Words break out of books, 
sneak through the stacks, 

step outside, slant, curve, fall, 
cross against the light, and go 

downtown. When the sun sets, 
words follow neon, 

find a bar ablaze, 
cruise until they hook up 

phrases and lines that swirl 
syllables like skirts, and show 

legs that dance poems. 

 

—After this Frontexto by Octavio Quintanilla:

 

Ven. Quando? Quando caiga la tarde. (mixed media, 2023),
Frontexto 123-23; 51, Geometric F(r)actures series

Copyrighted © 2023 by Octavio Quintanilla. All rights reserved.
Appears here with artist’s permission.

Octavio Quintanilla

is the author of three poetry collections: If I Go Missing (Slough Press, 2014); The Book of Wounded Sparrows (Texas Review Press, 2024), long-listed for the National Book Award, Finalist for Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, and Winner of Texas Institute of Letters’ Burdine C. Johnson Award for Best Book of Poetry; and Las Horas Imposibles / The Impossible Hours (University of Arizona Press, 2025), co-translated with Natalia Treviño, and the winner of the 2024 Ambroggio Prize.

Quintanilla is founder and director of the literature and arts festival VersoFrontera; founder of Alabrava Press; Poet Laureate for the state of Texas in 2025; Poet Laureate of San Antonio, Texas (2018-2020); South Texas regional editor for Texas Books in Review; and poetry co-editor of The Journal of Latina Critical Feminism. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of North Texas and teaches Literature and Creative Writing in the M.A./MFA program at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio.

His poetry, fiction, translations, and photography have appeared, or are forthcoming, in journals such as Alaska Quarterly Review; Existere: A Journal of Art & Literature; Green Mountains Review; Pilgrimage; RHINO; Salamander; Southwestern American Literature; The Texas Observer; and elsewhere.

Quintanilla’s Frontextos (visual poems) have been published in About Place Journal; Chachalaca Review; Chair Poetry Evenings; Gold Wake Live; the Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas; Newfound; Poetry Northwest; Red Wedge; Tapestry; The American Journal of Poetry; The Museum of Americana; The Windward Review; and Twisted Vine Literary Arts Journal.

His visual artworks have been exhibited in a number of spaces, including Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center/Black Box Theater (Austin), El Centro Cultural Hispano de San Marcos, Our Lady of the Lake University, Presa House Gallery, Aanna Reyes Gallery (San Antonio), Southwest School of Art, The Weslaco Museum, The Walkers’ Gallery (San Marcos), and UTRGV-Brownsville (University of Texas Rio Grande Valley).

Artist’s website: https://www.octavioquintanilla.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/writeroctavioquintanilla/

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Night’s Edge / La orilla de la noche in Poets.org (reprinted from Quintanilla’s book Las Horas Imposibles / The Impossible Hours, co-translated by Natalie Treviño)

⚡ January Poetry Curator Octavio Quintanilla: Procrastination is Part of the Process of Creativity, In the Green Room: Zócala Public Square (6 January 2023)

⚡ Three Poems by Octavio Quintanilla (“Sonnet for Human Smugglers”; “Love Song With Exiles”; and “Matanza del Marrano”) in Poem of the Week (28 February 2023)

⚡ FRONTEXTOS: Text/Image/Resistance—Mixed Media by Octavio Quintanilla (Numbers 259, 290, 289, 243, 248, and 268), in The Museum of Americana (Issue 16, Fall 2018)

 

Gary S. Rosin’s

work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Chaos Dive Reunion (Mutabilis Press, 2023); contemporary haibun 17 (Red Moon Press, 2022); Concho River Review; The Ekphrastic Review; Friendswood Ekphrastic Poetry Anthology (The Friendswood Public Library); MacQueen’s Quinterly; Notes of Light and Dark: Southwestern Nocturnes and Aubades (Dos Gatos Press, 2025); Sulphur River Literary Review; Texas Poetry Calendar; Verse-Virtual; and Visions International.

Two of his ekphrastic poems appear in Silent Waters, photographs by George Digalakis (Athens, 2017). Rosin is the author of two chapbooks, Standing Inside the Web (Bear House Publishing, 1990) and Fire and Shadows (Legal Studies Forum, 2008). He is a Contributing Editor of MacQueen’s Quinterly, and his work has been nominated for Pushcart Prizes and the Best of the Net Anthology.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Three Poems by Gary S. Rosin in Verse-Virtual (June 2026): “Electric Dreams”; “Short Pants”; and “Rush-hour Fugue”

⚡ Icelandic Reflections by Rosin in The Ekphrastic Review (4 August 2024)

⚡ What Simon Never Said in Verse-Virtual (July 2024)

⚡ Four Poems After Photographs by Gary S. Rosin in The Ekphrastic Review (4 June 2023)

⚡ Three Poems by Rosin (published March–May 2023) in dadakuku, experimental poetry of lilliputian length

⚡ Black Dogs, poem by Rosin in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 12, March 2022); nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

See also Two Readings: “Apparition” and “Black Dogs” by Rosin for Texas Poetry Calendar 2015 at the Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston, Texas (20 September 2014).

⚡ Out of the Haze, collaborative haiga with photograph by George Digalakis and poem by Gary S. Rosin in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 8, June 2021); nominated for, and selected for publication in, Contemporary Haibun 17 (Red Moon Press, 2022)

⚡ Crossing Kansas in The Wild Word (7 February 2020); includes audio of Rosin reading his poem