Tatiana Luboviski-Acosta and Daisy Zamora

Tatiana Luboviski-Acosta

A Nicaraguan Californian via Mexico raised in the Huntington Park and Highland Park neighborhoods of Los Angeles, Tatiana Luboviski-Acosta lives in a rent-controlled apartment in the Mission District of San Francisco. Luboviski-Acosta is an artist, writer, reproductive justice activist, patient advocate and lapsed full spectrum doula who supports themself through working at a neighborhood cafe and cleaning houses. Their work attempts, as fellow poet Lauren Levin writes, to “include direct revolutionary action, up to and including revolutionary violence, as part of a continuum of care, and their use of this redefinition of care-work to rethink gendered paradigms.”

Luboviski-Acosta’s first book, The Easy Body (Timeless, Infinite Light, 2017), is a love letter from hell, providing a fiery account of loss combined with a multilingual prophecy of stained, stunning beauty. “A very necessary reminder of how brown women and queer people have survived centuries of colonial violence, long before 2017.” — Colorlines

Daisy Zamora

Daisy Zamora is one of the most prominent figures in contemporary Latin American poetry. Her work is known for its uncompromising voice and wide-ranging subject matter that explores and expresses the realities of everyday life while encompassing human rights, politics, revolution, feminist issues, literature, art, history and culture. During Nicaragua’s Sandinista Revolution she was a combatant for the FSLN (Sandinista National Liberation Front), and during the final 1979 Sandinista offensive became the voice and program director for clandestine Radio Sandino. After the triumph of the revolution, she was named vice minister of culture for the new government.

Author of numerous books of poetry in Spanish and a collection of political essays, Zamora also edited the first comprehensive anthology of Nicaraguan women poets published in Latin America. Her latest poetry collection, La violenta espuma, was published by renowned Spanish poetry publisher Visor in late December 2017.

A political activist and advocate for women’s rights throughout her life, for the last several years she has taught poetry workshops at a number of universities and colleges, and has been a lecturer of Latin American culture and literature at University of California, Santa Cruz; University of San Francisco; and San Francisco State University.

Mazza Writer in Residence

The Mazza Writer in Residence program allows Luboviski-Acosta to work with students of poetry, drama and other studies, and present performances both on and off the San Francisco State campus, with intensive student and community involvement. The residency pairs classroom workshop situations aimed at students, with performances open to the general public.

Related event

Tatiana Luboviski-Acosta, Mazza Writer in Residence, October 6

Photos, from left: Daisy Zamora by Frank Pineda. Tatiana Luboviski-Acosta by Dickie Bahto.