Javier Zamora

Javier Zamora is an award-winning Salvadoran poet and activist.[1]

Javier Zamora
Javier Zamora, poet, reading at Sacred Heart School, Washington, DC February 27, 2018
Born	San Luis La Herradura, El Salvador
Language	English, Spanish
Alma mater	University of California, Berkeley (BA) New York University (MFA)
Genre	Poetry
Notable works	Unaccompanied
Notable awards	Wallace Stegner Fellow
Website
javierzamora.net

Early life

Zamora was born in San Luis La Herradura, El Salvador[2] and immigrated to the United States at the age of nine, joining his parents in California.[3][1]

Education

He earned a BA at the University of California, Berkeley and an MFA at New York University and is a 2016–2018 Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.[4][1]

Career

Zamora's chapbook Nueve Años Inmigrantes/Nine Immigrant Years won the 2011 Organic Weapon Arts Contest, and his first poetry collection, Unaccompanied,[5] was published in 2017 by Copper Canyon Press. His poetry can be found in American Poetry Review, Best New Poets 2013, Kenyon Review, Narrative Magazine, The New Republic, The New York Times, Ploughshares, and Poetry.

Honors

Zamora's honors include Barnes & Noble Writer for Writer's Award (2016), Meridian Editors’ Prize, and the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. Zamora has received fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, CantoMundo, Colgate University, The Frost Place,[6] MacDowell Colony, The Macondo Writers Workshop, the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, the National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship in Creative Writing, and Yaddo.[7][4] In 2017, Zamora was awarded the Narrative Prize for "Sonoran Song," "To the President-Elect," and "Thoughts on the Anniversary of My Crossing the Sonoran Desert".[8][9]

Activism

Zamora was a founder, with poets Marcelo Hernandez Castillo and Christopher Soto (AKA Loma), of the Undocupoets campaign which eliminated citizenship requirements from major first poetry book prizes in the United States.[2][10]

Books

• Nueve Años Inmigrantes/Nine Immigrant Years Organic Weapon Arts, 2012. ISBN 9780982710616, OCLC 824739031 – chapbook
• Unaccompanied, Port Townsend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press, 2017. ISBN 9781556595110, OCLC 972237998

In Anthology

• Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology, University of Georgia Press, 2018. ISBN 9780820353159, OCLC 1004957170

References

1. "Javier Zamora". Poetry Foundation. June 5, 2018. Retrieved June 5, 2018.
2. "Rethinking Poetic Citizenship". Poets & Writers. June 17, 2015. Retrieved June 5, 2018.
3. "Javier Zamora – Narrative Magazine". Narrativemagazine.com. April 17, 2014. Retrieved June 5, 2018.
4. "Art Talk with Poet Javier Zamora". Arts.gov. December 16, 2014. Retrieved June 5, 2018.
5. "Copper Canyon Press: Unaccompanied, Poetry by Javier Zamora". Coppercanyonpress.org. Retrieved June 5, 2018.
6. "The Poems of Javier Zamora – Good Times Santa Cruz". Goodtimes.sc. April 10, 2012. Retrieved June 5, 2018.
7. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on April 18, 2017. Retrieved April 17, 2017.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
8. "Biography". javierzamora.net. Retrieved February 15, 2019.
9. "Narrative Prize". Narrative Magazine. Retrieved February 15, 2019.
10. "Undocupoets Organizers Are Making Headway by Harriet Staff". Poetry Foundation. June 5, 2018. Retrieved June 5, 2018.

External links

• Poetry and Profile at Poetry Foundation website
• Profile at Poets & Writers magazine
• "Sonoran Song and Other Poems" at Narrative Magazine.