Biography
Jesús I. Valles (they/them) is a queer Mexican immigrant writer-performer from Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua/El Paso, Texas. They often write poems, essays, and plays about immigration, sex, citizenship, desire, mourning, friendship, food, fat, and Mexicans. Lately, they don’t write much at all. Their poems have been featured in the anthologies Here to Stay, Somewhere We Are Human, and The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext, as well as New Republic, Tin House, [PANK], Adroit Journal, the Slowdown podcast, and Code Switch.
As a poet, Valles received fellowships from Community of Writers, Idyllwild Arts, Lambda Literary, Tin House, and Undocupoets. Valles is the winner of a 2023 Princess Grace Award in Theater, the 2023 Yale Drama Series (Bathhouse.pptx), and the 2022 Kernodle Playwriting Prize (a river, its mouths). Here, Valles wishes to echo Rasha Abdulhadi’s call to “you, dear reader, to refuse and resist the genocide of Palestinian people. Wherever you are, whatever sand you can throw on the gears of genocide, do it now. The elimination of the Palestinian people is not inevitable. We can refuse with our every breath and action. We must.” In solidarity with the people of Palestine, of Congo, of Sudan, of Cuba, with every political prisoner here and everywhere empire threatens life, with every student movement rebelling against their state everywhere.
