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isabel cruz | poet 🇵🇷

@eesahvel

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as seen at @njpac Spoken Word Salsa 💃
associate editor @waye_poetry 📑
@brooklynpoets fellow ‘25 ✨
Dodge Poetry ‘24 💜 DPF Ambassador ‘26

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you’re looking at a 2024 Festival Poet for this year’s dodge poetry festival!!

i have been bursting since late june trying to keep this news a secret! i found out—by accident—on june 27th that i had been accepted to dodge poetry festival. i had completely missed the email Dodge sent out that Tuesday and had just decided to go into my Submittable and look for submission calls when I saw ACCEPTED and i could not believe my eyes.

to be selected for Dodge in my second year of applying (after a very kind and thoughtful rejection in 2022), is something i really never could have imagined but have always dreamed about.

it has been my dream since October 2018, when Mr. Flanagan, my high school creative writing instructor, took me and 5 other girls to Dodge. this one goes out to you Mr. Flanagan.

so many poets i love and look up to—and some of whom I’ve had the pleasure of knowing through my internship at the Boutelle Day Poetry center—have been on dodge’s lineup and i’m absolutely humbled to have my name appear on the same list as such incredibly talented poets. congratulations to all the wonderful poets who have also been selected or had a hand in putting this into motion @ameerah_bilal @poetseanbattle @hdlewispoet @mariah.ayscue ! thank you so much @dodgepoetry and @njpac for reading and recognizing my work, i am truly humbled.

i’m officially a dodge poet y’all!
catch me at the largest poetry festival in the country on Oct. 19, 2024! taken in New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) by @eesahvel

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2 years ago

my first ever fellowship! ⭐️

thank you @brooklynpoets for uplifting my work and giving me the opportunity to study with one of the best, Starr Davis, for her “Activism: Writing the Modern Love Poem” workshop this summer 🫶🏽

congrats to all of the fellows but especially my friends @a.riawrites and @lorri.o

the work continues 🌷

swipe all the way to see a collage i made of my poem “love poem for the puerto rican” that was published 2 years ago by @poetrysocietyny and was part of my fellowship submission 🇵🇷 taken in Brooklyn Poets by @eesahvel

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a year ago

Meet our Poet of the Week, Isabel Cruz! Read their poem “RE: restoring truth and sanity to american history” here along with an excerpt from our Q&A. Full feature including Q&A is available at the link in our bio! taken in Brooklyn Poets by @eesahvel

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8 months ago

Meet the Ambassadors—episode 2! This time the crew is preparing for Dodge Poetry Festival (Oct 15-17). But will they be ready in time? 🤔

⭐️Starring:
@glamdunkk
@darryldwayne
@eesahvel
@my_crumbled_thoughts
@producedbyroc
@siarra.divine

🔗 njpac.org/dodgefest by @eesahvel

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7 days ago

this past weekend cured me 🤒💗

dodge poetry festival comes around every two years to wake up the poetry in our bones

even when the world is downright nasty and the poems hold all of the fraughtness of this moment and this life, hearing all of these poets does something to uplift my literary spirit

#dodgepoetryfestival #njpacambassador #poetry #ad taken in New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) by @eesahvel

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13 hours ago

the host w the most

some of the most fun i’ve had hosting, EVER—we love Sakura Series 🌸

📸 @michaelgebhardt10 taken in Telephone Room by @eesahvel

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19 days ago

there are residencies everywhere for those with eyes to see #poetry #writers #poet taken in Porto, Portugal by @eesahvel

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21 days ago

RECAPPPP!!!🌸🌸🌸 What an amazing night of poetry and celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month!!💕💕💕Thank you to our incredible, fabulous host @eesahvel , our winner @saysomethingpoet , all of the competing poets, the judges, our volunteers, and all of the audience members who came through and made the night so great🥰We can’t wait until the next one! Mark your calendars for our spooky Sakura Slam on October 20th!! And thank you to @bkartscouncil for making this event possible!❤️❤️❤️

A huuuuge thank you as always to @michaelgebhardt10 for these incredible photos. (: 🌸

#poetryslam #brooklynevents #bushwick #artivism #hispanicheritagemonth taken in Telephone Room by @eesahvel

