Goshen College students can look forward to hearing spoken word poet Carlos Andrés Gomez this Friday at 8 p.m. in Newcomer 19. This event is the first put on by Campus Activities Council in March.
A Colombian speaker, actor and writer from New York City, Gomez has authored several books, such as “Hijito,” the winner of the 2018 Broken River Prize, and his memoir “Man Up: Reimagining Modern Manhood,” published by Penguin Random House.
“Man Up,” inspired by Gomez’s one-man play, is a coming-of-age memoir and seeks to reverse the ominous trends Gomez has witnessed in masculinity through lessons that he has learned.
Gomez has been featured on a wide range of media outlets and platforms, including NPR, TEDx, NBC News, The New York Times, People en Español, Forbes, BuzzFeed, VIBE magazine, BET, Elle magazine and many others.
Campus Activities Magazine named Gomez the 2016 Best Diversity Artist, and he was penned Artist of the Year at the 2009 Promoting Outstanding Writers Awards.
His viral poems, “Where are you really from?” and “What Latino Looks Like,” have garnered millions of views online.
In “Where are your really from?” a man insists that Gomez reveal his heritage; Gomez hopes anyone who has been asked this question can relate to the words he speaks.
“The question ‘Where are you from?’ in our current America is a slur disguised as a question mark,” he says in the poem.
He goes on to explain why these microaggressions are demeaning and problematic.
“As I say in the poem, those microaggressive interrogatives are statements, in fact epithets, not questions,” he told the Huffington Post. “I hope this poem inspires someone to interrogate and recognize, for the first time, how implicit bias is enacted through language. We need everyone right now to stand up and resist in whatever way possible.”
He has won numerous awards: the 2018 Atlanta Review International Poetry Prize, 2019 Sandy Crimmins National Prize for Poetry, 2018 Sequestrum Editor’s Award in Poetry, 2018 Lazuli Literary Award and the 2015 Lucille Clifton Poetry Prize and has shared the stage with many iconic artists such as John Legend, Carole King, Gloria Steinem and Amiri Baraka.
Gomez has visited has visited campuses and festivals around the world—reaching 25 countries across five continents, as well as 45 U.S. states. He has performed at more than 500 colleges.
After an event at the University of Tennessee, Elizabeth Stanfield, co-chair of Sexual Empowerment and Awareness at Tennessee said, “every student who came was extremely impressed with Carlos…I had seniors coming up to me telling me that Carlos was the best speaker they had seen in four years.”
