Plancha Press is an inprint of IR. At Plancha Press, we are committed to highlighting the poetry and prose of Texan writers.
As of 2026, we are not currently accepting any unsolicited manuscripts.
If you are a reviewer, please email us at infrarrealistareview@gmail.com to request advanced reader copies.
Winner of the 2026 Plancha Press Nonfiction Award
FROM THE MIND OF A FORMER WANNABE POP STAR…
In his debut memoir-in-essays, Bien Chingon: Vatos & Other Essays, Dee Lalo Garcia weaves his zillennial gay guy experiences in Laredo, Texas, along with his sharp reflections on pop culture on both sides of the border. We witness Garcia’s myth-making through formative moments like navigating the closet while on the high school football team, growing up on the internet, and falling in and out of love.
Bien Chingon resides in the borderlands of high brow and low brow. These essays both praise and critique the borderlands and what broader pop culture has to offer–bilatinmen.com, Laredo’s citizen journalism, The Brothers Garcia, and an investigation of Chicano linguistics can all be found here.
Each essay is a meditation on one of the many corners of Garcia’s world. An essay about his diva worship turns into a larger reflection on gay guy music video night as community building; in “Tocayos,” Garcia documents both painful and humorous experiences as a teenager falling in love with your closeted best friend; in another, he explores the world of Laredo’s annual George Washington Birthday Celebration.
Bien Chingon was made for fans of the Spanish dubbed episodes of Sick Sad World, David Foster Wallace coded lesbians, and Eddie Guerrero fanboys.
Dee Lalo Garcia is a queer werco from Laredo, Texas, and will not hesitate to scream “puro pinche 956” if given the opportunity. He is the Nonfiction Editor for Infrarrealista Review and currently teaches students how to weaponize their creativity at Austin Community College. He is the author of the forthcoming memoir-in-essays Bien Chingon: Vatos and Other Essays (Plancha Press, 2026). He is still feeling the effects of the 2008 Emo vs. Punks Wars in Latino America, though his classified status as a double spy prevents him from revealing which side he was on.
Photo credit: Tony Krash
“The poems in Jorge Renaud’s exceptional collection are direct, elegant, and plain-spoken. They rally us with his discerning poet’s pen against the cruelty of massive incarceration. Twenty-seven years of imprisonment opened his poet’s ear and eye to depict loss, love, and liberation unapologetically. Renaud’s poems should be read time and again.”
–Teresa Palomo Acosta, author of Las Tejanas: 300 Years of History
“The The Restlessness of Bound Wrists is an urgent testimony of compassion and transformation from a poet who knows that to tell the truth…Renaud’s poetic voice never falters, never hesitates, ringing loud and clear…My heart broke, over and over again…”
–ire’ne lara silva, 2023 Texas Poet Laureate
Jorge Renaud’s The Restlessness of Bound Wrists is a meditation and high-voltage letter of resistance against the Texan carceral system. It’s a prayer of recognition and understanding to those touched by addiction. The speaker’s voice is a quiet lull reaching for those who dare to look at what’s happening beyond walls and not by indicting, or teaching them, but simply by levitating them off the page with directness into the state of ephemeral dreaming, the liminal birthed from loss of control. We’re captivated by Renaud’s confessional style, and honey and bourbon language. Renaud writes for the mothers, brothers and sisters who are freedom fighters through everyday acts while also nodding to resistance giants like raúlrsalinas and Assata Shakur.
Since his last release from prison in 2008 Jorge Renaud has been a policy analyst and community organizer at various social justice organizations, among them the Texas Center for Justice and Equity, Grassroots Leadership, the Prison Policy Initiative, and Latino Justice PRLDEF. Jorge was honored to be selected as the 2020 Poet in Residence by the Civil Rights Corps and the 2021 Writer in Residence at the Texas After Violence Project. He is the proud father of Katie, a woman who enchants and astonishes and befuddles him in equal measure. Jorge believes poetry should be left to younger spirits yet was somehow persuaded to publish a book by the vatas lorcas at Infrarrealista Review. The Restlessness of Bound Wrists is forthcoming in 2025 with Plancha Press. He is guided by one maxim–No human is disposable.
