1986-1990), Milligan has been the publisher, editor and book designer of Wings Press since 1995. Milligan is the author of four historical novels and short story collections for young adults, beginning with With the Wind, Kevin Dolan(Corona Publishing, 1987), which received the Texas Library Association’s “Lone Star Book for Young Adults” award. Milligan is also the author of six collections of poetry, including Alms for Oblivion (London: Aark Arts, 2003). He has been the featured poet in Tertulia Magazine, Gravesiana, The Secret College, and other magazines. Milligan recently received the Gemini Ink “Award for Literary Excellence” (October 2011) and the St. Mary’s University President’s Peace Commission’s “Art of Peace Award” (April 2012) for “work that enhances human understanding through the arts.”

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Juan Tejeda is a tenured Instructor of Music and Mexican American Studies at Palo Alto College in San Antonio, Texas. He and his wife, Anisa Onofre, are the Co-Publishers/Editors of Aztlan Libre Press and he is the button accordionist and vocalist for the Conjunto Aztlan.

VIEW PERFORMANCE HERE: 

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Jenny Browne is the author of three collections of poems: At Once, The Second Reason, and Dear Stranger.  Recent work has appeared in American Poetry Review, Barrow Street, The New York Times Threepenny Review, and Tin House.  She is a former James Michener Fellow in Poetry at the University of Texas, the recipient of two Texas Writers League Fellowships, a grant from the Artist Foundation of San Antonio, and a 2012-13 NEA Literature Fellowship.  She has worked as poet in residence across the state for the Texas Commission on the Arts, and across the world for the University of Iowa’s International Writers Program.  The rest of the time she lives in downtown San Antonio and teaches at Trinity University.

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A physician-writer, Mo H Saidi was born in Iran, moved to the United States in 1969, and became a U.S. citizen in 1975. While teaching gynecological surgery at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, he founded an OB/GYN group practice. He published over fifty scientific papers in American medical journals, as well as a well-regarded textbook, Female Sterilization: A Handbook for Women (Garland Publishing). Saidi’s first book of poetry, Art in the City, won the 2007 Eakin Memorial Book Publication Award of the Poetry Society of Texas. His second collection of poetry, The Color of Faith (2010), a Novel, The Marchers by Voices de la Luna (2012,) a collection of short fiction, The Garden of Milk and Wine (2012), were published by Pecan Grove Press, and Between A and Z: Poems by Wings Press (2014.) He is the Managing Editor of Voices de la Luna: A Quarterly Poetry & Arts Magazine. A member of The Authors Guild, he has published numerous essays, short fiction pieces, and poems in local, state, and national journals, Poetry Foundation, Poetry Magazine, and anthologies. Saidi is married and has three adult children and three grandchildren.

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Cyra Sweet Dumitru has been a poet all her life.  She has three collections of poems:  What the Body Knows, Listening to Light, and Remains.  Her passion for writing poetry is matched by her passion for encouraging others to write poetry, to experience its transformational nature.  She teaches writing at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, TX and is completing her training with John Fox as a poetic medicine practitioner.

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John Phillip Santos is a recipient of the Academy of American Poets’ Prize at Notre Dame and the Oxford Prize for fiction. Santos’ 1999 family memoir, Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation (Viking / Penguin) was a finalist for the National Book Award. His latest memoir is The Farthest Home is in an Empire of Fire, (2010). His poetry collection Songs Older Than Any Known Singer (2007, Wings Press)is rich in regional references, universal in its insights into the human soul, imagistic and narative by turns. These poems inhabit “a world / assembled from these tuileries / of words, a pageant of declensions / drawing us out to the open fields”.

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Barbara Stanush spent her first thirty years on the East Coast, the second thirty in South Texas, where she and her husband Claude raised three daughters. She is an educational consultant, a poet-in-the-schools, a newspaper columnist and writer. Her book, Texans: a Story of Texan Cultures for Young People, was published by the University of Texas Insitute of Texan Cultures in 1968. Stone Garden, a collection of poems, was published by Pecan Grove press in 1997.

