Leonora Simonovis is a Venezuelan American poet, educator, and scholar who lives in San Diego, CA, on the unceded territory of the Kumeyaay Nation. She teaches Latin American literature and creative writing in Spanish at the University of San Diego. Her poetry manuscript, Study of the Raft, was the winner of the 2021 Colorado Prize for Poetry and her work has appeared in Gargoyle, Kweli Journal, The American Journal of Poetry, Tinderbox poetry Journal, The Rumpus, Inverted Syntax, Arkansas International, and Diode Poetry Journal, among others. She is a Visiting Teaching Artist with The Poetry Foundation for the spring of 2022.

Books by Leonora Simonovis:

Other poems on the web by Leonora Simonovis:
"Mozart in the XXI Century"
"Fire"
"Father-Lengua"
Three poems
"A Man Held a Gun to My Stomach Once"
"I Misread a Sign"
"Anatomy of Jellyfish"

Leonora Simonovis's Website.

Leonora Simonovis on Twitter.

About Study of the Raft:

"Study of the Raft carries us from 'one collapsed world to another,' where 'el Norte means nowhere,' and 'to leave is to tune in to your own unraveling.' Here, Leonora Simonovis's perceptive poems build a bridge of return to ourselves, our families, our memories. The pathway provided is observant. Crossing languages that divide and exil—these are poignant poems of reemergence and transformation. A must read."
—Sherwin Bitsui

"I can't remember a debut collection so startling and fresh, so uncompromising and passionate. Leonora Simonovis's powerful, confident voice runs through each and every one of these poems like a lifeline in defiance of injustice and oppression. She writes about Venezuela, exile, and family with such rich detail and nuance that we are swept away into her struggle to maintain a precarious balance in all of her worlds. This book is a sharp reminder that the personal is also—and always—political. She is always tuned in to the heart, a heart we can believe in and trust."
—Jim Daniels

"In Leonora Simonovis's beautiful book, Study of the Raft, family history is mixed with feminist history, and what it means to be a citizen. The death of Abuela's child intersects with what it means to be a woman, dodging 'the bullets of others' desire,' and the speaker's sense of alienation in her own country. All of these tensions accumulate into an important geometry of American life. Simonovis's poems are plainspoken and powerful, gentle and fierce. An impressive debut, these poems are a gift to contemporary American poetry."
—Victoria Chang