José Olivarez is the son of Mexican immigrants and the co-host of the poetry podcast, The Poetry Gods. A recipient of fellowships from Poets House, the Bronx Council on the Arts, the Poetry Foundation, and the Conversation Literary Festival, his work has been published in the BreakBeat Poets, the Chicago Tribune, The Adroit Journal, The Rumpus, and Hyperallergic, among other places. His debut book of poems, Citizen Illegal, will be released in September 2018 from Haymarket Books. He is from Calumet City, Illinois, and lives in Chicago.