Tripwire Cross-Cultural Poetics Series: Cardboard House Press/Cartonera Collective: Giancarlo Huapaya, Omar Pimienta, José Antonio Villarán

The Poetry Center’s Tripwire Cross-Cultural Poetics Series welcomes Giancarlo Huapaya, Omar Pimienta, and José Antonio Villarán—all three poets involved in the outstanding literary small publisher Cardboard House Press, dedicated to work in translation from Latin America and Spain, and its offshoot, Cartonera Collective, “a team of book makers devoted to the production of bilingual book art from Latin American authors.” Thursday November 7 they present their work at The Poetry Center, co-sponsored with Latina/Latino Studies, SF State. Then Friday evening we’ll all be at The Green Arcade, on Market at Gough, in San Francisco. Both events are free and open to the public. Please join us!

• For this occasion, Tripwire journal will be producing a new Cardboard House/Cartonera Collective volume in its Tripwire Pamphlet Series!

Giancarlo Huapaya (Lima, Peru) has published three collections of poetry, the most recently, Taller Sub Verso (Sub Verse Workshop) (2011, 2013). His poems and translations have appeared in the anthologies 4M3R1C4 (Chile), Aguas Móviles (Peru), Cholos (Guatemala), OOMPH! (US), and in the journals Erizo (Mexico-EEUU), Buenos Aires Poetry (Argentina), Poesía (Venezuela), Zunái (Brazil), Jacket2 (US), Anomaly (US), Periódico de Poesía de la UNAM (México), among others. He is Founder and Editor of Cardboard House Press, a nonprofit publishing house for Latin American and Spanish literature in translation. As a curator of visual poetry, he has presented exhibitions at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts in San Francisco and the University of Arizona Poetry Center in Tucson. In 2016, he edited the anthology Pulenta Pool: Peruvian Poets in the United States for Hostos Review. As literary translator, he has translated into Spanish work by C.D Wright, Susan Briante, Ross Gay, Carmen Giménez Smith and Alli Warren. Currently, he is MFA candidate in Creative Writing at The University of Texas at El Paso.

Omar Pimienta is a writer/artist who lives and works in the San Diego / Tijuana border region. His artistic practice examines questions of identity, trans-nationality, emergency poetics, sociopolitical landscape and memory. He has published four books of poetry in U.S, México and Spain. Album of Fences, translated by José Antonio Villarán, was published by Cardboard House Press in 2018. He won the Emilio Prado 10th International Publication prize from the Centro Cultural Generación del 27 Malaga Spain. His work as a visual artist has been recently shown, at the 3ème Biennale Internationale de l’Art Contemporain de Casablanca Maroc, and was part of the Getty Foundation, Pacific Standard Time LA/LA. In 2017-18 he was awarded an Art Matters Grant. More here.

Jose Antonio Villarán (parent/writer/teacher) is the author of two books of poetry: la distancia es siempre la misma (Matalamanga, 2006) & el cerrajero (Album del Universo Bakterial, 2012); one book of translation, Album of Fences, by Omar Pimienta (Cardboard House Press, 2018); and creator of the AMLT project, an exploration of hypertext literature and collective authorship, which was sponsored by Puma from 2011-2014. His third book, titled open pit, is forthcoming from AUB in 2019. He holds an MFA in Writing from the University of California San Diego, and is currently a PhD Candidate in Literature at the University of California Santa Cruz.