M-J-S-A-N-T-I-A-G-O

santiago is a queer mexican-american from central florida. they take photos, write poems, and organize with their community of LGBT/queer/gender-nonconforming people of color in central brooklyn.

they have been nominated for a pushcart prize and have poems included in The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext.

[...]Swallow is absolute catnip for me. It’s the exact kind of collection I love to read, and the kind of thing I try to write. The layout of the poems seems unassuming, but is wildly ambitious. It begins as a series of tight, beautiful lyrics of driving down highways drinking gas station sodas, stopping for downbeat diners, and reminiscing about family. I want to hear these poems read over Tom Waits’ studio musicians endlessly vamping jazz riffs. I want to read these poems aloud while sitting on a porch on a sticky summer night with citronella candles warding off mosquitoes.

- Chris Corlew, Vagaond City Literary Journal