A Conversation with Emma Trelles
From Miami’s neon car culture to Santa Barbara’s mountain dreams, Poet Laureate Emma Trelles explores the “bones-deep” honesty of her work, Courage and the Clock. Discover her transition from journalist to literary activist, the strategic necessity of paying artists, and her powerful rejection of perfectionism in this oral history interview.
Experience the Episode
Presented by Institute for Latino Studies
From Miami’s neon car culture to Santa Barbara’s mountain dreams, Poet Laureate Emma Trelles explores the “bones-deep” honesty of her work, Courage and the Clock. Discover her transition from journalist to literary activist, the strategic necessity of paying artists, and her powerful rejection of perfectionism in this oral history interview, conducted by Letras Latinas associate and writer Cloud Cardona.
Will you be on campus in October 2026? Join Emma Trelles and fellow poet Alexandra Lytton Regalado for Now You See It: Ekphrastic Poetry Workshop at the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art on Saturday, October 3, 2026 from 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. In this creative writing workshop, you’ll practice looking and writing more deeply through the lens of color in abstract and figurative works. For more information and to register for the workshop, please visit the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art website.
The poets will also be utilizing their joint poets-in-residency sponsored by the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art and Letras Latinas to conduct research in the Museum’s galleries in order to create new ekphrastic poetry. Join us for Poets & Art with Emma Trelles and Alexandra Lytton Regalado, a public talk and live poetry reading engaging works of art from the Museum’s permanent collection, on Tuesday, March 23, 2027 at 5:30 p.m. Special guest Richard Blanco, U.S. inaugural poet for President Barack Obama, will provide the introduction. Poets & Art is a partner program of the 2027 Notre Dame Arts Biennial and is supported with funding from the Notre Dame Arts Initiative, as well as funding from Letras Latinas, the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art, and the James R. Wilson Fund for Excellence.
For more information on Letras Latinas at the Institute for Latino Studies, please visit the Letras Latinas website.
MoreMeet the Poet: Emma Trelles
Emma Trelles is the daughter of Cuban immigrants and author of Tropicalia (University of Notre Dame Press), winner of the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize. Her current manuscript Courage and the Clock was a finalist for the 2026 Louise Bogan Award for poetry and shortlisted for the 2025 Donald Hall Prize. She is the ninth Poet Laureate of Santa Barbara, California, and the recipient of an Established Artist Fellowship from the California Arts Council and a Poet Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets. A graduate CantoMundo Fellow, her translations were longlisted in the Best Literary Translations 2027 anthology, and her work recently appears in Poetry International; New England Review; Poetry; and the Academy’s Poem-A-Day series. She is series editor of the Alta California Chapbook Prize, open to Latine poets in the U.S. and published in bilingual editions by Gunpowder Press. emmatrelles.com
Meet the Moderator: Cloud Cardona
Cloud Delfina Cardona (she/they) is an artist, writer, and book cover designer from San Antonio, Texas. She is the author of What Remains, winner of the Host Publications Chapbook Prize, and the past is a jean jacket, winner of the Naomi Shihab Nye First Book of Poetry Prize from the Texas Institute of Letters. She is the co-founder of Infrarrealista Review, a literary nonprofit that publishes Texan voices. Their poetry can be found in The Offing, Prairie Schooner, The Boiler, The Los Angeles Review, and more. Her work has been supported by the Macondo Writers Workshop, Tin House, and Latinx in Publishing. She currently works as an associate for Letras Latinas and moonlights as DJ Mexistentialism.
Cardona co-founded Chifladazine, a zine that highlights creative work by Latinas and Latinxs, in 2013 alongside Laura Valdez. In Fall 2019, she co-founded Infrarrealista Review, a literary journal for Texan writers, with Juania Suenos. Cardona is the Co-Editor in Chief, graphic designer, event coordinator, and social media manager.
Her art is inspired by the colors of San Antonio’s West Side, 60s and 70s illustrations, Risograph prints, and hand-painted signs. When she is not writing or drawing, she is checking out blu-rays from the San Antonio Public Library.