José Olivarez

José Olivarez is the son of Mexican immigrants, and the author of two collections of poems, including most recently, Promises of Gold. His debut book of poems, Citizen Illegal, was a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and a winner of the 2018 Chicago Review of Books Poetry Prize. It was named a best book of the year in 2018 by The Adroit Journal, NPR, and the New York Public Library. In 2019, he was awarded a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. Along with Felicia Rose Chavez and Willie Perdomo, he co-edited the poetry anthology The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNEXT. In response to Olivarez’s latest collection, critic Luz Magdaleno Flores declared: “White people have Emily Dickinson, Mexicans have José Olivarez.” He lives in Jersey City, New Jersey.