Roberto Carlos Garcia: A Scholar’s Voice, Story, and the Afro‑Latinx Poetic Tradition

In this rich and resonant episode of Quintessential Listening Poetry Online Radio and YouTube, Dr. Michael Anthony Ingram engages poet, storyteller, essayist, and cultural curator Roberto Carlos Garcia in a quintessential poetry podcast conversation exploring his creative journey, literary expression, and Afro-Latinx poetics. Listeners should increase the audio volume due to sound issues.Garcia describes himself as a “sancocho […] of provisions from the Harlem Renaissance, the Spanish Poets of 1929, the Black Arts Movement, the Nuyorican School, and the Modernists,” reflecting the layered traditions that shape his voice. He founded Get Fresh Books Publishing, a cooperative press dedicated to amplifying diverse literary voices, and currently serves as a New Jersey State Council on the Arts Poetry Fellow.His collection Black / Maybe: An Afro Lyric was included in the Library of Congress Afro-Latinx Literature Bibliography, marking a significant contribution to the canon. Garcia has presented Afro-Latinx poetry and poetics at Notre Dame University (2022) and Dartmouth College (2023) and has read for Mahogany L. Brown’s Working Intersections program at Lincoln Center.The author of five books, Garcia’s poetry collections include the forthcoming What Can I Tell You: The Selected Poems of Roberto Carlos Garcia (FlowerSong Press, 2023), [Elegies] (FlowerSong Press, 2020), Black / Maybe: An Afro Lyric (Willow Books, 2018), and Melancolía (Červená Barva Press, 2016). His essay collection Traveling Freely is forthcoming in 2024 from Northwestern University Press. This conversation explores Garcia’s evolution as an artist, his Afro Latinx lineage, his editorial mission, and the cultural forces that shape his work.Website https://www.robertocarlosgarcia.com.