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San Antonio’s new poet laureate, Laurie Ann Guerrero was born and raised in the Southside of San Antonio and received the Academy of American Poets Prize, among others, at Smith College. Winner of the 2012 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize, her first full-length collection, A Tongue in the Mouth of the Dying, selected by Francisco X. Alarcón, was released by University of Notre Dame Press in 2013. Guerrero’s poetry and critical work have appeared in Huizache, Texas Monthly, Bellevue Review, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Global City Review, Texas Observer, Chicana/Latina Studies, Feminist Studies and others. Guerrero holds a B.A. in English Language & Literature from Smith College and an MFA in poetry from Drew University. Guerrero’s chapbook, Babies under the Skin (2008), won the Panhandler Publishing Award, chosen by Naomi Shihab Nye. A CantoMundo fellow and member of the Macondo Writers’ Workshop, Guerrero’s work has been highlighted in the LA Review of Books, The Poetry Foundation/Harriet Blog, and Poets & Writers Magazine in which she was named one of ten top, emerging poets in 2013.  Other honors include fellowships from the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Foundation and the Artist Foundation of San Antonio. Guerrero has served on the faculty at Palo Alto College, University of the Incarnate Word, University of Texas-El Paso, and Gemini Ink. She is a visiting writer at Our Lady of the Lake University and lives and writes in San Antonio.

VIEW PERFORMANCE VIDEO HERE: 

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Frances Treviño Santo’s publications include Cayetana: Poems (2007, Wings Press) A Certain Attitude: Poems By Seven Texas Women and a chapbook, Mama & Other Tragedies (both Pecan Grove Press). The Laughter of Doves(2001, Wings Press) is a recipient of the 2000 Premio Poesia Tejana. She was a 1999 Fellow for the National Endowment for the Humanities for integrating U.S. Latino Literature in the secondary classroom. In 2001 she received a grant from the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Foundation. From 1999-2002, she was a member of “Women of Ill-Repute: Refute!” a performance group that deconstructed issues of culture and identity.

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Jesse Cardona, a veteran of the Texas public school system, has won many awards for teaching creative writing, including the Imagineer Award and the Trinity Prize for Teaching Excellence. In addition to publishing poetry in various journals and anthologies, Cardona is the author of Pan Dulce (Chili Verde Press, 1998), a book of poems. He has also been awarded National Endowment for the Humanities visiting scholar grants to Harvard University, Boston University, and the Newberry Library in Chicago.

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Sheila Black is the author of more than 40 books for children and young adults, and three poetry collections,Wen Kroy (Dream Horse Press, 2014), House of Bone and Love/Iraq (both CW Press) and chapbooks, How to be a Maquiladora (Main Street Rag) and Continental Drift with painter Michele Marcoux (Patriothall, Edinburgh UK). In 2000, she was the US co-winner of the Frost-Pellicer Frontera Prize given to one US and one Mexican poet living along the US-Mexico Border, and a 2012 Witter Bynner Fellowship. She recently co-edited with Jennifer Bartlett and Mike Northen Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability (Cinco Puntos Press, 2011). Sheila is director of Gemini Ink in San Antonio.

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Kevin Tobar Pesantez is a writer from New York City and based in San Antonio. He has worked as a Workshop Facilitator of the Boy’s Town Detention Center, developing spoken word, hip hop and theater workshops in Brooklyn, and as a playwright and actor in cultural programs in Quito, Ecuador. Kevin was a member of The Forum Project, New York’s first ever Theatre of the Oppressed performance troupe and worked as a housing advocate at University Settlement, a social services organization in the Lower East Side. Kevin currently serves as an editor and contributing writer for 2Leaf Press, an independent press based in New York City. Here in San Antonio Kevin works at the San Antonio AIDS foundation and is a regular contributor to The Rivard Report.

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Andrea Greimel writes, performs, and teaches young bilingual students in San Antonio, Texas. Her poetry has been published in Naomi Shihab Nye’s anthology, Is This Forever, or What? Poems & Paintings from Texas, The Esperanza Peace and Justice Center’s La Voz de Esperanza, The Texas Observer, VíAztlan, and The Red Palm. Sol geography is the title of her CD produced in collaboration with guitarist, Victor Bustos. She has performed at the Texas Book Fair, The Inter-American Book Fair, The River City Literary Festival, Luminaria, on Radio Cultura in Mexico, and for numerous education conferences, universities, and community arts organizations. Con su cómplicermana, Cristal Gonzalez, Andrea opened for Lila Downs at Trinity University. She was named Champion Voz in the 2013 spoken word poetry competition, La voz de San Antonio. Most recently she performed in Carmen Tafolla’s San Antonio mi pueblo.

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Texas Poet Laureate Rosemary Catacalos often reflects the history, folklore, and mythologies of her Greek and Mexican ancestry in poems set in San Antonio and beyond. Her work is widely published in national literary journals, high school and college textbooks and trade anthologies, and has twice been collected in the annualThe Best American Poetry. She has earned fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Stanford University’s Stegner program, and the Texas Institute of Letters (TIL)/University of Texas at Austin Dobie Paisano residency. Her first full-length collection, Again for the First Time, which received the 1985 TIL poetry prize, has been reissued by Wings Press along with a limited edition chapbook of newer poems entitled Begin Here. A former executive director of the San Francisco Poetry Center and American Poetry Archives, and the San Antonio literary center Gemini Ink, she is passionate about using writing to build literacy and community.

VIEW PERFORMANCE HERE: 

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Carol Coffee Reposa earned her B.A. and M.A. in English at the University of Texas at Austin and has taken post-graduate courses at University of Texas at Austin, Trinity Univsersity (San Antonio), and the University of Texas at San Antonio. Her poems have appeared in Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, The Formalist, Blue Mesa Review, San Jose Studies, Descant, Amarillo Bay, Context South, The Texas Observer, Concho River Review, Southwestern American Literature, and River Sedge, among others. She has two books of poetry, At the Border: Winter Lights and The Green Room, with a third manuscript, Facts of Life, in press. She was a finalist in The Malahat Review Long Poem Contest (1988), winner of the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center Poetry Contest (1991), and second prize winner of the Blue Unicorn Poetry Contest (1992). Twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, she also has received two Fulbright/Hays Fellowships, the first for study in Russia (1995) and a second for research in Peru and Ecuador (1999). She teaches English at San Antonio College.

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Anthony “The Poet” Flores is a 3-time San Antonio Grand Slam Poetry Champion & has represented our city in competition on six different occasions at the National Poetry Slam. He has performed his work all over the United States, from local schools & community centers to H.B.O.’s Def Poetry Jam to the famous Lincoln Center in New York City. He is a co-founder of Fresh Ink Under-21 Youth Poetry Slam, the only on-going poetry slam & open-Mic for teenagers in San Antonio, & he is also a judge for S.A.’s La Voz City-Wide Spoken Word Competition.

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Santiago Garcia is a poet, writer, visual artist, reviewer, and organizer. He is a native of San Antonio and a graduate of St. Mary’s University. He has served the literary and arts community as first president of  San Anto Cultural Arts,  co-founder and co-editor for The Red Palm, poetry slam organizer, founding member of the San Antonio Library Writer Friends organization, organizer of the New Words non-profit founded by Trinidad Sanchez Jr. and Charles Owsley, and as a member and organizer of San Antonio WRITERS BLK. His work is published in his chapbook, The Snail Worships the Tree. He has been invited to read at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, OLLU Poetry at the Lake Fair, N.W. Vista College, and as part of MLK March activities. Garcia’s book reviews and a feature cover article have been published in the San Antonio Current and the Louisiana Review. He has written poems to honor past King & Queen Huevos for San Anto’s Huevos Rancheros Gala. He is currently an economic developer with the National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders.

