What The Universe Is: Chiara Di Lello and Cloud Delfina Cardona

I’m excited to host two Millennial poets for November’s What The Universe Is. I happened to meet both Chiara and Cloud at the 2025 Mass Poetry Festival, where I was immediately impressed by their work and their presence in the poetry community.  

Chiara Di Lello is a queer writer, artist, and educator who loves coffee and bees and unequivocally supports the movement for Palestinian liberation. Born and raised in New York City, she now resides in the Hudson Valley where she teaches students of many ages in creative and academic settings. Her poems and essays have appeared in Ninth Letter, Catapult, Okay Donkey, and Whale Road Review, and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Her spare time is spent trying to be a better gardener and spoiling her friends' kids.

Cloud Delfina Cardona is a writer and book cover designer from San Antonio, Texas. She is the author of What Remains, winner of the 2020 Host Publications Chapbook Prize, and the past is a jean jacket, winner of the Texas Institute of Letters’ Naomi Shihab Nye First Book of Poetry Award. She has received support from Letras Latinas, the Academy of American Poets, Latinx in Publishing, and the Macondo Writers Workshop. She co-founded Infrarrealista Review, a literary nonprofit that publishes Texan voices. Her work appears in Bruiser, SWWIM, Prairie Schooner, The Offing, and The Los Angeles Review.

Be sure to register at bit.ly/WTUINov2026 so you can hear these two exceptional poets read their work!