Poet. Educator. Performer
José Olivarez is the son of Mexican immigrants, and the author of two collections of poems, including, most recently, Promises of Gold—which was long listed for the 2023 National Book Awards. His debut book of poems, Citizen Illegal, was a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and a winner of the 2018 Chicago Review of Books Poetry Prize. Along with Felicia Rose Chavez and Willie Perdomo, he co-edited the poetry anthology, The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNEXT. Alongside Antonio Salazar, he published the hybrid book, Por Siempre in 2023.
In 2018, he was awarded the first annual Author and Artist in Justice Award from the Phillips Brooks House Association and named a Debut Poet of 2018 by Poets & Writers. In 2019, he was awarded a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. His work has been featured in The New York Times, The Paris Review, and elsewhere.
As a performer and educator, Olivarez has delivered workshops and performances across the United States and México at festivals like the San Antonio Book Festival, the Wisconsin Book Festival, The National Book Festival, the O Miami Poetry Festival and more. He has presented at universities including Northwestern University, The University of Missouri- Kansas City, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, SUNY College at Geneseo, Napa Valley College and more.
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Poems
Audio Performances
Video Performances
The People’s Inauguration for the Center for Cultural Power
Mexican Heaven at #PoetsForPuertoRico
You Get Fat When You're In Love
Ode To The First White Girl I Ever Loved
Publications
Tradition in Teen Vogue
Ode to Tortillas in The Atlantic
poem where no one is deported in poets.org’s Poem-A-Day
My Family Never Finished Migrating We Just Stopped in the New York Times Magazine (originally published in the Adroit Journal)
Mercedes says she prefers the word ‘discoteca’ to the word ‘club’ in the Chicago Reader
Mexican Heaven & My Family Never Finished Migrating We Just Stopped on The Adroit Journal
Ars Poetica in POETRY Magazine
United Enemies in the Museum of Modern Art’s Magazine
Perder in Underbelly Magazine
despecho hour at the casa azul restaurante y cantina in POETRY Magazine
February & my love is in another state in POETRY Magazine
wherever i'm at that land is Chicago in POETRY Magazine
Five Truths and a Lie About Paxton Avenue on Chicago Magazine
Maybe I Could Save Myself By Writing on Medium
I Wake In A Field Of Wolves With The Moon on The Shallow Ends
Hecky Naw on Cosmonauts Avenue
Mexican American Disambiguation on Hyperallergic
I Walk Into Every Room and Yell Where The Mexicans At on poets.org's Poem-a-Day
now i’m bologna on poets.org’s Poem-a-Day
(citizen) (illegal) on the Poets House Website
my therapist says make friends with your monsters on The Rumpus
ode to cheese fries on The Chi Dispatch
The Day My Little Brother Gets Accepted Into Grad School on Belt Magazine
Two Poems on Vinyl Poetry and Prose
summer love on Brooklyn Magazine
ode to a summer dress on The Wall Street Journal
Bulls vs. Suns, 1993 on Specter Magazine
Three Poems on The Acentos Review
World's Fair 2008 on The Acentos Review
Publicity
Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship Announcement
Poets & Writers Debut Poets 2018 Feature
The Poetry Foundation Interview with Britteney Black Rose Kapri
The Creative Independent with Jessica Hopper
National Endowment For The Arts
The Download with Justin Kaufmann
The Conversation: José Olivarez & Nate Marshall
Books
Citizen Illegal
In this stunning debut, poet José Olivarez explores the stories, contradictions, joys, and sorrows that embody life in the spaces between Mexico and America. He paints vivid portraits of good kids, bad kids, families clinging to hope, life after the steel mills, gentrifying barrios, and everything in between. Drawing on the rich traditions of Latinx and Chicago writers like Sandra Cisneros and Gwendolyn Brooks, Olivarez creates a home out of life in the in-between. Combining wry humor with potent emotional force, Olivarez takes on complex issues of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and immigration using an everyday language that invites the reader in. Olivarez has a unique voice that makes him a poet to watch.