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Andrea Sanderson (poet, singer, hip hop artist) known on stage as ‘Vocab’ has been a spoken word artist since 2001.  She has featured at: DePauw University, Moorehouse College, Cameron University, Rice University, and Trinity University. She is a member of the 2005-2008 San Antonio Puro Slam teams. She was the master of ceremonies for the 19th Annual International Women’s Day March held in San Antonio, Texas. She currently co-hosts Fresh Ink Youth Poetry Slam. Andrea also enjoys doing volunteer organizing with the Martinez St. Women’s Center, Rape Crisis Center, and Haven for Hope. She has been a judge for the city wide competition  La Voz for 2013 & 2014. In October of 2011 she released a c.d. entitled Vocab Presents: Sessions In Flight  and it is available on iTunes.  She was voted in the top three Best Of category R&B Band/Artist by the San Antonio Current for 2012 & 2013. She also cohosts 2 ^nd Verse Open Mic Poetry which has won Best Open Mic in the Nation in 2011 & 2012. She was nominated for RAW Artist Award in the category of Performance Art in 2013.

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Natalia Trevino was born in Mexico City and raised in San Antonio, Texas,  and is an Associate Professor of English at Northwest Vista College and a member of the Macondo Foundation.  Natalia completed her Master’s degree in English at The University of Texas, and she also graduated from  The University of Nebraska’s MFA in Creative Writing. Her poems have won the Alfredo Moral de Cisneros Award, the Wendy Barker Creative Writing Award, the  Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize, and the San Antonio Artist Foundation Literary Prize. Her poems have appeared in several publications including Bordersenses, Borderlands, Texas Poetry Review, The Houston Literary Review, Sugar House Review, Voices de la Luna, and North Texas State’s,  Inheritance of Light. Her fiction has appeared in Curbstone Press’s Mirrors Beneath the Earth, and her nonfiction is included in Shifting Balance Sheets: Women’s Stories of Naturalized Citizens and Complex Allegiances: Constellations of Immigration. She is finishing her novel, La Cruzada, a testimony of an immigrant mother’s journey. Having experienced a bi-national childhood, she hopes to raise understanding between people on both sides of the Mexican-American border. She lives with her husband and son just outside of San Antonio.

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Trinity University graduate Amanda Flores is the youngest poet to represent San Antonio at the National Poetry Slam competition and has represented our lovely city for seven consecutive years, performing all over the nation from Florida to Minnesota to New York, North Carolina, and Harvard University in Cambridge, MA. She holds the titles of the 2011 & 2012 Grand Slam Poetry Champion of San Antonio, and has most recently had the honor of being crowned 2013’s “La Voz” of San Antonio in SA’s first city-wide spoken word poetry contest. Performing and administering poetry workshops to schools, theaters, and community centers throughout South Texas, Amanda’s performance highlights include the annual Americans for the Arts Convention, SAAABE conference for international educators, and People (magazine) en Español’s 2012 annual convention. Her performances have been featured on the KABB FOX and WOAI Morning Shows, KENS 5 Great Day Sunday show, and KSAT 12’s Instant Replay sports segment during the 2013 NBA PlayOffs.

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Ray Z Friendly is a University of the Incarnate Word graduate in General Psychology and is published in Timeless Voices anthology. Ray Z is a member of Jazz Poets of San Antonio.

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Pancho Mendoza has made poetry for over 40 years. Born in the barrio, he has been a social worker and probation officer, and has read throughout Texas, California, and gigged in Cordoba, Paris, Athens, and Istanbul.

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Eduardo C. Garza has presented Jazz poetry, also known as spoken word, beginning in 1977 in Austin, Corpus Christi, Phoenix, Albuquerque, and San Antonio, Texas. Although it has had other names, such as Teatro Poecia, Jazz Poet Society, The Jazz Poets of San Antonio continue to provide a stage for poets/musicians/artists to express themselves through poetry and music.

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Gregg Barrios is a playwright, poet, and journalist. His five books of poetry include Air-Conditioned Apollo with a forward by John Rechy and Puro Rollo with an introduction by Tomás Rivera. Poet Carmen Tafolla calls his latest collection La Causa “spiritual history.” Barrios is a 2013 USC Annenberg Getty Fellow. He serves on the board of directors of the National Book Critics Circle. He is a contributing writer to the Los Angeles Review of Books. His reporting  has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Texas Monthly, Film Quarterly, Film Culture, Milenio, Salon and Interview. He also served as editorial page editor for the Spanish language daily Rumbo. Barrios has a commission to write a new play for the 2015 Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival, and is collaborating with actor and filmmaker James Franco on a book of his experimental work in poetry and film.