2023 Texas Poet Laureate to host open mic poetry event at Quinta Mazatlán in March
McAllen News, McAllen TX News, community poetry event, open mic, Texas Poet Laureate, Quinta Mazatlán
Staff Report
McAllen, TX - Quinta Mazatlán and RGV Women Poet Society will host a community open mic night of poetry March 5. The gathering runs from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. under the south oak tree at Quinta Mazatlán and will be hosted by 2023Texas Poet Laureate ire’ne lara silva.
Event details
The open mic welcomes seasoned and beginning writers alike. Participants can share original poetry, listen to spoken word, and enjoy refreshments. Kreative Grounds Coffee will offer coffee, tea and treats.
About the poet laureate
Silva is a Chicana poet and writer originally from the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas. She grew up in a family of migrant farmworkers, moving seasonally through Texas and other states during her childhood.
She later attended the University of Texas at El Paso, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in creative writing.
Her appointment as 2023 Texas State Poet Laureate reflects a distinguished career engaging both craft and community. Texas poet laureates are typically selected for their literary achievement and their commitment to public outreach and statewide arts engagement. Silva’s prolific output and work connecting poetry with a broad audience contributed to her selection to serve in this official capacity, which promotes poetry across Texas.
Silva is the author of five poetry collections: “furia,” “Blood Sugar Canto,” “CUICACALLI/House of Song,” “FirstPoems,” and “the eaters of flowers.” “The eaters of flowers” received Gold for the 2025 Juan Felipe Herrera Best Poetry Book from the International Latino Book Awards. She has also written a comic book, “VENDAVAL,” and two short story collections, “flesh to bone,” which won the Premio Aztlán, and “the light of your body.”
Her honors include the 2025 Rising Stars Poetry Award from the International Latino Book Awards, a 2025 Storyknife Writers Residency, the 2021 Texas Institute of Letters Shrake Award for Best Short Nonfiction, a 2021 Tasajillo Writers Grant, a 2017 NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant and the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Award. She was also the fiction finalist for AROHO’s 2013 Gift of Freedom Award.
Admission and contact
The program is free with general admission to Quinta Mazatlán. For more information, call (956) 681-3370.
Source -- Quinta Mazatlán.