Prayer Holding Night: New & Selected Works

Prayer Holding Night: New and Selected Works is Lupe Mendez’s latest entry into the poetry expanse and continues TCU Press’ series of collections by the Poet Laureate of Texas.

The poems in this collection span a 20 year writing career (2005 - 2025) in which Mendez has worked to speak on issues and everyday experiences. The poems here cover his view on travel and art, historical events and disasters and even a response to Texas politics with a series of never before seen blackout poems. Mendez began his career as a performance poet, cutting his teeth on stages near and far across the Texas landscape and these poems capture all the moments with care and understanding.

Mendez has over 20 years of experience as a performance poet - having opened up for notable writers as Dagoberto Gilb, Esmeralda Santiago, U.S. Poet Laureates, Juan Felipe Herrera and Ada Limon and legendary writers such as the late Raul Salinas. He has shared his poetry across the country in places like the Holocaust Museum Houston, the Jung Center, MECA (Houston, TX), the Mission Cultural Center For Latino Arts (San Francisco, CA), the National Hispanic Cultural Center (Albuquerque, NM) the Mexican American Cultural Center (Austin, TX), and Columbia University, (New York, NY). Mendez continues to serve writers and educators as keynote speaker/poetry performer all across Texas and beyond, most recently hosting writing opportunities with the Poetry Foundation (Chicago, IL) as it hosts its Teacher Poetry Summit which services K- College teachers from across the US.