LOGAN PHILLIPS
“Poetry is holding the center, not hiding in the margins: we construct our world through words. Poetry is the art of putting into words all that which is otherwise unsayable, of constructing other ways of knowing.
No matter where I’m working––the DJ booth, the classroom, the art studio, the stage––I’m creating a poem; stringing together disparate elements to say something new, creating connections in collaboration with everyone in the room––
ee cummings said he was ‘overly fond of that precision which creates movement.’ Poetry is word precision, poetry moves the world forward.”
Logan Phillips is a poet and cultural worker based in Tucson, Arizona.
Author of the books RECKON (The University of Arizona Press, 2026), Sonoran Strange (West End Press, 2015), as well as the ongoing NoVoGRAFíAS series, Phillips works to create new opportunities for the intersection of poetry and wider society through performances, education and collaboration.
As a bilingual poet, performer and DJ he tours his art throughout the US, Latin America and beyond.
Born to a family of Irish-Slavic descent and raised in the Arizona / Sonora borderlands, Phillips lived in and around Mexico City 2006-2011, where he contributed to organizing and hosting the country's first regular poetry slam series.
Also in 2007 Logan began playing house parties and mezcalería-speakeasies in Cuernavaca as DJ Dirtyverbs.
Teaching and facilitating has been an important part of Phillips' artistic practice since 2005, serving as Cofounder & Codirector of Spoken Futures, Inc. whose programs included the Tucson Youth Poetry Slam, 2012-2019.
RECKON, The University of Arizona Press, 2026
Logan ‘Dirtyverbs’ Phillips
Poet, performer, DJ and educator
Tucson, Arizona
Selected performance history
2026 Featured poet, Tucson Poetry Festival
2026, 2017, 2015: Tucson Festival of Books, invited author, Tucson
2025: Co-writer and actor, “No Place Like Home” devised play, Borderlands Theater, Tucson.
2024: Poetic intervention for "‘Amai Mo ‘Am Ṣo:ṣon G Cewagĭ," Center for Creative Photography, Tucson.
2024, 2023 DJ, host at Día De San Juan, cultural event, Mission Garden, Tucson.
2023: Featured reading “Tucson Roots: Writing Memory and Community” with Lydia Otero & Mele Martinez, Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry, Tucson.
2023: Participating poet, Desert Nights, Rising Stars conference, Arizona State University, Tempe.
2023: Featured poet, Aspen Words reading, Aspen Institute, Aspen, Colorado.
2023: Host, "Pachuco Nights: A Celebration of Lowrider Culture in Tucson," Southwest Folklife Alliance, Fox Theater, Tucson.
2023: DJ & Host, SXSW Festival, Austin, Texas
2018: Co-headlining poet, Glosolalia Festival 2018, Mexico City.
2017, 2016, 2015, 2014: Headlining DJ, Rialto Theatre New Years Eve, Tucson
2017, 2016, 2015, 2014: Host & DJ, Gateway Stage, All Souls Procession, Tucson
2016: Sonoran Strange, transdisciplinary theater / poetry, Borderlands Theater, Tucson
2016: Headlining poet, Aspen Poets Society 10 Year Anniversary Celebration, Colorado
2016: Invited artist “Shattering the Concrete: Artists, Activists & Instigators” Project Row Houses, Houston
2012-2022: resident DJ and event producer of El Tambó, Hotel Congress, Tucson
2014 Sonoran Strange, transdisciplinary theater piece, University of Rostock, Germany
2013 Sonoran Strange, transdisciplinary theater piece, National Hispanic Cultural Center, Albuquerque
2013 Change Your Mind, Change the World conference with the Dalai Lama, University of Wisconsin
2012 Dios de Adrenalina, street theater collaboration, Iberoamerican Theater Festival, Bogotá
2012 Featured poet, 8th Festival of New Poetry (all Spanish), New York City
2012 Headliner, 5th Encounter of Migrant Poets (all Spanish), San Luis Río Colorado, Mexico
2011 Unreal City, performance installation, Phx Fringe Festival, Phoenix Art Museum
2010 Border Remixeado, transdisciplinary theater piece, New York University, NYC
2010 Rito Juárez, performance art, 1st Binational Encounter of New Art, Ciudad Juárez
2008 Border Remixeado, NALAC Leadership Institute, Tucson Museum of Art
2008, 2007 Border Remixeado, Poesía.en.Voz.Alta Festival, Casa del Lago, Mexico City
2007 Featured poet, TipofyourTongue Festival, Penzance, UK
2006 Featured poet, Paris Poetry Slam, Paris, France
2002-2005 Competitor, National Poetry Slam, USA
Awards & Commissions
2022: Semifinalist, Noemi Press Book Award.
