Unmasking the New Mestiza : Reclaiming and Redefining Masculinity in Latiné/x Poetics

Ramirez, Jacob and Farley, Paul (2025) Unmasking the New Mestiza : Reclaiming and Redefining Masculinity in Latiné/x Poetics. PhD thesis, Lancaster University.

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Abstract

Unmasking the New Mestiza is a collection of reflective essays that examine the creative process behind Reverb, a poetry manuscript enmeshed with personal reflection and influences from 20th-century American female poets. The collection introduces New Mestiza Poetics in action to redefine Latinéx masculinity. These essays explore the role of Ellen Bass’s Controlled Chaos approach to poetics; Sylvia Plath’s world-making techniques in ekphrastic poetry; and Kehinde Wiley’s portraiture of Black and Brown bodies in his visual artworks. They also analyze Wanda Coleman’s and Terrance Hayes’s innovations in the American sonnet. Finally, they contextualize and critique the Texas-Mexican Décima’s legacy of heteronormative socialization and present the Américan Décima as a poetic response and original contribution to letters. The conclusion examines how Reverb employs New Mestiza Poetics as a counterforce to machismo stoicism.