Ruben Quesada is a poet and critic. Brutal Companion (2024) received the Barrow St Prize & was named A Notable Book by the University of California. Latinx Poetics: Essays on the Art of Poetry (2022) received the Gold Medal for Best Anthology by the Independent Publisher Book Awards.
In 2025, the Goodman Theater commissioned an original poem from him for the premiere of Jordan Harrison's The Antiquities. Ruben’s recent collection of poetry Brutal Companion (2024) received the Barrow Street Editors Prize and was recognized as A Notable Book of 2024 by the University of California. He edited Latinx Poetics: Essays on the Art of Poetry (2022), winner of the 2023 Independent Publisher Book Award for Best Anthology, which includes more than two dozen originals essays by contemporary poets of Latin American heritage. His poetry translations of Luis Cernuda’s Desolación de la Quimera and Las Nubes were published in Exiled from the Throne of Night (2008), a limited-edition print.
Ruben’s poetry is published and anthologized in The Book of Jobs: Poems About Work (2025), Essential Queer Voices of U.S. Poetry (2024), What Things Cost (2023), Where I’m At Chicago Poetry (2022), Best American Poetry (2018), Bear Flag Republic (2008), American Poetry Review, The Believer, Orion, New York Times Magazine, Seneca Review, Hopkins Review, Ploughshares, Southern Humanities Review, Academy of American Poets, and more. His writing is supported by fellowships and grants from the Santa Fe Art Institute, Community of Writers, CantoMundo, Vermont Studio Center, American Literary Translators Association, Lambda Literary Foundation, Jentel Foundation, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the City of Chicago, and the Illinois Arts Council with the National Endowment for the Arts.
