Invited artist:OCTAVIO QUINTANILLA
Poetry Prompt With Landscape
mixed media on wood
I am full of wonder when I drive through South Texas landscapes: the flatness, the brush, the mesquite trees, barb-wire fences, the immeasureable skies. No mountains here, only in imagination, which is wonder itself. And the landscape? A poetry prompt: “El poema es…” / “The poem is…”
Octavio Quintanilla is the author of the poetry collection, If I Go Missing, the founder and director of the literature & arts festival, VersoFrontera, publisher of Alabrava Press, and former Poet Laureate of San Antonio, TX.
His Frontextos (visual poems) have been published and exhibited widely. His new poetry collection, The Book of Wounded Sparrows, is forthcoming from Texas Review Press in fall 2024. His visual work has been exhibited at the Southwest School of Art, Presa House Gallery, Brownsville Museum of Fine Art, Equinox Gallery, The University of Texas—Rio Grande Valley (Brownsville Campus), the Weslaco Museum, Aanna Reyes Gallery, Our Lady of the Lake University, El Centro Cultural Hispano de San Marcos, The Walker’s Gallery in San Marcos, TX, and in the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center / Black Box Theater in Austin, TX. He teaches Literature and Creative Writing at Our Lady of the Lake University.
Website: octavioquintanilla.com
IG: @writeroctavioquintanilla
Twitter: @OctQuintanilla