2021: Academy of American Poets College & Universities Prize, UArizona.
2021: Creative Writing Fellow, Crossing Latinidades consortium of Hispanic Serving Institutions, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
2021: Graduate Research Fellowship, Department of English, UArizona.
2018: Nomination for Association of Writers & Writing Programs Intro Journals Award, UArizona Creative Writing MFA Program.
2017: Finalist, Tucson Poet Laureate, Office of the Mayor, Tucson
2016, 2015, 2014: Top 3 DJ’s in Tucson, Best of Tucson, Tucson Weekly
2015: Top Pick, Southwest Books of the Year for Sonoran Strange, Pima County Public Library
2014: Loop, commissioned poetic response to Julianne Swartz, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art
2013: Best Danceparty: El Tambó, Best of Tucson, Tucson Weekly
2012: 40 Under 40 award,Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Arizona Daily Star
2012: Sonoran Strange, Artist Project Grant, Arizona Commission on the Arts
2012: Sonoran Strange, New Works Grant, Arts Foundation for Tucson & Southern Arizona
2008: Nobody Speaks, commission for the 28th Annual Tucson Poetry Festival
Curatorial & Organizational Experience
2007 – current: Co-Artistic Director and Co-Founder, Verbo•bala Spoken Video transdisciplinary performance group blending live video projections, bilingual poetry and performance art.
2024 – current: Co-hosting and co-production with Amy Juan, "Cultivating Culture," indigenous & intercultural storytelling and open mic, Mission Garden & San Xavier Co-op Farm, Tucson.
2024 – 2025: Technical support for Afrizona, music series hosted by DJ Gugu Moyo, Tucson.
2013 – 2022: Founder and Co-director, El Tambó: música tropical en la frontera, intercultural dance party.
2010 – 2019: Codirector, Spoken Futures, Inc., Tucson Youth Poetry Slam. Youth-centered organization focused on writing, performance, civic engagement and social justice education.
2011: Lead Co-Organizer, Arizona Between Nosotros Mexican performance art & video festival.
2010: Coordinator, Nuestra Voz latino youth leadership initiative, YWCA Tucson Racial Justice Program. After school poetry & social justice workshops at Sunnyside HS, Pueblo HS and Palo Verde HS, Tucson.
Education & Training
2021: Master of Fine Arts, Creative Writing - Poetry, University of Arizona.
2014, 2009 Conference participant, Hemispheric Encuentro of Performance & Politics, Hosted by New York University. Bogotá / Montreal
2013, 2010 La Pocha Nostra International Performance Workshop, Tucson / Oaxaca, Mexico
2012 Inaugural Arts & Culture Fellow, Rockwood Leadership Institute, California
2011 Cohort member, CultureStr/ke Delegation, NYC / Tucson
2005 B.A. Cum Laude, Spanish with English minor, Northern Arizona University
Teaching, Facilitation and Consultancy
2007 – current: Bilingual performance poetry workshop leader at over 100 K-12 schools, universities, libraries and other facilities across the United States, as well as in Mexico, Canada, Colombia, the United Kingdom and Germany.
2026 Facilitator, Summer Sunset Family Poetry with Favor Celestial and Barrio Kroeger Lane. Intergenerational and intercultural, place-based writing workshops with community partners.
2021-2025 Career-Track Lecturer, Department of English, University of Arizona.
2022 – current, 2014-2018: Teaching Artist in residence, Aspen Words, Roaring Fork Valley, Colorado. Annual project with a team of three other poets; assemblies and workshops across 18 schools, bridging cultural divides and cultivating audiences through bilingual spoken work poetry.
