“I love how my writing has put me in rooms with people that I’m proud to be
in community with.“ —Bianca Alyssa Pérez
On Saturday, September 19, Bianca Alyssa Pérez will teach “Snake Body, Open Mouth: Tapping Into Your Poetic Voice.” In this in-person class, students will engage with generative prompts that draw from the body, family histories, cultural memory, and multilingual or fragmented language. Writers will leave with a deeper understanding of how silence, lineage, and lived experience can become powerful sources of poetic voice.
Bianca Alyssa Pérez is a poet, educator, and editor from South Texas. Her chapbook, Gemini Gospel, was the winner of Host Publication’s Chapbook Contest in Spring 2023. Her debut poetry collection, snake breath, is the winner of Hub City Press’ 2026 Deep Line Poetry Prize and is forthcoming Spring 2027. Her work is published in these beautiful places: Porter House Review, Infrarrealista Review, New York Quarterly, Poetry Daily, Praisesong for the People Anthology (edited by Amanda Johnston), The Texas Observer, The Baltimore Review, the Bangalore Review & forthcoming in an anthology from The University of Nevada Press. She is the co-host of the horror podcast, Basement Girls, with writer, Steph Grossman. She is also the Director of the Katherine Anne Porter Visiting Writers Series at Texas State University. Find more chisme at her website: biancaalyssaperez.com.
Here’s what Bianca had to share with us:
Who are your earliest influences? What people and books made you a writer?
The first poet I remember reading and really feeling is Nikki Giovanni’s collection of Love Poems.
I had never had an entrance into poetry that felt like I was invited in personally until Giovanni.
Once I got into college and got “serious” about poetry, I was heavily influenced by the slam
poets in Austin at the time (circa 2015). I’m talking Ebony Stewart, Sam Sax, Christopher
Michael, Tova Charles, and Jomar Valentine. I looked up to them because of how they
commanded a room and their poems felt like they were felt in the body first before understood
by the brain.
What writing challenges have you faced? What have these challenges taught you about your process?
I feel like I’m still learning about my process and will continue to iron out what works for me for
the rest of my life. Right now, the biggest challenge for me is writing towards a theme for my
next poetry collection. My first poetry collection (coming out March 16 2027) was a compilation
of poems that, when I put them together, had a through-line that I didn’t see while I was writing
the collection. It felt very organic in that way. For my next project, I have a very specific theme
in mind that I want each poem to speak to so that’s been difficult for me because, I guess, there’s
more intentionality that I’m not used to. This has taught me that I shouldn’t fix my poems to a
certain theme right off the bat because it’s been affecting me when I sit down to write. What if I don’t want to write a poem to that theme? Does that mean I can’t just write a poem? No. So,
we’re learning.
From your perspective, what’s the most rewarding part about being a writer?
Community. Period. I love how my writing has put me in rooms with people that I’m proud to be
in community with.
Who do you write for?
I write towards meaning. I write towards answer. I write towards curiosity. So, I write for folks
that are interested in a similar curiosity. They’re okay with swimming in mystery.
What do you hope writers will learn from your course?
I hope that writers learn to trust themselves and the experiences that have put them here. I want
them to learn that the body holds truth that sometimes, most times, textbooks can’t teach.
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Thanks, Bianca!
Click here to learn more about Bianca’s upcoming class.
