CYNTHIA GUARDADO
POET & ACTIVIST
sIHn-thee-uh Gwarr-Dah-Doe/ (she/her/hers)
Cynthia Guardado /sIHn-thee-uh Gwarr-Dah-Doe/ (she/her/hers) is a Salvadoran-American poet and a tenured Professor of English at Fullerton College.
Her parents, Anselmo & Margoth, immigrated from El Salvador to Los Angeles, California, in the early 1980’s. She earned her Bachelors from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She received her Masters of Fine Arts from California State University, Fresno with an emphasis in poetry, Guardado is the Editor-in-Chief of LiveWire an online literary magazine at Fullerton College, was the Event Producer for Lambda Literary’s 2020 LitFest, and is a social justice activist in the community.
She is the author of two collections of poetry, Cenizas from Camino del Sol series at The University of Arizona Press (2022) and ENDEAVOR from World Stage Press (2017). Her poems have also appeared in Poetry Magazine, ITWOW: In the Words of Women International Anthology, Huizache, Bozalta Journal, The Acentos Review, The Packinghouse Review, The Wandering Song: Central American Writing in the United States, and The Normal School. Guardado also translated and transcribed interviews with journalist and Cuban exile, Normando Hernandez Gonzalez which were published in The Madrid Conversations (New Orleans Press 2013). She was also the winner of Concurso Binacional De Poesía Pellicer-Frost 2017 (México). Her manuscript Cenizas was a finalist for the National Poetry Series (2019)
CYNTHIA GUARDADO
POET & ACTIVIST
BIO
Cynthia Guardado /sIHn-thee-uh Gwarr-Dah-Doe/ (she/her/hers) is a Salvadoran-American poet and a tenured Professor of English at Fullerton College.
Her parents, Anselmo & Margoth, immigrated from El Salvador to Los Angeles, California, in the early 1980’s. She earned her Bachelors from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She received her Masters of Fine Arts from California State University, Fresno with an emphasis in poetry, Guardado is the Editor-in-Chief of LiveWire an online literary magazine at Fullerton College, was the Event Producer for Lambda Literary’s 2020 LitFest, and is a social justice activist in the community.
She is the author of two collections of poetry, Cenizas from Camino del Sol series at The University of Arizona Press (2022) and ENDEAVOR from World Stage Press (2017). Her poems have also appeared in Poetry Magazine, ITWOW: In the Words of Women International Anthology, Huizache, Bozalta Journal, The Acentos Review, The Packinghouse Review, The Wandering Song: Central American Writing in the United States, and The Normal School. Guardado also translated and transcribed interviews with journalist and Cuban exile, Normando Hernandez Gonzalez which were published in The Madrid Conversations (New Orleans Press 2013). She was also the winner of Concurso Binacional De Poesía Pellicer-Frost 2017 (México). Her manuscript Cenizas was a finalist for the National Poetry Series (2019)

Cover design by Leigh McDonald | Cover art by Leslie Guardado
Cenizas offers an arresting portrait of a Salvadoran family whose lives have been shaped by the upheavals of global politics. The speaker of these poems—the daughter of Salvadoran immigrants—questions the meaning of homeland as she navigates life in the United States while remaining tethered to El Salvador by the long shadows cast by personal and public history. Cynthia Guardado’s poems give voice to the grief of family trauma, while capturing moments of beauty and tenderness. Maternal figures preside over the verses, guiding the speaker as she searches the ashes of history to tell her family’s story. The spare, narrative style of the poems are filled with depth as the family’s layers come to light.
Guardado crafted the poems in Cenizas over a ten-year period, often traveling to El Salvador for research and to conduct interviews. The Salvadoran Civil War haunts the pages of this collection as it unflinchingly explores war, its aftermath, and the bittersweet legacies that are passed down from one generation to the next. The poems mourn those who were lost and honor the strength of the speaker’s ancestors. “All my people have been born from the ashes of volcanoes,” she writes, invoking a family lineage that has endured the atrocities committed against them. Even so, El Salvador keeps pulling the speaker back—and despite warnings of danger, she still manages to find beauty among the ruins.
Speaking Events
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10/15/22 Fresno, CA Splash Fresno (21 and over) (Virtual) @ 1PM -
10/22/22 Venice, CA Book Launch at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts @ 7PM - Register Here -
10/28/22 Echo Park, CA Sunset Ecos a bilingual poetry reading series at Stories and Books Café @ 7PM -
11/30/22 Los Angeles, CA Central American Diaspora Reading at Expo Park - Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune Regional Library @ 6PM -
01/18/23 Los Angeles, CA Central American Diaspora Reading at Expo Park - Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune Regional Library @ 6PM -
03/04-03/05/23 Tucson Festival of Books -
03/09/23 Seattle, WA Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) @ TBD - 04/08/23 Pomona, CA Café con Libros @ 7:30PM
- 04/13/23 Fresno, CA Respite by the River @ 6PM