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Neff Poetry Reading Series with Brenda Cardenas September 11

The Eastern Illinois University English Department is pleased to share that acclaimed poet Brenda Cárdenas will be reading as part of the Neff Reading Series in conjunction with National Hispanic Heritage Month on Wednesday, September 11, 2024. The reading will take place in the Doudna Lecture Hall (1860 7th St, Charleston, IL 61920). The event will feature a reading and Q&A followed by a catered reception. This event is free and open to the public.

Brenda Cárdenas has authored Trace (Red Hen Press), winner of the 2023 Society of Midland Authors Award for Poetry and finalist for Foreword Review’s 2023 Indie Poetry Prize; Boomerang (Bilingual Press); and three chapbooks. She also co-edited 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 or are forthcoming in many literary journals and anthologies, including Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Braving the Body, Latinx Poetics: The Art of Poetry, TAB: Journal of Poetry and Poetics, and Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Anthology, among others. Cárdenas has also enjoyed collaborating with musicians, composers, visual artists, and choreographers. In 2023, her poem “Para los Tin-Tun-Teros,” set to choral music by Daniel Afonso, was published by Hal Leonard Music and in 2024, performed by the National Concert Chorus at Carnegie Hall. Cárdenas has served as Milwaukee’s Poet Laureate and is Professor Emerita of English at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.