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22 days ago

how can you not grow in a garden like this? an insane year so far <3 🪴 by @eesahvel

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25 days ago

although i didn’t wind up winning one of the picnic grants, i’d like to thank @elizabethbaylimited @lilybchapman for sharing some of my responses and prompting me to do some unexpected ideation ☀️

check out my moodboards <3 by @eesahvel

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a month ago

SPOKEN WORD SALSA, NJPAC, 07.10.2027🇵🇷

@aimee_nezhukumatathil was right there truly were not enough jam jars to can this summer sky, this summer of poetry, of community and cultura. it certainly felt like el dia de mi suerte.

now that it’s the first day of fall and latine heritage month, i may have found the words to express just how much this night meant to me and how deeply grateful i am to everyone who was involved in making it happen.

i am proud and honored to have been chosen by NJPAC to represent the vibrant living history of Puerto Rican poetry alongside three of the greatest, most generous, Puerto Rican artists I have had the pleasure of meeting.

Thank you @elisabetvelasquezpoetry @frankienegron @labrujanyc for your kindness, your support, and your incredible work—I still think of first introduction piece and the palpable feeling of the audience being brought together over our shared stories just minutes after the lights came on and our brilliant host lit up the stage.

Thank you to the entire NJPAC and Nuyo teams, especially @ancestralpoetisa for bringing a little Puerto Rican girl’s sueñitos into being. Ysabel, Boricua artists will always be in good hands as long as you’re here. Every single crew member, PA, usher, and support staff member made this possible—adjusting mics, moving lecterns, keeping us all on track.

Lastly, to everyone who came through—the 400+ people who laughed, clapped, snapped, and cried—thank you. There is no show without a fantastic audience.

My poetry is for you, the Bori, the ones living upended in Diaspora, the ones forced to flee, the ones who never learned Spanish, the ones who only speak Spanish, the ones who never left, and the ones who long to return home.

(p.s. if you have any more photos or videos of that night, pls send them to me <3) taken in New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) by @eesahvel

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a month ago

We’re thrilled to announce our lineup at this year’s NYC Po Fest by @poetrysocietyny on Gov. Island! So many sibling hubs will take the stage, and we hope you (yes, YOU!) will join us!—two days of poetic community, coalition building and inspiration. Come support your local poets and build new moments, experiences and relationships with us! 🫂🙌🏼

Your poets (full bios):

Isabel Cruz (@eesahvel) is a Puerto Rican poet and the Youth Poetry Ambassador for the Paterson Poetry Festival. Among other awards, she won the 2024 Five College Prose & Poetry Prize and the 2024 Elizabeth Babcock Prize for Best Poem. Her work is published and forthcoming in The Poetry Society of New York, When Women Speak, Ghost City Review, and WAYE Small Press, among others. She was recently named a 2025 Brooklyn Poets Fellow and awarded a full scholarship from The Poetry Project for their Late Summer 2025 Learning.

JR Engalla (@selengvllv) is just another Filipino-American born and raised in Jersey City off West Side Avenue. He is still writing a better bio, but for now, he is a writer that’s dusting off his pen, examining his landscape, and hopefully, sharing work that resonates.

Gina Fayazi (@ginajournals) is an interdisciplinary artist and poet from Hudson County, New Jersey whose murals and poems explore nature, womanhood, and the quiet intensity of being alive. Her work invites audiences into spaces that feel both intimate and expansive. She is also a teaching artist and assistant organizer of The {Poetry} Unfold and Hudson County Poetry Festival.

Yetvart S. Majian (@emajian) is a first-generation Armenian-American poet, and great-grandchild to an orphan-survivor of the Armenian Genocide. He serves as Resident Poet at Washington Park, and facilitator of The {Poetry} Unfold. His poems appear in The Red Wheelbarrow, The Jersey Journal, By the WAYE Magazine, and his debut collection—Survival Witness—was selected as a 2025 Finalist by Wandering Aengus Press, Trio House Press, and Semi-Finalist by Black Lawrence Press.

#nycpoetryfestival #poetry #poetsofinstagram

Design: stylings of @doswidania, adapted from the beautiful poster by @ccamillarod. taken in Governors Island by @eesahvel

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3 months ago