Marina Carreira

Marina Carreira, who has shoulder length wavy hair, a tank top, and tattoos on her arms, looks at the camera and looks as though she is laughing. The photo looks modern but is in black and white.
Recorded by:
Kristyn
Scorsone
Interview Date(s):Monday, May 13, 2019
Location:324 Conklin Hall, Rutgers University-Newark
Transcript(s):PDF icon transcript
Marina Carreira is a queer Luso-American multidisciplinary artist from Newark, NJ. She holds a BA in English from Montclair State University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Rutgers University. Marina works in higher education as School Office Manager for the College of Education at Kean University and as adjunct professor of English at Essex County College.  She is founding member of “Brick City Collective”, a multicultural, multimedia group of Newark-based artists working for social change, and also works as a poet in the Geraldine R. Dodge “Visiting Poets in Schools” program.
Marina’s poetry, prose, and art explores, ruminates, questions, and challenges various subjects, including immigrant family dynamics, American motherhood, spirituality, intersectional feminism, bicultural and queer identity, body and sex positivity, the dangers of capitalism and the struggles of mental health and addiction. Her work looks to document her experience as a queer, first-generation Luso-American cis able-bodied woman while bearing witness to the mechanics of racist, sexist, classist, homophobic and xenophobic America.

Marina’s first chapbook, “I Sing to That Bird Knowing He Won’t Sing Back” was published by finishing Line Press in May 2017. “Save The Bathwater” is Marina’s debut full-length collection of poems. Published by Get Fresh Books in June 2018, the book takes a critical look at first-generation childhood in the Ironbound, an urban, immigrant section of Newark, NJ. Her poetry has appeared in Paterson Literary Review, The Acentos Review, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Writing Disorder, The Harpoon Review, Green Mountain Review, Hinchas de Poesia, and Luna Luna, among others. Marina has showcased her visual art at ArtFront Galleries, West Orange Arts Council Gallery, the Ironbound Cultural Center’s Shiman Gallery, Gallery 211, and Living Incubator Performance Space {LIPS} in the Gateway Project Spaces in Newark, NJ as part of several group exhibitions and festivals.

Marina lives in Union, NJ with her partner and children. She believes black lives matter, dissent is patriotic, immigrants make America great, gender is a construct, queer love is radical, the future is female and non-binary, and tacos are life.

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