Current Graduate Student/MFA-Poetry
About
Ria deGuzman is a queer, neurodivergent, mixed-Filipina poet whose work circles themes of survival, emergence, and the hunger for connection. She is the founder of The Northampton Literary Society, a collaboratively-led community writing group informed by her commitments to queer disability poetics and accessible literary spaces. Her artistic practice extends into collage and digital blackout poetry, with visual work featured at Trenton's JKC Gallery and in Labrys Literary Magazine. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming from The Kelsey Review, The Voices and Visions Journal, and Inverted Syntax. A winner of the 2025 Glascock Prize and a Pushcart Prize nominee, she returned to poetry through an English composition class at community college a decade after dropping out of high school. She now holds a BA from Smith College.
