Gabriel Gomez

Poet, editor, playwright, and journalist Gabriel Gomez was born and raised in El Paso, Texas. He earned a BA at the College of Santa Fe and an MFA at St. Mary’s College of California.

Gomez's first book of poems, The Outer Bands (2007), was chosen by Valerie Martinez as the 2006 winner of the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize from the Institute of Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame Press. His second poetry collection is The Seed Bank (2012).

Gomez’s poetry is rooted in images of the body and landscape. His work explores the intersection of cultural, personal, and political heritage in forms that at once nod to traditional and experimental modes, and include everything from pastiche to found language. As Craig Santos Perez noted in a review of The Outer Bands for Latino Poetry Review, Gomez “inventively makes audible what is ultimately ‘inaudible for poetry,’ from the transformations of glaciers to the vows of retablos, from the power of song to the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina.” The poet D.A. Powell has called Gomez’s poetry “a kindness in the midst of a disordered world; a spire rising from the floodwaters,” adding that it is “a remarkable gift to us all.”

Gomez was a founding co-editor of Breach Press and has taught at Tulane University, the University of New Orleans, and the Institute of American Indian Arts. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.