Bessy Reyna is the author of two bilingual books of poetry,\u00a0The Battlefield of Your Body<\/i>\u00a0(Hill-Stead Museum, 2005) andMemoirs of the Unfaithful Lover\/ Memorias de la amante infiel<\/i>\u00a0(tunAstral, A.C., 2010, Toluca Mexico). A chapbook of her poems,\u00a0She Remembers,<\/i>\u00a0was published by Andrew Mountain Press in 1997. Her Spanish language writing, published in Latin America, includes a poetry chapbook,\u00a0Terrarium\u00a0<\/i>(
Born in Cuba and raised in Panama, Bessy is a graduate of Mt Holyoke College (BA Magna Cum\u00a0 Laude) and earned her Masters and Law degrees from the University of Connecticut. For nine years she was a monthly opinion columnist for\u00a0The Hartford<\/i>\u00a0Courant\u00a0<\/i>as well as a frequent contributor to\u00a0Northeast<\/i>, the Sunday magazine of the\u00a0Hartford Courant<\/i>. For several years, she conducted radio interviews with poets appearing at Hill-Stead Museum\u2019s renowned Sunken Garden Poetry Festival in Farmington, CT. and wrote an arts-and-culture page for the Hispanic newspaper\u00a0Identidad Latina <\/i>and \u00a0for www.CTLatinoNews.com<\/a>.<\/i> A former Master Teaching Artist for the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism, she is a frequent lecturer and guest artist at colleges, libraries and museums. She has performed her poetry internationally; taught writing workshops in many venues; and served as a judge for poetry competitions, including the Connecticut Book Award for Poetry and on the boards of several cultural institutions in Connecticut.\u00a0 She was selected as Bolton’s inaugural poet laureate in 2021 and reappointed in 2023.<\/p>\nShare this:<\/h3>