Dominicanreaders: Live Reading with Roberto Carlos Garcia

Poetry collection by Roberto Carlos Garcia. Explores themes of blackness and Dominican culture.

"I'm American, but I don't speak English because I'm from England and I'm a Latino that doesn't speak Spanish because I'm from Spain. I speak these languages thanks to a long history of colonialism, to be more specific, the losing end of colonialism. The flight attendant who poured my whiskey is a Spaniard. Spanish has been his national language for centuries and his family's language for generations. When he hears me, a mutt with African, Chinese, and Spanish blood (but who leans more towards the African), does he consider me a fraud? Does he see me as parroting Spanish? Now, this poor flight attendant is a fill in, of course, but you get the picture. What do most Spaniards think about the Spanish speakers in the colonies they lost all those years ago? Do they care? Why should I?" --from "Trapped in History," EnglishKillsReview.com

About the Author:  Poet, storyteller, and essayist Roberto Carlos Garcia is a self-described “sancocho […] of provisions from the Harlem Renaissance, the Spanish Poets of 1929, the Black Arts Movement, the Nuyorican School, and the Modernists.” Garcia is rigorously interrogative of himself and the world around him, conveying “nakedness of emotion, intent, and experience,” and he writes extensively about the Afro-Latinx and Afro-diasporic experience. His second poetry collection, black / Maybe: An Afro Lyric, is available from Willow Books.  Roberto’s first collection, Melancolía, is available from Červená Barva Press. 

His poems and prose have appeared or are forthcoming in POETRY Magazine, The BreakBeat Poets Vol 4: LatiNEXT, Bettering American Poetry Vol. 3, The Root, Those People, Rigorous, Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day, Gawker, Barrelhouse, The Acentos Review, Lunch Ticket, and many others.

He is founder of the cooperative press Get Fresh Books Publishing, A NonProfit Corp.

A native New Yorker, Roberto holds an MFA in Poetry and Poetry in Translation from Drew University, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.