Ana M. Fores Tamayo

Being an academic not paid enough for her trouble, Ana M. Fores Tamayo wanted instead to do something that mattered: work with asylum seekers. She advocates for marginalized refugee families from Mexico and Central America. Working with asylum seekers is heart-wrenching, yet satisfying. It is also quite humbling, she states. Her labor has eased her own sense of displacement, being a child refugee, always trying to find a home. In parallel, poetry is her escape. She has published in The Laurel Review, Indolent Books, Shenandoah, and many other anthologies and journals, both in the US and internationally, online and in print. Her poetry in translation with its accompanying photography has been exhibited in art fairs and galleries as well. Most recently, her manuscript "Peregrina," only in Spanish, will be published by the Spanish Valparaiso Press this summer 2022. She hopes you like her art; it is a catharsis from the cruelty yet ecstasy of her work. Through it, she keeps tilting at windmills.