Ruben Quesada, PhD, MFA, is a poet, editor, and critic.
Quesada's translations of Luis Cernuda's poems from Desolación de la Quimera and Las Nubes appeared in Exiled from the Throne of Night (Tupelo Press, 2008), a limited-edition print collection. His earlier collections include Next Extinct Mammal (Greenhouse Review Press, 2011) and the chapbooks Revelations (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2018) and Jane/La Segua (The Offending Adam, 2023).
Quesada edited Latinx Poetics: Essays on the Art of Poetry (University of New Mexico Press, 2022), an anthology of more than two dozen original essays on poetry by living poets of Latin American heritage. The anthology received the 2023 Gold Medal IPPY Award for Anthologies from the Independent Publisher Book Awards.
His recent poetry collection, Brutal Companion (Barrow Street Press, 2024), received the Barrow Street Editors Prize. The collection was named a Notable Book of 2024 by the University of California and, in 2025, was named a best new poetry collection by the Chicago Reader.
Quesada's writing and research have been supported by fellowships and grants from the Community of Writers, CantoMundo, Vermont Studio Center, the American Literary Translators Association, the Lambda Literary Foundation, the Jentel Foundation, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Santa Fe Art Institute, the City of Chicago, and the Illinois Arts Council in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts. His poetry is widely published and anthologized. Read more of his writing.
