Angela Trudell Vasquez

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Devin Trudell

Angela Trudell Vasquez

Angela Trudell Vasquez, Madison's poet laureate, had a number of plans for her tenure but then COVID hit. Fortunately, Vasquez has been reappointed for a second term and some big plans are back. In this Wisconsin Book Festival event, she will read from her new collection, My People Redux. Typical of Vasquez's thoughtful works, the poems encompass stories from her past and her ancestors who came to the Midwest from Mexico in the late 1800s, but they're not limited to that — geographically or imaginatively. In addition Vasquez will be poet-in-residence at Madison Public Library through May 2022, hosting workshops for all ages in which she will pair up with an artist, dancer or nature educator “to provide an interactive exploration that broadens the ways we experience poetry.” See more details at madpl.org/poetry.

media release: The poems in the collection, "My People Redux," travel through time. We go back and forth between the present, "They Could Be Sisters," and the past, "Goose Eggs," not just the poet's past but that of her ancestors who came to the Midwest from Mexico in the late 1800s, as displayed in the piece, "My People Redux." The poet's voice is always female and strong, but also vulnerable as in the poem, "Child Pose Cannot Hold." These are poems of race, ethnicity, gender, and class. There are also mystical poems in this collection and things the poet cannot explain like in the piece, "Once in Seattle" and in "The Congregation." In Trudell Vasquez's fourth collection her concerns are the same as in all of her previous collections but her way of approaching the page varies. The poet travels in this collection: from Madison to Seattle, Santa Fe, Des Moines, Milwaukee, Washington D.C., Chicago, and outside of the country too, to the Caribbean to Isla Mujeres in Mexico. In the poem, "Everybody is Somebody's Child," we are given a glimpse of the poet's concern for all people across the globe.