Poetry Reading: Brenda Cárdenas

Current Wisconsin Poet Laureate Brenda Cárdenas has authored Trace (Red Hen Press, 2023), winner of the 2023 Society of Midland Authors Award for Poetry and silver winner of Foreword Review’s Indie Poetry Prize; Boomerang (Bilingual Press); and three chapbooks. She also co-edited the anthologies Resist Much/Obey Little: Inaugural Poems to the Resistance and Between the Heart and the Land: Latina Poets in the Midwest. Her poems and essays have appeared in many literary journals and anthologies, including Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Braving the Body, Latinx Poetics: The Art of Poetry, Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Anthology, among others. Cárdenas has also enjoyed collaborating with musicians, composers, visual artists, and choreographers. For example, in 2024, her poem “Para los Tin-Tun-Teros,” set to choral music by Daniel Afonso, was performed by the National Concert Chorus at Carnegie Hall. Cárdenas is Professor Emerita of English at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and currently serves on the Board of Directors of Woodland Pattern in Milwaukee…