Mother, the lines 
speak with your tongues, 
but not your voice, 

doppler near and far, 
but never echo. 

This clash of colors. 

Lines shout and divide 
the fields of my youth, 

carry banners, 
wave flags as they sing 
marching songs, 

urge me to follow, 
to fall into line, 

to fight the Other. 

—After this painting by Octavio Quintanilla:

Mother, The Line (acrylic on canvas, 2024), Frontexto 241-24;
91, River The Line series. Copyrighted © 2024 by Octavio Quintanilla.
All rights reserved. Appears here with artist’s permission.

Octavio Quintanilla

is the author of three poetry collections: Las Horas Imposibles / The Impossible Hours (University of Arizona Press, 2025), co-translated with Natalia Treviño and the winner of the 2024 Ambroggio Prize; The Book of Wounded Sparrows (Texas Review Press, 2024), long-listed for the National Book Award; and If I Go Missing (Slough Press, 2014). He is founder and director of the literature and arts festival VersoFrontera, founder of Alabrava Press, and former Poet Laureate of San Antonio, Texas (2018-2020). He holds a Ph.D. from the University of North Texas and teaches Literature and Creative Writing at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio.

His poetry, fiction, translations, and photography have appeared, or are forthcoming, in journals such as Alaska Quarterly Review; Existere: A Journal of Art & Literature; Green Mountains Review; Pilgrimage; RHINO; Salamander; Southwestern American Literature; The Texas Observer; and elsewhere.

Quintanilla’s Frontextos (visual poems) have been published in About Place Journal; Chachalaca Review; Chair Poetry Evenings; Gold Wake Live; the Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas; Newfound; Poetry Northwest; Red Wedge; Tapestry; The American Journal of Poetry; The Museum of Americana; The Windward Review; and Twisted Vine Literary Arts Journal.

His visual artworks have been exhibited in a number of spaces, including Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center/Black Box Theater (Austin), El Centro Cultural Hispano de San Marcos, Our Lady of the Lake University, Presa House Gallery, Aanna Reyes Gallery (San Antonio), Southwest School of Art, The Weslaco Museum, The Walkers’ Gallery (San Marcos), and UTRGV-Brownsville (University of Texas Rio Grande Valley).

Artist’s website: https://www.octavioquintanilla.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/writeroctavioquintanilla/

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Night’s Edge / La orilla de la noche in Poets.org (reprinted from Quintanilla’s book Las Horas Imposibles / The Impossible Hours, co-translated by Natalie Treviño)

⚡ January Poetry Curator Octavio Quintanilla: Procrastination is Part of the Process of Creativity, In the Green Room: Zócala Public Square (6 January 2023)

⚡ Three Poems by Octavio Quintanilla (“Sonnet for Human Smugglers”; “Love Song With Exiles”; and “Matanza del Marrano”) in Poem of the Week (28 February 2023)

⚡ FRONTEXTOS: Text/Image/Resistance—Mixed Media by Octavio Quintanilla (Numbers 259, 290, 289, 243, 248, and 268), in The Museum of Americana (Issue 16, Fall 2018)

Bio: Gary S. Rosin