Unfolded

Unfolded Poetry Project: A Collaborative Poetry Series will focus on key three areas: Write, Listen, Speak.

This 3-part project that permits attendees to articulate their written voice, listening ear, and spoken voice.

05/23/2026

✨️ WORKSHOP ✨️

What are the boundaries we place around the Self?

In a world that teaches separation, this workshop asks us to look closer at our interconnectedness: to explore how identity, grief, loneliness, tenderness, and belonging live within us and alongside one another.

Led by Tay (@1.splendidly_tay), this workshop invites participants into embodied practice, guided imaginative exploration, and expressive writing centered on narrative empathy and the Self as metaphor.

Together, we’ll reflect on what it means to exist in relationship: to ourselves, to others, and to the greater whole around us.

This workshop is open to poets and non-poets alike. Come as you are.

🖊 Led by Tay
📍 McAllen Public Library, Meeting Room A&B
🕖 7:00 PM

We are nothing without WE.

Come unfold with us. ✨

04/26/2026

✨ WORKSHOP ✨️

Join us for a workshop led by Emmanuel con dos Emmes ( ) and our Unfolded: Poetry Project community!

📅 Tuesday, April 28th
🕖 7:00 PM
📍 McAllen Public Library – Meeting Room AB

This workshop focuses on practical strategies for reading poetry more thoughtfully and intentionally.

Rather than covering poetic theory or terminology, we'll explore straightforward approaches that can help you slow down, pay closer attention, and develop a deeper appreciation for poetry.

You'll learn simple yet effective ways to interact with poems, enhancing your ability to genuinely connect with the text.

📚 Open to all levels. Free as always. Tell your friends and come write with us!

04/22/2026

✨️ WORKSHOP ✨️

Weaving the Patterns / Tejiendo la Tierra

What does it mean to create?

Maybe it begins with paying attention. With listening to the land, to each other, to the quiet ideas that ask us to make something out of nothing. We carry that same energy in our bodies, moving, shifting, connecting. We write it, we weave it, we paint it, we project it. We make it visible.

Weaving the Patterns / Tejiendo la Tierra is a collaborative three part series presented by Unfolded: Poetry Project, ENTRE, and Trucha, in collaboration with Calle Soledad Presa and artist Diana Lizette Rodriguez.

This is a space to create together.

Rooted in the belief that creativity exists in everything, this series moves across poetry, bookmaking, experimental film, and performance. It is hands on, locally led, and grounded in the idea that there is art in logic and creativity in the technical, that we can build something meaningful when we step into process together.

We begin with poetry and bookbinding, shaping memory and ancestry into a collective CODEX. We continue into film, working directly with 16mm to paint, weave, and build moving images by hand. We gather in the end to share what was made, bringing it to life through exhibition and performance.

This is an invitation to try something new. To see differently. To create alongside others and to be part of something that grows with each person who steps in.

✴️ Tuesday, May 12
Poetry and Bookbinding Workshop
7:00–9:00 PM
McAllen Public Library
4001 N 23rd St, McAllen, TX

✴️ Thuesday, May 14
Film Weaving and 16mm Loops Workshop
6:00–9:00 PM
ENTRE Film Center
415 W. Jackson Ave, Harlingen, TX

✴️ Saturday, May 16
Exhibition and Expanded Cinema Performance
6:00–9:00 PM
Trucha at Ponte Creative Studio & Gallery
1305 N Main St, McAllen, TX

All events are free and open to the community
Workshop 2 has limited capacity, RSVP required

More information and RSVP in bio

Presented by .film.center .rgv

Come as you are.

04/08/2026

✨ WORKSHOP ✨

Is the ordinary truly ordinary?

Join us for a generative workshop where we’ll explore the strange, the surreal, and the quietly magical moments hidden in our everyday lives.

Through a series of short prompts, you’ll create Algoems — fragmentary poems drawn from what you notice, feel, and experience.

🖊 Led by Daniel Mendoza ( )
🗓 April 14th at 7:00 PM
📍 McAllen Public Library, Meeting Room A&B
💻 Can't make it in person? Our workshops are available LIVE online, too! Check our link-in-bio

Always free and open to all poets and writers of all levels!

Come write with us!

Unfolded: Poetry Project has been teaching free poetry workshops twice a monthly, offering consistent programming for you since 2022!

03/29/2026

✨ WORKSHOP ✨

Between who you were and who you’re becoming, there is a space.

