A reading and conversation on modern Filipino/a/x poetry in celebration of the release of The Water We Swim In, Christian Aldana’s debut poetry collection. The event will also feature Bay Area poets Dawn Angelicca Barcelona and antmen pimentel mendoza.  

The Water We Swim In, is an ode to radical care. Through community organizing and deeply held love, Aldana follows in the footsteps of Grace Lee Boggs against a carceral state, questioning the broken system and reaching across diasporic distances for the future within our grasp. Empowering, mobilizing and unrelenting, The Water We Swim In is a poetic revolution, a manifesto for all who believe in fighting for more.

Aldana (she/they) is a queer, Filipinx, artist, educator and community organizer based in Chicago. She is the founder and Creative Director of Luya, a poetry organization that centers the voices of people of color. 

antmen pimentel mendoza (she, he) is the author of the chapbook MY BOYFRIEND APOCALYPSE. pimentel mendoza is the Acting Co-Director of the Multicultural Community Center at UC Berkeley and a student at the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University. 

Barcelona is a Filipina-American poet based in San Francisco, originally born and bred in New Jersey. She writes with the Laguna Writers Workshop in San Francisco and volunteers with the National Alliance on Mental Illness as a speaker and support group facilitator for the BIPOC community. Dawn was a U.S. Department of State Fulbright Program Grantee to South Korea from 2014-2016 during which she served as the Editor-in-Chief of The Fulbright Korea Infusion literary magazine. Dawn has been published in Quiet Lightning, Killing the Angel, Fulbright Korea Infusion, work to a calm, In Between Hangovers and has performed her work with the Kearny Street Workshop.

Sampaguita Press is a nonprofit, independent micropress committed to serving underrepresented voices and communities who may not have access to traditional publishing spaces. We publish works by and for Black, Indigenous, and POC artists of all genders and LGBTQIA+ identities.

Connect 

Christian Aldana - on Sampaguita Press | Christian Aldana - Instagram 

Dawn Angelicca Barcelona - Linktree

antmen pimentel mendoza - Website | antmen pimentel mendoza - Instagram | antmen pimentel mendoza - Twitter

Sampaguita Press - Website | Sampaguita Press - Instagram | Sampaguita Press - Twitter