PureVolume

Hailing from the economically depressed and hopelessness inclined Chicago suburb of Chicago Heights, IL, Luis Humberto Valadez emerged from this place with the driving desire to compassionately erupt his experience and perspective through poetry and performance on a public unaware of the psychological, physical, and emotional contortion of human development in this harsh environment and empathize with a population of those who, like himself, often thought it was impossible to identify with anything. This mission has seen him through numerous projects as vocalist and musician as well through earning a BA from Columbia College Chicago in 2004 and an MFA in Writing and Poetics from Naropa University in 2006. His performances have also garnered him the honor of sharing the stage with trailblazing performers like Anne Waldman, Thurston Moore, Saul Williams, Jello Biafra, folk-punk rockers Against Me, and rising instrumental group Strangers Die Everyday to crowds exceeding 1000.

Luis Humberto Valadez is the winner of the Lily Endowment and is a Hispanic Scholarship Fund Scholar. He has received the Academic Excellence Award from Columbia College Chicago as well as the Honors, Hiro Yamagata, and Ted Berrigan Scholarships from Naropa University. He has released two chapbooks of original work (Heid and Eye Part One: Eyes Likes it When Ya Die/Lord, Hear Our Prayer) on his own Cerda Press as well as a chapbook of translations from Spanish poet Federico Garca Lorcas Poet in New York. His work has been published in Bombay Gin 31, 26 Magazine, Columbia Poetry Review, Sliding Uteri, and is forthcoming from the University of Miamis Wet: A Journal of Proper Bathing. He has been an editor for Columbia College Chicagos Slipstream and Asphalt, an editorial assistant for Arielle Greenbergs Notes from Underground: Essays on American Youth Subculture (forthcoming from Allyn and Bacon), and, most recently, Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Anne Waldman and Allen Ginsberg founded journal Bombay Gin.

Not content with merely exploiting his disadvantaged socio-cultural background to academic success story, Luis Humberto Valadez challenges, breaks down, deforms, and deconstructs the mores of hood stories, life, and writing for the sake of greater understanding and enforcement of the painful connection that binds all living beings. As evidenced in his latest manuscript wat ahm on (see reviews), he strives to uncover obscured raw emotional strands that exist beyond the original intention of even our most heartfelt statements (see potato peeling).

Luis Humberto Valadez works, writes, performs, plays his bass guitar, and is working towards the next plateau his Lord God has sought fit for him to reach.

What some other folks have to say about the work of Luis H. Valadez:

Valadez's work is not simply fierce language poetics here is a writer the genuine article whose style is that of a truth speaking curandero, offering sacred cantos to anyone interested in illuminating that inner revolution called corazon. To read his work is to discover the future of American poetica!

-Tim Z. Hernandez, Author of Skin Tax, 2006 American Book Award

Strong--real light flashes.

-Amiri Baraka

Brave, raw, and exposing of a young mans consciousness. Luis's work is not confessional in the limited, put-it-in-a-box way that big publishers like to market their material to liberal guilt.

-Andrew Schelling Author of Tea Shack Interior: New & Selected Poetry, Winner Harold Morton Landon Translation Award

Valadez's impressions abruptly transport the reader from swaggering elucidation to raw pain. In a sometimes-resigned glance around for divinity, [he] triggers equally sudden heart-rippings, laughter, and cinematic naturescapes.

-Claire Nixon Journalist Creator, Transients Comics Series