Bio: Angelica Maria

Angélica Maria is a Chicana writer & musician from Los Angeles, CA. She was a finalist of the National Poetry Slam 2017 amongst the top 400 competing poets within the U.S, Australia and Canada. She also ranked in the top 10 of women poets in the country in 2019 for the Women of the World Poetry Slam.

Her work focuses on telling stories that illuminate both the historic and present day power of femme latinas in literature & music. Her work has been featured on Button Poetry, Tedx, Facebook, and in 2021 she was hired to write the first Spanglish poem ever written for a national sports team, for The USL Women’s Soccer League’s National Campaign, in collaboration with Puma.

Angelica’s work has been published in renowned anthologies such as “The Breakbeat Poets: LatiNEXT 2020” on Haymarket Press, “The Latinx Poetry Project” on Alegria Publishing, & “Poem For Girls Becoming Themselves” on Workman Publishing. Angelica has presented her music & poetry at over 250 universities and venues across and outside the U.S, such as Harvard, Yale, The National Art Museum of Mexico City, and NCORE.

Her latest venture has been into music, where she is working with an 80 member, Mexican woman orchestra in Mexico City. The project mixes poetic lyrics with classic instruments to elevate Mexicana and Chicana voices in all areas of music & music production.

 

Programs & Workshops:

Say My Name

How do we say our names? or better yet, what do our names say about us?  Why is it so accepted for society to alter and muddle our names for convenience? What does this say about history, language and assimilation? In America there is a negative stigma attached to names rich with accents and rolled letters. They are in constant danger of being silenced, and butchered. In this workshop, writers learn to reclaim the power of their names by first looking at their origins and meanings. From here, writers begin to see their birth title not as a burden but a badge of honor.

The Power of Your Voice

This presentation highlights the necessity of using our voices in order to create a more just and loving world both on and off campus. As a poet, Angélica knows the power of using her voice, and has created a program to link the intersections of poetry and activism. This presentation encompasses the importance of bystander prevention, implicit bias, and how we can use our voice to stand up for those around us as well as tell our own stories. By telling our stories, we celebrate the diversity of our experiences and also create more space to understand different identities around us. By speaking up for others and ourselves, we can discover the power of our collective voices.

Speak Up & Speak Out | Take Back The Night 

In this program, poetry and storytelling are used to empower students to speak up and speak out against sexual assault. The main goal of this program is to uplift the voices of survivors and raise awareness about sexual violence.

In a world, where silence allows sexual assault to prevail, telling our own stories is an extremely powerful act. As students share their stories, and listen to other people share theirs, they are working to create a safer space for all of us to exist and better understand how to prevent this problem in the future.

A Pledge To the Body

People of color carry centuries of colonization, shame, and violence in our bodies. Latinas at an early age become hyper sexualized in society. We are either fetishized or shamed for our style of dress, our hair, or our hips. Women are accustomed to hating some part of ourselves, a terrifying 91% of us as a matter of fact. It is our job as women, to rewrite this narrative. Often we think of a pledge as a written allegiance to our country, however it is about time we began writing them to ourselves. In this workshop, writers identify a part of their bodies they have always been taught to hate and write a dedication to it. Through this process, writers can uproot shame and become patriots of their own skin.

Becoming The Artist Of Your Life

All of us have desires, dreams that pull us towards certain passions, ideas, places. However, we are taught that it’s illogical to follow these dreams if they do not instantly generate income.

As an internationally touring artist that came from a low income Mexican household in Los Angeles, Angelica Maria shares her truths and insights that allowed her to create the life of her dreams.

In this Artist of Life workshop, students will look profoundly at what their deepest passions are, and ask themselves the right questions to turn

these ideas into reality. As a Tedx presenter, Angelica has worked for Facebook, and been published in countless literary magazines and journals in her career. Amongst all these experiences, she has collected a repertoire of resources and strategies under her belt to help any creative manifest their passion into their living. As college is a difficult, confusing time for many, this workshop gives students concrete strategies and reflection prompts to turn what they truly love into their future, to truly become the artist of their own life.

The Divine Feminine Poetry Workshop

Feminine energy is connected with fertility, but again, doesn’t need to be reduced to human reproduction. Growth, whether it’s spiritual, physical, or emotional, celebrates a feminine energy in that we give life to something that was not there before. (Funny enough, many of the teachings we receive are that women ought to be chaste and pure, rather than abundant and fertile, a line of teaching that can be assigned specifically to a patriarchal belief system with the purpose of denying women and femininity of their power.)

In this workshop, attendees will explore & discover where their real power lies, using writing & spoken word as tools. Expression, and sharing is inherently feminine, the point of this workshop is to unveil, to re-connect & discover a power we all already possess.

Knowing once we leave, we can always tap back into this energy at any time.

Exploring the Magic of Chicana and Latinx Writers

Attendees will explore the magic and the historic influence of Chicana & Latinx women in literature. In this workshop, we will use prose from a wide range of Latinx & Chicana writers to inspire new work from our attendees.The themes of this workshop include inheritance, ancestral knowing, celebration and divinity.

I just wanted to let you know that Adios America was a wonderful program. Despite the inevitable challenges of facilitating a presentation via Zoom, Angelica and Melania "filled the room" with their expertise, talent, and energy. The students, faculty, and administrators were engaged and several of us did not want the program to end. Via the poetry performance and interactive workshop, Melania and Angelica managed to break down some complex realities related to microaggression, racialization, privilege, etc. to help us understand the importance of fostering an inclusive environment and advocating for those who are marginalized. The presentation was energizing and well-received." Br. George Camacho, O.F.M. Director - Damietta Cross-Cultural Center | Siena College

"I thought it went incredibly well. Melania and Angelica were very engaging and helped pull the participants into the workshop in impactful ways. Most if not all participants wrote a poem, and most even shared their poems thanks to Melania and Angelica’s coaching. It was a great performance and workshop that I believe went above and beyond our expectations. Thank you!" Tyler Adkins Coordinator – Student Programming & Activities (SPARE) Middle Tennessee State University