Codices of the Borderlands: A Latinx Poetics Performance

This performance locates a Latinx poetics historicized in the symbolic permanence of a borderlands mythos. The figural qualities of the "codex" in the Latinx imaginary will be interrogated by Steven Alvarez, author of The Codex Mojaodicus (Fence, 2017), Edgar Garcia, author of Skins of Columbus: A Dream Ethnography (Fence, 2019), and Jose-Luis Moctezuma, author of Place-Discipline (Omnidawn, 2018), all of whom will speak to the significance of being Latinx poets with roots that stretch from the borderlands to the Midwest and Northeast United States during the current political moment of "the wall." As the forces of globalization and climate change push more people into states of displacement and mobility, these poets investigate the concept of the borderlands as a source of regeneration, redemption, transformation, and resistance for our migrant times. Alvarez, Garcia, and Moctezuma will read from their respective books and from new and upcoming work, and their readings will be followed by a brief panel discussion of their work.