“Citizen Illegal is right on time, bringing both empathy and searing critique to the fore as a nation debates the very humanity of the people who built it.” —Eve Ewing, author of Electric Arches
“Citizen Illegal is a fearless, instrumental, honest collection of poetry. In other words, the book is fire. Skilled, tender, funny, yet undecorated, Olivarez’s poetry navigates the razor sharp duality and utter contradiction of citizenship. These poems helps us carry the weight of biases, the absurdity of our prejudices; they help us seek documentation for our humanity which cannot, by any means, be dictated by policy makers. Let it be said that these poems are also love poems. Olivarez chooses to use his voice, sometimes brutal, sometimes bloody and blistered, to confront our monstrosity, yet he never shies away from love, even when he exposes the lies we keep in order to live. Keep an eye out for José Olivarez: he might be the poet you need when it’s time to cross a line, destruct borders, and still come out on the other side with your dreams intact.”
—Willie Perdomo, The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon
“Citizen Illegal is a stunning piece of artwork from beginning to end. A vivid journey on José’s real life experiences which open-heartedly allows you to discover many of the things people don’t often talk about: love, anxiety, fear, and hopefulness. This book is inspirational and culturally rich, giving you all types of feelings with first hand insight on what it feels like to be Latino. Poets like José and books like Citizen Illegal are essential to our community.”
—Luis Carranza, poet & member of Young Chicago Authors 2017 Bomb Squad
“When I read this book, I can hear José reading these poems out loud to me, into a microphone, in conversation. There is not one time that I read his collection that I didn’t cry. I cried of joy, of sadness, of just seeing and feeling the printed celebration and exploration of what it means to be a first-generation Mexican-American. If and when I need to be reminded of the love I have for being a first generation Mexican American, I am able to turn to these moments in this collection: a neighborhood in which we can be as open and loud and soft as we want to be. In this neighborhood, I can also find all the deafening shame and heart- breaking fear my family and I have tried to hide. José pulls this love and this family and these secrets onto a platform we, as a community, can celebrate, acknowledge, laugh, and cry juntitos. Muchísimas gracias a José por siendo tan valiente y integro. Llevaré estas poemas conmigo por siempre.”
—Victoria Chávez Peralta, poet & member of Young Chicago Authors 2017 Bomb Squad
Critical Acclaim
An New York Public Library Best Book for adults of 2018
An NPR Great Read of 2018
"Jose Olivarez’s indispensable debut poetry collection, “Citizen Illegal,” is a boisterous, empathetic, funny-yet-serious (but not self-serious) celebratory ode to Chicanx life in the contemporary United States."
-Kathleen Rooney, The Chicago Tribune
"It seems clear that Olivarez wrote from every part of himself to build this incredible book. He uses the tools of his craft to create a sanctuary for others, and to present alternative realities that might finally serve, rather than pillage from, brown and black people."
-Frank Johnson, The Rumpus
“José Olivarez’s debut poetry collection, Citizen Illegal (Haymarket Books, 2018), is a poetic assault on these state and cultural processes that continue to stamp out empathy and humanity within the rise of today’s migratory drift and its management by the state.”
-Chris Campanioni, The Brooklyn Rail
“Citizen Illegal acts as an oasis for acceptance and resistance—an ode of gratitude for in-between spaces.”
-The Arkansas International
“Citizen Illegal is not only a commentary on timely and complicated issues of race, immigration, and ethnicity, but also a celebration, a journey toward a self and a family identity that is grounded not merely in geography but in the veined map of the heart.”
-Donna Vorreyer, Rhino Reviews
What does being a citizen really mean, living in a brown body? And even if you do adopt more Westernized practices, how does that change how brown bodies are viewed in a white society? Olivarez exposes and dismantles these constructions slowly throughout his chapbook, brick by brick. With a searing precision, he takes aim at the American paradigm and how “folding” oneself to fit into it is fruitless.
-Arielle Gray, Afropunk
“This collection is for those of us who are still seeking an identity but are also very aware of what it is. It’s for those of us who don’t see a difference between being a citizen and an “illegal” because we are a mixture of both. His poems are filled with wit and have absolute relevance in today’s political climate.”
-Angie Flores, The Gate Newspaper
GoodReads
The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext
A BreakBeat Poets anthology that opposes silence and re-mixes the soundtrack of the Latinx diaspora across diverse poetic traditions.
In the dynamic tradition of the BreakBeat Poets anthology, The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext celebrates the embodied narratives of Latinidad. Poets speak from an array of nationalities, genders, sexualities, races, and writing styles, staking a claim to our cultural and civic space. Like Hip-Hop, we honor what was, what is, and what's next.
Spring 2021
Tour Schedule TBA
To book performances or schedule teaching opportunities, please reach out to APB.