Tino Villanueva

Poet and painter Tino Villanueva was born in San Marcos, Texas to a family of migrant workers. He was drafted into the army and served for two years as a supply clerk in the Panama Canal Zone before earning a BA at Southwest Texas State University, an MA at State University of New York at Buffalo, and a PhD at Boston University.

Writing in both Spanish and English, at times sliding back and forth between the two languages, Villanueva writes poems exploring themes of memory, longing, and history. He is the author of several poetry collections, including So Spoke Penelope (2013); Scene from the Movie GIANT (1993), which won an American Book Award; and Hay Otra Voz: Poems (1972). He translated Luis J. Rodríguez’s La Llaman América (1998), and his own poems have been translated into Italian, French, German, Portuguese, Greek, and Korean.

The founder of Imagine Publishers, Inc., Villanueva has edited Imagine: International Chicano Poetry Journal and the anthology Chicanos: Antología Histórica y Literaria (1980).Villanueva received a Distinguished Alumnus Award from Texas State University, San Marcos. He has taught at Wellesley College and Boston University. A selection of his papers is held at the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University. He lives in Boston.