Matt Sedillo
Matt Sedillo has been described as the "best political poet in America" by investigative reporter Greg Palast as well as "the poet laureate of the struggle" by historian Paul Ortiz. His work has drawn comparisons in print to Bertolt Brecht, Roque Dalton, Amiri Baraka, Allen Ginsberg, Carl Sandburg, and various other legends of the past. Sedillo was the recipient of the 2017 Joe Hill Labor Poetry award, a panelist at the 2020 Texas book festival, a participant in the 2012 San Francisco International Poetry Festival, the 2022 Elba Poetry Festival, the 2023 Guadalajara Book Fair, 2024 Medellin Poetry Festival, the 2025 Hurlingham Poetry Festival, the 2025 Ghazipur Literary Festival, the 2025 Guadalajara Book Fair and the recipient of the 2022 Dante's Laurel. Sedillo has appeared on CSPAN and has been featured in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Axios, among many other media outlets and publications. Sedillo has spoken at Casa de las Americas in Havana, Cuba, the National Library of Chile in Santiago Chile, Estadio Nacional in Santiago, Chile, at numerous conferences and forums such as the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, the National Conference on Race & Ethnicity in American Higher Education, the National Association of Chicana/Chicano Studies, the Left Forum, the US Social Forum, and at over a hundred universities and colleges, including UNAM, the University of Cambridge, UC Berkeley, Stanford, the University of Napoli among many others.
Matt Sedillo is the author of Mowing Leaves of Grass (FlowerSong Press, 2019) and City on the Second Floor (FlowerSong Press, 2022) and Mexican Style (FlowerSong Press 2025). All of which are taught at universities throughout the US. Sedillo is the current literary director of The Mexican Cultural Institute of Los Angeles, the National Coordinator for the World Poetry Movement US, and host of Radio La Raza on KPFK.
"Matt Sedillo's poetic work is full of history, struggle, tragedy, anger, joy, despair, possibility and faith in the struggles of working class people to overcome the forces of capitalism and racism. If Patrice Lumumba, Rosa Luxembourg, Emiliano Zapata and Ella Baker were alive today, they would all be reading and sharing Matt Sedillo's work with their comrades in service of organizing the next revolution. He is truly the poet laureate of struggle."
—Paul Ortiz, Author of Emancipation Betrayed and Director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program
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"I studied with Ginsberg, I drank with Bukowski, and now I’ve met the new master. Run and hide, white boy, Sedillo writes with a switchblade. the best political poet alive—and everything is political"
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—Greg Palast, author of How Trump Stole 2020: The Hunt for America's Vanished Voters (Seven Stories Press, 2020)
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BOOKING
To inquire about booking Matt Sedillo for a paid reading or workshop: