Yesenia Montilla

Yesenia Montilla (she/her) is an Afro-Latina poet and a daughter of immigrants. She is the author of The Pink Box (Aquarius Press, 2015), long-listed for a 2016 PEN Open Book award, and Muse Found in a Colonized Body (Four Way Books, 2022), a finalist for a 2023 NAACP Image Award. Her work has been published in the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series, Prairie Schooner, Gulf Coast, and The Best American Poetry 2021 and 2022. She was a CantoMundo graduate fellow and a 2020 NYSCA/NYFA Poetry Fellow. 

Montilla earned an MFA from Drew University in poetry and poetry in translation. She lives in Harlem, New York City.