Gabriel Cortez is a poet, educator, and organizer based in the Bay Area, California. His work has appeared in Poem-A-Day by The Academy of American Poets, The New York Times, The Rumpus, The Breakbeat Poets Anthology Volume 4, and elsewhere. A VONA, Poetry Incubator, and #BARS workshop alum, he has received awards from the Gerbode Foundation, the Rainin Foundation, the National Performance Network, the University of California, Palette Poetry, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. He is pursuing his MFA in Creative Writing at St. Mary’s College of California. Gabriel’s debut one person show, Between Two Rising Seas, debuts at Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana (MACLA) in Fall 2027.
He is a member of the artist collective, Ghostlines, and co-founder of The Root Slam, an award-winning poetry venue dedicated to inclusivity, justice, and artistic growth, as well as Write Home, a project working to challenge public perceptions of houselessness and shift critical resources to houseless Bay Area youth through poetry and arts programming. Gabriel was the inaugural poet in residence at The Ecology Center, Shelterwood Collective, and Art Farm at West Dry Creek, where he used poetry and arts education to uplift local legacies of resistance rooted in environmental justice and food and land sovereignty. Gabriel has served on the board of directors for Performing Arts Workshop and currently serves on the board of The Bay Area Book Festival. From 2014 to 2023, he was Lead Poet Mentor and Director of Programs at Youth Speaks.
Gabriel is of Black, white, and Panamanian descent. His work explores power, identity, belonging, and gold teeth.
Gabriel Cortez 