Cal State LA’s Center for Contemporary Poetry and Poetics welcomes acclaimed poet Emmy Pérez as the 2026 reader in the Jean Burden Poetry Series. A former Texas State Poet Laureate, United States Artists Fellow, and co-founder of the Poets Against Walls collective, Pérez is the author of Paper america: New and Selected Poems, as well as the collections With the River on Our Face and Solstice, and the chapbook Boxes with Zero Tolerance. Her dynamic work centers on the violent realities of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, poetic acts of witness, and the healing power of poetry in the face of environmental and humanitarian disaster.
We warmly invite you to join us for this special reading and conversation on Thursday, April 30, from 6:15-7:30 p.m. in ASCB 132, Rosser Hall. A public reception with refreshments will precede the event from 5:15-6:15 p.m. in the Annenberg Science Center Courtyard.