2016 – 2019: Advisor, Opera America Civic Action Group, New York City
2016: Teaching Artist Professional Development Facilitator, State University of Morelos, Cuernavaca, Mexico.
2014 – 2018: Teaching Artist, Eastpointe High School, alternative public charter, Tucson. Semester-long seminars on poetry writing and performance with students 14-22 years old.
2010 – 2020: Teaching artist and chapbook editor, Spoken Futures, Inc. / Tucson Youth Poetry Slam
2011-2016: Teaching Artist, Poetry Out Loud, The University of Arizona Poetry Center, Tucson.
2007: Professor of Letters, Universidad Internacional, Cuernavaca, Mexico. Courses taught: English Literature I, Hispanic-American Literature II, Advanced Translation, Translation Resources, Latin American History & Culture.
2006 Elementary School teacher, Escuela Britania, 3rd & 4th grade English, Cuernavaca, Mexico
Residencies
2025, 2018: Writer in Residence, Pima County Public Library
2016 – current: Resident DJ, University of Arizona College of Humanities
2022 Artist in Residence, Center for Biological Diversity, Tucson
2010 Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latinoamericana, National Performance Network, San Jose, CA
Publications
RECKON, The University of Arizona Press, full-length hybrid memoir, 160 pages, 2026.
Borderlings, publisher, editor and designer, poetry book by Russ McSpadden, Artspeak Press, Tucson, 2025.
"Penstemon For All the Abandoned Spaces," poem in The Sonoran Desert School Gardeners' Almanac 2024-2025, University of Arizona School Garden Workshop, 2024
NoVoGRAFíAS 04, poetry and visual art chapbook, Artspeak Press, 2024.
NoVoGRAFíAS 03, poetry and visual art chapbook, Artspeak Press, 2023.
NoVoGRAFíAS 02, poetry and visual art chapbook, Artspeak Press, 2023.
"Mission Lane: Triple Triptych," You Are Here: The Journal of Creative Geography, Volume XXIV, 2023.
“From RECKON,” poetry, Academy of American Poets - Poets.org, 2021.
“Saguaros: A Family History,” essay, Terrain.org, 2020.
“Sowing Seeds in a Summer of Plague,” residency dispatch, Field Studies Writing, 2020.
“Excerpts from Ghazal of a Borderlands Childhood,” poetry, Vote the Earth, Center for Earth Ethics and the Wick Poetry Center, Kent State University, 2020.
Cylindropuntia fulgida: Jumping cholla, Poem, Poetry of the Sonoran Desert, virtual exhibition, The Arizona Plant Festival, 2020.
The Sonoran Desert: A Literary Field Guide, anthology, The University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 2016.
Hustlin’ Hermanas, editor and designer, poetry chapbook by Araceli Montaño and Alexia Vazquez, Spoken Futures Press, Tucson, 2017.
The Sonoran Desert: A Literary Field Guide, anthology, 216 pages, The University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 2016.
Sonoran Strange, full length book of poems, 110 pages, West End Press, Albuquerque, 2015.
Notes on Starting an Urban Microfarm in the Santa Cruz River Valley, poem published in Edible Baja Arizona magazine, fall 2015.
Forming Galaxies, editor and designer, chapbook by Zack Taylor, Spoken Futures Press, Tucson, 2015.
Tortoise Boy Says, editor and designer, chapbook by Enrique García Naranjo, Spoken Futures Press, Tucson, 2014.
TO NEITHER CONFIRM NOR DENY, poem commissioned and published by The Dictionary Project, Tucson, 2013.
Cylindropuntia fulgida: Jumping cholla, poem commissioned and published by Spiral Orb, Tucson, Spring 2012.
NoVOGRAFÍAS: Silt Behind Hydroelectric Sky, chapbook, 22 pages, Artspeak Press, Tucson, 2012.
Arroyo Ink, chapbook, 56 pages, Artspeak Press, Tucson, 2009.
Where Do Airplanes Build Their Nests?, chapbook, 44 pages, Artspeak Press, Cuernavaca, Mexico, 2007.
This Line Drawn Across Footprints, chapbook, 44 pages, Artspeak Press, Cuernavaca, Mexico, 2007.