Variations in Blue, Adela Najarro, 2025 Red Hen Press
Adela Najarro is a poet of Nicaraguan heritage living in Santa Cruz, California, who this week launches her fifth collection of poetry, Variations in Blue, which is published by Red Hen Press.
Adela serves on the board of directors of the Círculo de poetas and Writers and works with the Latinx community across the US, promoting the intersection of creative writing and social justice.
She holds a doctorate in literature and creative writing from Western Michigan University, as well as an MFA from Vermont College.
Recognition she has received includes the 2024 International Latino Book Awards giving an Honourable Mention to her collection Volcanic Interruptions in the Juan Felipe Herrera Best Poetry Book Award category, and the California Arts Council appointing her as an Individual Artist Fellow.
She is widely published in anthologies, literary magazines, reviews and journals, including the University of Arizona Press anthology The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry, Feminist Studies, Notre Dame Review and The Acentos Review.
Adela’s latest collection, Variations in Blue, considers among other themes the complexities of Latinx representation and reimagines Nicaragua as a homeland set in a volcanic landscape.
Odilia Galván Rodríguez coeditor of the award-winning anthology Poetry of Resistance Voices for Social Justice, wrote of the collection: “One right after another, the poems of Adela Najarro’s latest poetry collection, Variations in Blue, are like the startling rat-tat-tat of not-so-distant gunfire or a sudden backfire of a car racing down the street.”
We were lucky enough to catch up with Adela on publication day so that she could tell us about her life, work, and Variations in Blue.
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