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Announcing the 2026 Undocupoets Fellows

Undocupoets is delighted to welcome the 2026 Undocupoets Fellowship recipients Hermelinda Hernandez Monjaras, Joël Simeu Juegouo, and Valeria Pedraza.

In our 11th year as an organization we are humbled and awestruck at the talent, vision, and range of aesthetics we have encountered year after year of offering the Undocupoets Fellowship. With each new year, we encounter even more applications from both returning and new-to-us poets who challenge us to envision the possibilities of our art. Our voices are growing. So is the need to hear them.

About the 2026 Fellows

Hermelinda Hernandez Monjaras

Hermelinda Hernandez Monjaras was born in Oaxaca, Mexico, and identifies as both an indígena and an undocumented poet of Zapotecan descent. Her work explores immigration, identity—including her Zapotecan heritage and the challenges of being a DACA recipient—and trauma, using diverse artistic and visual elements. Hernandez Monjaras earned an MFA in Creative Writing from
California State University, Fresno.

Joël Simeu Juegouo

Joël Simeu Juegouo is a poet, musician, and griot from Cameroon. His writing is featured in HarperCollins' Here to Stay: Poetry and Prose from the Undocumented Diaspora. Joël has served as manager for Outpost Foundation’s writing residency program and assesses submissions for the program’s fellowship candidates. He also works towards amplifying the voices of transmasculine folks of color, as Production Assistant to Dem Bois, Inc. Simeu earned his M.A. in Literatures in English from Cornell University, where he teaches writing seminars. His doctoral dissertation contends with poetics of Black transmasculine cultural epistemology.

These days find him craving that which is tender and slow. Each day, he strives to become a menace to his enemies and prays for the liberation of all oppressed people. Each day he gives his gorgeous calico, all of his love. Today, and always, he invites you to stay rooted in your breath.

Fellowship Overview

The Undocupoets Fellowship annually grants three $500 fellowships, with no strings attached, to poets who are currently or who were formerly undocumented in the United States.

In partnership with the Fine Arts Work Center, each Undocupoets Fellowship includes a fully funded opportunity to attend the Summer Workshop Program in Provincetown, MA.

Applications will re-open in the Fall of 2026.

Former Undocupoets Fellows

blu

blu (she/they) is a self-taught writer born in Ayiti, where they lived for fifteen years before immigrating to the United States. Their work explores the sensuality of life, the politics of existence, and the textures of memory. They write to remember.

Leticia Priebe Rocha

Leticia Priebe Rocha is a poet, editor, and visual artist. Born in São Paulo, she immigrated to Miami, FL at the age of nine and currently resides in Greater Boston. Leticia is the author of the chapbook In Lieu of Heartbreak, This is Like (Bottlecap Press, 2024) and her poems appear in Here to Stay: Poetry and Prose from the Undocumented Diaspora, The Rumpus, Salamander, Rattle, and elsewhere. Her work has been supported by the Fine Arts Work Center, Undocupoets, and Mass Cultural Council. Leticia is also a teaching artist, bringing creative workshops to various community spaces. She really loves the moon. For more information, visit her website: leticiaprieberocha.com.

Charlotte Abotsi

Charlotte Abotsi is a poet raised in Providence, Rhode Island. As a spoken word poet, she has competed in several international poetry slams. Her work has been written about in HuffPost and Mic.com, and her poems can be read in Wax Nine journal. She has received fellowships from the Pink Door Writing Retreat, the Incubator for Community-Engaged Poets, Tin House, DreamYard’s Rad(ical) Poetry Consortium, AIR Serenbe, and Define American. She co-curated season two of the poetry-based web series Ours Poetica for the Poetry Foundation.

Mico Astrid

Mico Astrid is a Filipino/American multidisciplinary artist whose work explores diasporic identity, lived experience, and memory. As an immigrant who lived undocumented in the U.S. for twenty years, their practice centers the illumination of stark realities under oppressive states and ultimately works toward a greater collective understanding of injustices embedded in current systems. Mico was born in the Philippines, raised throughout California, and currently lives in Seattle, Washington: unceded Duwamish land. Their work can be found in the Quarterless Review, Opal Literary Magazine, and at micoastrid.com.

Georgio Russell

Georgio Russell is a Bahamian writer and an alumnus of the University of the West Indies, Jamaica, as well as the Obsidian Foundation. He is a past winner of the Peepal Tree Press Prize (2019), the Mervyn Morris Prize (2020), the Editors’ Prize for Magma Poetry (2023), and the Phyllis Smart-Young Prize in Poetry (2024). He was shortlisted for the Frontier OPEN Prize (2022 and 2023), the Oxford Poetry Prize (2023), and long-listed for the National Poetry Competition (2022) held by the Poetry Society. Russell was also a featured poet for the British Council’s project, Unwritten Poems: Exploring Caribbean Engagement in WWI. His work has been published in Yolk Literary Magazine, PREE magazine, Frontier Poetry, the London Magazine, Lolwe, Cordite, Magma, the Michigan Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. He currently lives in Brampton, Ontario, where he teaches English for Educate Academy. Some of his favorite poets include Derek Walcott, Lorna Goodison, Ocean Vuong, Kwame Dawes, and Roger Reeves.

Our Team

Our Mission

Undocupoets promotes the work of poets who are currently or formerly undocumented in the United States and raises consciousness about the structural barriers we face in the literary community. We believe in supporting all poets, regardless of immigration status.

Support

Undocupoets is hosted by Yuba Sutter Arts & Culture, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and has been supported by grants from the Amazon Literary Partnership/Academy of American Poets Poetry Fund, the Literary Arts Emergency Fund, and through private donations. To donate, please follow the link to contact our fiscal sponsor Yuba Sutter Arts & Culture and indicate your contribution for Undocupoets.

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