Eddie Vega & Friends & Community Open Mic

Join Gemini Ink on Thursday, September 26th, for a night of poetry and performance as we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month 2024 and honor our new San Antonio Poet Laureate Eddie Vega! 

Eddie is a poet, educator, open mic host, and voice for the people, who’s poetry focuses on the routine struggles and small beauties of life in South Texas. He will be accompanied by award- winning poet Violeta Garza and veteran educator and poet Jacinto Jesús Cardona.

Following the featured reading, we will host a community open mic. Bring your poems, stories, and thoughts to share (there will be a 3-minute limit for each reader). Open mic sign-up in person, starting at 6pm.

Violeta Garza is a non-binary Latinx poet and member of the Macondo Writers Workshop. Her work has been published in Acentos Review, Boundless, and riverSedge, among others.

Jacinto Jesús Cardona is a San Antonio poet whose two poetry books, PAN DULCE and AMAPOLASONG celebrate his growing up Tex Mex in Alice, the Hub of South Texas. In 2016 New York Symphony Space selected his poem “Bato Con Khakis” to be performed as part of their literacy program. Among Cardona’s awards are a Gemini Ink Voz de San Antonio Poetry Award and his poetry is documented in Voices From Texas by San Antonio filmmaker Ray Santiesteban. Cardona teaches English at Incarnate Word High School.

Eddie Vega (the Taco-Poet of Texas) is a poet, storyteller, and educator. The author of Chicharra Chorus (FlowerSong Press, 2019) and Somos Nopales (FlowerSong Press, 2024), his poetry also appears along the San Pedro Creek Cultural Park. He is the editor of Asina is How We Talk, a collection of Tejano poetry. A Macondo Workshop Fellow, Vega directs the Mouth Dakota Poetry Project, a biweekly open mic. He currently serves as the 7th Poet Laureate of San Antonio.