Join us for our workshop, led by Rey Villanueva ( ), as we explore the in between, the moments of transition where discomfort and comfort exist side by side.

No matter where you find yourself, in the midst of big life changes or simply learning how to feel at home within yourself, you are always evolving.

This workshop invites you to sit with that becoming.

Because even as something new waits for you, there is still so much to honor in who you have been, and who you are now.

📍 McAllen Public Library (Meeting Room A&B)
📅 Tuesday, March 31st
⏰ 7:00 PM CST
💻 HYBRID: Link-in-Bio to join us online from anywhere

Always free and open to all poets, writers, artists, feelers, and thinkers.

Come as you are, let's write together!

03/23/2026

✨️ OPEN MIC ✨️

Poets, we’re heading back to Harlingen 🤎

Join us at Bandera Coffee Co. ( ) for a night of poetry, poet friends, and good coffee! Whether you’re sharing your voice or simply listening, we build this space for you

We’re still trying out an earlier start time for our monthly open mic programming:
☕️ 5:30 PM -- gather, talk, write, settle in
🎤 6:15 PM -- open mic begins
🌙 8:00 PM -- open mic ends

Come early, grab a drink, and ease into the space with us -- we'll be set up on the outdoor patio.

📍 Bandera Coffee Co.
415 W Van Buren Ave, Harlingen, TX
📅 Friday, March 27th

Poets, if you’d like to read, send us a DM at to be added to the set list.

Bring your poetry. Bring a friend. Stay awhile!

We truly appreciate you 🫶 See you soon, poets!!

03/15/2026

✨️ WORKSHOP ✨️

Led by Victoria (.l.lopez), the 2022 and 2025 City of McAllen Poet Laureate, we’ll be exploring the ideas and opinions we stand by.

What do you believe strongly enough to say out loud What thoughts, values, or everyday truths would you defend if someone challenged them?

This workshop will focus on voice, opinion, and projection as we practice expressing our ideas through poetry and speaking them into the room.

Join us as we write about the hills we’re willing to stand on.

🗓 Tuesday, March 17th at 7PM
📍 McAllen Public Library (Meeting Room A&B)

Always free & open to all poets, writers, artists, feelers, and thinkers.

Tag your friends, see you soon, poets!!

03/09/2026

✨️NOW OPEN✨️

Applications are now open for the 2026–2028 City of McAllen Poet Laureate.

This two-year honorary civic appointment recognizes poets who serve as cultural ambassadors for the City of McAllen.

Why apply?
1. Represent McAllen as a civic voice for poetry
2. Amplify storytelling and language in public life
3. Extend the work you’re already doing in the community
4. Contribute to the literary history of the Rio Grande Valley

Deadline: March 22, 2026 — 11:59 PM (CT)
🔗 Apply at the link-in-bio

Tag a poet who should apply or share with someone in the RGV poetry community 📝

The City of McAllen Poet Laureate program is administered by the McAllen Chamber of Commerce ( ) on behalf of the City of McAllen ( )

Application process facilitated with support from Unfolded: Poetry Project ( ), a nonprofit initiative founded by 2022 and 2025 City of McAllen Poet Laureate Victoria Lopez ( .l.lopez )

02/21/2026

✨️ WORKSHOP✨️

Before “we,” there is “I.” And before connection, there is clarity.

At this month’s Unfolded workshop, led by Victoria ( .l.lopez )we’re turning inward; not to isolate ourselves, but to understand ourselves.

What do I need to feel safe? To feel valued? To feel heard?

And how do I communicate those needs: in family, in friendship, in romance, in every space where I show up?

It’s about learning how to say, “This is what I need,” and trusting that it matters.

Join us as we explore the 5 C’s of dating! Beginning with the most important relationship: the one with yourself.

🗓 Tuesday, Feb 24th at 7PM
📍 McAllen Public Library (Meeting Room A&B)

Always free & open to all poets, writers, artists, feelers, and thinkers.

Tag your friends, see you soon, poets!!

02/16/2026

✨OPEN MIC✨

Some memories captured at our last Open Mic event.

Sign up for FREE to our next OPEN MIC at MoonBeans ( )

We will be at MoonBeans NEW LOCATION in EDINBURG

🗓️ Friday, February 20th
🕐 5:30pm - 8:00pm
📍Moonbeans Coffee, in EDINBURG! 202 Schunior St.

Send our Unfolded team at DM to to be added to the set list!!

📸:

Address

4001 N. 23rd St.
McAllen, TX
78504

Website

https://unfoldedpoetryproject.com/

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