Meet Our Grantee-Partner: Infrarrealista Review
Infrarrealista Review elevates Central-Texan artists and activates appreciation for expression by publishing local writers and cultivating a culture that connects local political issues with the arts to create a sustainable cultural economy.
Amber Issac reads poems at a reading hosted by Infrarrealista Review at Alienated Majesty Bookstore. Photo courtesy of Infrarrealista Review.
Mission: Infrarrealista Review is taking back the most powerful tool found in all humans —genuine expression.
After graduating from the MFA program at Texas State University, Cloud Delfina Cardona and Juania Sueños found themselves with student debt and few options for work in the literary arts unless they relocated. Their experience led them to establish Infrarrealista Review (IR) in San Marcos, Texas, in 2019 to create more publishing opportunities for members of marginalized writing communities in Texas. The organization’s name is inspired by the “punk rock spirit” of Infrarrealista poets from Mexico City, Mexico, whom Cardona and Sueños had long admired.
In IR’s early days as a writing collective, the primary audience consisted of the founders’ queer and BIPOC writer friends who they encouraged to join workshops, attend poetry readings, and submit work to their journal, Plancha Press. The audience expanded organically, and what started as a friendship between two poets in Central Texas grew into a network of writers across the state with programs operating primarily in San Marcos, Lockhart, and Seguin.
IR has always operated with the vision of amplifying BIPOC Texan voices without profiting from or commodifying their identities. Cardona and Sueños used their own funds to pay writers and publish the first issue of what eventually became Plancha Press. Years later, most of IR’s funding is dedicated to paying writers in recognition of the mental and financial obstacles they have to overcome as they build their careers. IR does not ask for the rights to work it publishes and pays all writers a competitive rate for their work—whether they’re reading, teaching, or publishing a poem.
In a culture and moment that values individuality and encourages isolation, IR values making space for poetry as a way to reconnect. IR prioritizes hosting free poetry workshops and open mics in small towns since these opportunities are more difficult to find outside Texas’s urban centers. Monthly open mics in San Marcos have been hosting poets from around Texas and have continued growing since launching in spring of 2023.
KB Brookins reading at an Infrarrealista Review open mic event. Photo courtesy of Infrarrealista Review.
Receiving an Equity in Verse grant from the Poetry Foundation has supported IR’s most recent Hays Youth Poet Laureate program, which launched in October 2024 with a workshop led by SG Huerta and judged by Naomi Shihab Nye. Youth participants received writing guidance and supportive feedback along with the chance to be published in an anthology. June Paddison was named the 2024 Hays Youth Poet Laureate, and IR published her manuscript, "To Be a Woman (and not a girl).”
The grant has also allowed IR to publish reviews of Texans’ books and local poems in eight issues of the Caldwell-Hays Examiner, which distributes 3,500 copies of free monthly papers across Caldwell and Hays Counties. Additionally, the funding made it possible to pay local writers for book reviews, poetry, and IR’s monthly open mic series. It supported sending four IR authors and staff to Kansas City, Missouri for the panel, Publishing as Activism: Amplifying Marginalized Voices, which was accepted into the 2024 Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Conference programming roster. It also paid for an off-site reading which featured Dee Lalo Garcia, mónica teresa ortiz, and Laura Villarreal. IR was able to publish its first Laredo folio edited by Laredo native, Dee Lalo Garcia. Lastly, the grant helped pay rent for its office space in Seguin where IR holds meetings with regional writers and a working place for staff members.
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