Poemales is an ongoing series of perfomance-workshops which asks participants to create a poem while considering several factors in relation to a particular food; where it comes from, how it was produced, the labor required to produce it, and their relationship to it (sensual, historical, nostalgic, familial, cultural, etc.). The poems collected from these workshops are wrapped in corn husks to produce "poemales," locally produced poems about food of the El Paso and Juarez region.
Poemales.III began as a workshop by Laura Elgin Cesarco at Bio.domo.sis during the Chalk-the-Block festival. The poemales generated during Chalk-the-Block will be taken to Juarez in early November for another series of poetry workshops led by Willevaldo Delgadillo and Kerry Doyle. The Juarez participants will exchange the poemal they create with one of those made by an El Paso resident during Chalk-the-Block. In exchange, those residents of El Paso who originally submitted a poemal will receive one from a Juarez resident in November following the workshops.
The term "poemal" is an original concept of La Línea. The first public performance of Poemales by La Línea in collaboration with Caltranzit took place in Tijuana in 2004.