Dan Vera

Dan Vera, an American poet of Cuban descent, was born in southern Texas. He is the author of Speaking Wiri Wiri (2013), which poet Orlando Ricardo Menes chose for the inaugural Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize, and The Space Between Our Danger and Delight (2008). In his compassionate, humorous poems, Vera explores the shifting nature of identity. In a review of Speaking Wiri Wiri for Lambda Literary, Charlie Bondhus observed, “so much of Vera’s work is about a simultaneous ‘splitness’ and ‘togetherness’—between Cuba and the United States; between English and Spanish; between revering history and lamenting its fallout.” Vera himself has said of his work, “I love discovering these layers of meaning that serve as a trap-door for anyone trying to be rigid about identity: our own and others.”
 
Vera cofounded VRZHU Press, is the publisher of Souvenir Spoon Press, and serves as managing editor of the journal White Crane. With poet Kim Roberts, Vera curates DC Writers' Homes. He has served on the boards of Split This Rock and Rainbow History Project. He lives in Washington, DC.