Nina (poet)

Ninoscka Gwiazdon (born 1963) is the self-proclaimed "Poetiza del Sexo (Spanish: "Sex Poet") of the Mission".

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Personal history

Gwiazdon was born in Santiago, Chile to parents of Spanish, Polish, and other European descent. She and her family to fled to Argentina as refugees during the Pinochet dictatorship, and later received political asylum in the United States, the country that had sponsored the coup d'état that brought Pinochet to power. She became naturalized as a citizen in 1999. She was married once, but has since separated from her husband; they had one son. Her parents have since returned to Chile and live in Quilicura, a Santiago exburb. She currently resides in the East Bay city of Richmond, in the San Francisco Bay Area as do her two brothers. She suffers from epilepsy and other health problems to the level of disability.

Work

She goes by the nom de plume Nina to ease the pronunciation of her name. She performs her controversial pieces throughout the Mission District and the rest of San Francisco, especially at the Women's Center and Café La Bohème, where she was among the artists that organized the first annual International Women's Day Poetry Slam. While her poems are predominantly in Spanish, many of her works are translated into English, a language she has used increasingly in recent works; or sometimes even Spanglish. Many of her poems discuss issues such as pregnancy, female liberation, racial equality, sex, and religion. Many of her poems attack and criticize sexual and societal mores and taboos, especially those associated with and promoted by Christians, (especially the Roman Catholic Church) conservatives, reactionaries, fascists, and even moderates and socialists who are not socialist enough.

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