Cosponsored by Gender and Sexuality Student Services, UIS Diversity Center, Organization of Latin American Students, and Black Student Association

To conclude the Day of Silence on campus, Christopher Soto will discuss queer of color poetry from the Harlem Renaissance to the age of mass incarceration with an emphasis on undocumented literary activism. During this event, students will explore the intersections of queer identities and poetry with activism as it relates to undocumented youth as well as carcerality.

Christopher Soto is a poet based in Brooklyn, New York. He is the author of “Sad Girl Poems” (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2016) and the editor of “Nepantla: An Anthology Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color” (Nightboat Books, 2018). He cofounded the Undocupoets Campaign and worked with Amazon Literary Partnerships to establish grants for undocumented writers. In 2017, he was awarded “The Freedom Plow Award for Poetry & Activism” by Split This Rock and he was invited to teach a “Poetry and Protest Movements” course at Columbia University, as part of the June Jordan Teaching Corp. In 2016, Poets & Writers honored Christopher Soto with the Barnes & Noble Writer for Writers Award. He frequently writes book reviews for the Lambda Literary Foundation. He is currently working on a full-length poetry manuscript about police violence and mass incarceration. He received his MFA in poetry from NYU, where he was a Goldwater Hospital Writing Workshop Fellow.