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Juan Valdez (or Why is a white guy like you named “Carlos”?)

By Carlos Andrés Gómez
Added: Tuesday, June 16, 2015  /  Carlos Andrés Gómez performs the poem " 'Juan Valdez' (or 'Why is a white guy like you named 'Carlos'?')" at the 2012 Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation and Witness which took place at Carlos Rosario Public Charter School from March 22-25, 2012 in Washington D. C.
Carlos Andrés Gómez
Photo by Friends & Lovers Photography

Carlos Andrés Gómez is a Colombian American poet from New York City. His debut full-length poetry collection Fractures was selected by former U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey as the winner of the 2020 Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry. Carlos collaborated with John Legend on Senior Orientation, a program to counteract bullying and champion inclusive masculinity among high school students.

Winner of the Foreword INDIES Gold Medal in Poetry and the International Book Award for Poetry, Gómez has been published in New England Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Yale Review, BuzzFeed Reader, CHORUS: A Literary Mixtape (Simon & Schuster, 2012), and elsewhere. Carlos is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. For more, please visit the poet's website.

Other poems by this author