THE ANTIDOTE IS POETRY. COME TO POETRY.
Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center is pleased to present Second Tuesday Poetry featuring members of Sacramento-based writing group Escritores del Nuevo Sol/Writers of the New Sun: Zheyla Henriksen, Paul Aponte, Janet Rodriguez, JoAnn Anglin, Marco Contreras, and Lorena Rodriguez.
Date: Tuesday, April 14, 2026
Time: 7:00 pm PST
Where: Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg Ave, in the Roseburg Square shopping center
Open mic following featured poets (3 min per poet); sign up at the event. Hosted by Gillian Wegener.
Zheyla Henriksen is an Ecuadorian poet, researcher, artist, and retired college & university teacher including at UC Davis where she received her PHD in Latin American and Spanish Literature. She has been awarded several times including in 2004 when she received La Medalla de Oro al Merito Cultural in Cuenca Ecuador. Zheyla was included in the Who’s Who of Distinguished Professionals, and in History & Anthology of Ecuadorian Literature (2023).
Paul Aponte is a Chicano Poet,co-coordinator of Escritores Del Nuevo Sol / Writers of the New Sun, and member of Círculo De Poetas & Writers. He has been published in the Tecolote Press anthology Poetry In Flight, Tule Review 2024, in the anthology Soñadores – We Came To Dream, in the Los Angeles Review Volume 20 – Fall 2016, and in Cold River Press Voices 2022-2025. His colorful book of poetry DEL CACTUS is available through Prickly Pear Press and other sources.
Janet Rodriguez is an author, teacher, editor, and the author of Making an American Family: A Recipe in Five Generations (Prickly Pear Publishing, 2022), a family memoir. Her short story, “The Key in the Tignanello Bag” was recently published in the regional anthology, Sacramento Noir, edited by John Freeman. Her work has also been featured in Hobart, Pangyrus, Eclectica, The Rumpus, Cloud Women’s Quarterly, American River Review, and Calaveras Station. Her short stories, essays, and poetry usually deal with themes involving morality in faith communities and the mixed-race experience in a culturally binary world.
JoAnn Anglin is a leading member of Escritores Del Nuevo Sol and has been a teaching poet in the schools, including at Shriners Children’s Hospital, and at New Folsom Prison. Her chapbooks include Words Like Knives, Like Feathers and Heat, and her poems have been published in Tule Review, Sable & Quill, Sacramento Voices, Rattlesnake Review, The Pagan Muse, 100 Poems about Sacramento, Acorn, and Cosumnes River Journal. In 2012, JoAnn received an Arts Program Award from the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors and the Sacramento City Council and in 2024 she was honored by the California Senate for her contributions as a poet and leader to the community.
Marco Contreras is from Stockton and currently resides in Sacramento. He has been published in UCLA’s Daily Bruin and La Gente De Aztlan magazine. He also has contributions in several anthologies, including his latest about his trip to the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas.
Lorena Rodriguez has roots in the Andes, born and raised in a land where the cultivation of potatoes and corn is a way of life. A multidisciplinary artist, Lorena uses performance and theater as a tool for activism, community building, and healing. She is a writer, performer, fermenter, dancer, and textile artist, and through her work, she shares practical actions for health and well-being while inspiring the reimagining of systems that address collective needs and foster healing.
HISTORY OF LOS ESCRITORES DEL NUEVO SOL
Los Escritores del Nuevo Sol emerged from a literary program of La Raza Galería Posada (LRGP), the Sacramento Chicano/Native American arts center founded in 1972. Our roots can be followed to an initial poetry event organized by the Royal Chicano Air Force and other groups. That event in 1978 was called “One More Canto”. It was held at the Reno Club, a downtown neighborhood bar and dance club. This idea of poetry for the community grew and future poetry, song and performance art events continued. LRGP took sponsorship of the Canto Series well into the 1980’s and 1990’s with those events occurring at La Raza Galería Posada, Luna’s Café, the Benny Barrios Studio and the Odd Fellows Hall.
In the 1990’s LRGP board members Arturo Mantecón and Francisco X. Alarcón organized a Floricanto series featuring Latino poets. Seeing favorable community interest, they started a writers’ workshop, Taller Literario. The Taller philosophy was to foster, preserve, and present the best of Chicano/Latino and native American writing. The first meetings attracted about a dozen local writers. Alarcón and Mantecón drew on their experience in publishing and working with writing groups to guide this group to be given recognition and to be established in October of 1993.
The Taller became an essential part of La Raza Galería Posada readings and became connected with other significant cultural events – Day of the Dead, Cinco de Mayo, exhibition openings, etc.In time, events were added such as the Valentine’s Day and the all-Spanish readings.
Eventually the group adopted a new name suggested by Graciela Brauer Ramírez: Escritores del Nuevo Sol / Writers of the New Sun. This recognized the 2012 coming of El Sexto Sol, the dawning of a new world consciousness based on the Mesoamerican worldview.
As the years passed, Los Escritores became a known part of the Sacramento literary community. In 2002, José Montoya, a member of Los Escritores, was appointed Sacramento’s Poet Laureate. Los Escritores participated in his activities resulting in more visibility. In 2020’s, two additional members were named Poet Laureate – Lara Gularte (El Dorado County) and Nancy González St. Clair (Lodi, CA) also contributing to more recognition and visibility for Escritores del Nuevo Sol.
With the publication of our 2004 anthology, Voices of the new Sun, Poems and Stories / Voces del Nuevo Sol, Cantos y Cuentos, the group’s written work took tangible form. The 25th Anniversary anthology was published in 2017, and in 2025 the anthology Then and Now came to cheer the past and present.
While the circle has grown, it also acknowledges the loss of loved ones who were a part of its start: Phil Goldvarg, José Montoya, Helen and Esteban Villa, Luz María Gama, Max Schwartz, Sam Ríos, Jean y Winn Starr, and Escritores co-founder Francisco X. Alarcón. We remember them well.
