In this poetry reading and community conversation, Alan Pelaez Lopez will reflect on what it means to create art in the middle of legal and political violence. They’ll read from their book, Intergalactic Travels: poems from a fugitive alien, and a manuscript-in-progress tentatively titled trans*imagination in the hope that the work can invite questions about abolition, migrant futures, and the radical trans imaginary.

Alan Pelaez Lopez is an AfroIndigenous poet, installation and adornment artist from Oaxaca, México. Their work attends to the quotidian realities of undocumented migrants in the United States, the Black condition in Latin America, and the intimate kinship units that trans and nonbinary people build in the face of violence. Their debut visual poetry collection, Intergalactic Travels: poems from a fugitive alien, was a finalist for the 2020 International Latino Book Award. They are also the author of the chapbook, to love and mourn in the age of displacement.

This event is organized by the UC Santa Cruz Center for Racial Justice.