Joshua Escobar's Bareback Nightfall is a daring collection that works as a performance art piece acted out on the page for the reader. These poems, set in alternating coasts, written in different voices and across strained dialogue, follow the relationship between DJ Ashtrae and Doctor Electronic. Two larger than life figures that live in the world of cognates and false cognates, a world in code-switch. In the tradition of Rodrigo Toscano's Collapsible Theatre Poetics, Escobar further captures the schizophrenic nature of existing in the liminal space where anything is acceptable from extreme ecstasy to abuses of power. Here is one of our most vital new voices in Latinx Avant-Garde literature.
Joshua Escobar performs as DJ Ashtrae + Little Piñata, and is the author of the chapbooks Califorkya Voltage (No, Dear/Small Anchor) and xxox fm (Doublecross Press). His first full-length collection Bareback Nightfall is launched in the summer of 2020 from Noemi Press and Letras Latinas, and was a finalist for the 2021 California Book Award. He has received fellowships from Shandaken: Storm King and CantoMundo. He is the Director of Creative Writing and Activities Coordinator for the RISE Program at Santa Barbara City College.
He writes about queerness, nightlife, and southern California's Inland Empire. Leila Ortiz calls his poetry "out of context and close to the heart."
Escobar was the Dean's Fellow in Writing at the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College. In addition to an M.F.A. from Bard College, Escobar holds a B.A. in English, B.A. in Urban Planning, and Master of Journalism degree from the University of California at Berkeley.
"Poetry's new pathbreaker has arrived! The innovations of Joshua Escobar surge forward in form and intellect while his celebratory queerness subverts the tedium of monotheistic dictates. These poems stay close long after reading, a book that deserves a cult following!" - CAConrad
"Joshua Escobar takes a post-modern jackhammer to deconstruct concrete poetry while injecting his brilliant assertions/allusions that bring explicit ideas to creative/intellectual/visceral critical mass. Bareback Nightfall is a blast to be experienced while reading face forward at 21st Century ground zero." - Harry Gamboa Jr.
"Joshua Escobar's Bareback Nightfall is a daring collection that works as a performance art piece acted out on the page for the reader. These poems, set in alternating coasts, written in different voices and across strained dialogue, follow the relationship between DJ Ashtrae and Doctor Electronic. Two larger than life figures that live in the world of cognates and false cognates, a world in code-switch. In the tradition of Rodrigo Toscano's Collapsible Theatre Poetics, Escobar further captures the schizophrenic nature of existing in the liminal space where anything is acceptable from extreme ecstasy to abuses of power. Here is one of our most vital new voices in Latinx Avant-Garde literature." - Natalie Scenters-Zapico
