Latino/Latin American Studies Lectures

Blood of Mine, Blood of All: The Poetic Conception of Ciudad Juarez, a Mexican Border City

Document Type

Presentation

Publication Date

4-22-2013

Disciplines

Latin American Languages and Societies | Literature in English, North America | Poetry

Abstract

In the U.S./Mexico border town of Ciudad Juárez, since 1993 at least one woman per week is killed and dumped in the desert. In 1998, a local poetry festival initiated a movement which emerged as an intellectual and social justice movement, and defined the literary conception of the city. Chant to a City in the Middle of the Desert (2004) was published with the objective to poetically denounce, through the work of more than 90 authors, the violence of Ciudad Juárez. On January 6, 2011, the murder of poet and activist Susana Chávez, who wrote the poem "Blood of Mine," frequently read during protests by the civil rights organizations and their supporters, gives name to the forthcoming anthology as it represents the current phase of the literary movement.

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