Introducing LAR Latinx Digital Poetics: Resistance Through Joy

“Tomorrow belongs to those of us who conceive of it as belonging to everyone, who lend the best of ourselves to it, and with joy.” — Audre Lorde, “A Burst of Light”

“Joy is an act of resistance.” — Toi Derricotte, “The Telly Cycle”

In the two years since The Los Angeles Review (LAR) published the first “LAR Latinx Digital Poetics: An Electronic Literature Folio,” something has deeply shifted. Today, in 2025, the Latinx community in the U.S. is experiencing fear and uncertainty that threatens to tear down what our communities have built together. (Un)expectedly, I have found that many have grown stronger in these times—not because of that fear and uncertainty, but despite it. Poetry encourages this growth; it unravels, heals, and puts together again. It swallows fear and uncertainty and spits out something new, different, and so resilient it cannot be taken away: joy. Joy resists. 

Electronic Literature (E-Lit) finds itself in a unique position. To create E-Lit is to experiment; to experiment is to play; thus, to play—inherently—is to foster joy. Digital poetry specifically has an ability to engage readers in a distinctive dimension that opens the reader/viewer/player to new perspectives and possibilities—in craft and of futurity—that help deepen the positive impact we can have on our communities now.

With support from Brent Ameneyro, Poetry Editor at The Los Angeles Review, and Letras Latinas, the literary initiative at the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies, I sought to curate a folio with a new theme: “Resistance Through Joy.” I knew from the start that I wanted to invite a mix of E-Lit artists and poets of varying experience with digital poetry. In the end, four accepted the invitation to create video poems and interactive pieces that engage with joy as resistance.

Joshua Escobar’s video poem, “Love Letter,” imagines a world where in L.A., kids “can specialize in / Beyonce or banda,” “undocumented peoples / are interviewed on the / red carpet,” and “gentrifiers in Boyle / Heights are detained / for disturbing the peace.” Alex Rivera’s interactive piece, “Instructions on Growing,” builds new worlds with each new branch, promising, “Through these words, I will / take root in this earth and discover my sunshine.” Eloisa Amezcua’s video poem, from The God Poems, turns inwards to imagine new worlds and possibilities: “If I know what it means to be bound,” she posits, “perhaps I can echo, rebound, resound myself into something new, into a new self.” Alex Saum-Pascual’s interactive piece, “Resistance to,” imagines a world where second—and third, and fourth, and fifth…—chances are possible, where redos are expected and encouraged. “There must be some resistance in that,” the piece contends, “a loop is a second chance.”

To center joy in the face of oppression has become a radical act. It’s more important than ever to experiment, to play, and engage in radical resistance and creative liberation—to see joy as a means of resistance and in turn, make room for hope to grow.

                                                                                                                         — Camilo Loaiza Bonilla

Camilo Loaiza Bonilla (he/him/él) is a Latine writer working to unwind generational silence as a queer, trans, first-generation immigrant. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of South Florida and, with support from Macondo Writer’s Workshop, Tin House, Graywolf Press, and Black Lawrence Press, his work is in or forthcoming from Tupelo Quarterly, Frontier Poetry, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and elsewhere. Exploring the intersection of poetry and visual art, he is the 2025-2026 Eleanor Merritt Fellow at The John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art and the inaugural Poet-in-Residence at Hillsborough Community College’s Art Galleries.

15 September 2025