Watch a PBS Brief but Spectacular segment featuring Jorge Renaud here.
“And I was taught not to use certain words in poems / but sometimes I act undisciplined to feel better” Amber states in the opening poem of Peppermint. Through cutting matter-of-fact language, Peppermint is a reel of personal lore: a childhood on a farm in Missouri, sights of San Marcos squirrels, queer kisses between games of Magic the Gathering, all interspersed with abstract recipes like a “Recipe for Finding a Body.” Peppermint sits with both the terrors and beauty of queer life—loving despite traumatic childhood memories, depression, and a tyrannical transphobic state.
Peppermint quite literally has cooling properties, bringing a refreshing approach to poetry. Isaac winks at the reader, asking questions like, “If I mention poppers will this poem exclude you?” She brings a levity to her poetry, a minty fresh approach that cuts through the heaviness with necessary humor.
References include but are not limited to: In Cold Blood, Alien, Goodfellas, poppers, kayfabe, Magic the Gathering, Prince, Goya, Steve McQueen, Taylor Swift t-shirts, Avril Lavigne, and Gregg Araki.
Amber Isaac is a queer trans writer from the Midwest. Her work appears in Prairie Schooner, Coachella Review, and Cimarron Review. They are the Reviews Editor at Infrarrealista Review.
“It’s a reason for celebration! A new book by our hero! Jacinto Jesús Cardona’s work goes straight to the soul, penetrates chatter, clarifies memory, air, hope and precious humanity.”
—NAOMI SHIHAB NYE, Everything Comes Next: Collected and New Poems, Cast Away: Poems for Our Time, The Tiny Journalist
“Amapolasong makes me want to have libro breath, breath made from reading, saying, and singing the jaunty, wry and wise Star-Spangled Spanglish captured by poeta, Jacinto Jesús Cardona. These pages are a warm and uplifting Chicano embrace offered by the unique and singular lexicon of this true poeta de la gente. Cardona delivers a lyrical memoir novella set as histories and testimonios essential to understand the region of South Texas, filled with characters like the Number One Small-Town Fry Cook, Don Anguiano, el mayor piscador, and the poet himself appearing in a number of poems, as a teenage bookish bato who struggles with baseball, but not with his khakis, his joyful curiosity, or his sparkling spinners. This is a book that opens the door the magical voice-world unique to the language of our bilingual people, and its hard truths are hard-won with so much tenderness for a people and so much music in its tenderness. Lleno de encantos, these poems will keep readers of all ages inspired and wondering what magical word-paquete will star-spangle-sparkle up the next line. This word-mundo is a creative festival of poems that forms an añil bath for anyone needing a thought-cleanse from too much of today’s muck and mugrero.”
—NATALIA TREVIÑO, VirginX
“Amapolasong is a juicy linguistic experience. Wondrous. These poems are succulent. They quench the reader’s soul in these terribly parched American times.”
—LORI MARIE CARLSON-HIJUELOS, Cool Salsa, A Path to the World: Becoming You
I remember riding my fenderless bike
to la panadería del pueblo
sometimes I would go alone
sometimes I would dream
I took abuelo by the hand
I remember pan dulce tasting even sweeter
after confessing my sins
at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church
nothing like dulcified bread
for crucified bones
I remember standing in front of the glass displays
telling el panadero I’ll take one of these
and one of those and one of these
unlike the cool pachuco who came in
asking for pan de polvo un regalo
y un hueso azucarado to go
I had not mastered the names of pan dulce
so imagine my thrill imagine the authority
in my chavalón bones when I returned
asking for dos huesos azucarados
two sugared bones to go
I remember pan dulce
la Virgen de Guadalupe
bordered by blue neon lights
and how the smell of canela
reminded me of abuelito’s piloncillo skin
JACINTO JESÚS CARDONA was born in Palacios, Texas, and grew up in Alice the Hub of South Texas. He lives with his family in San Antonio, Texas, and currently teaches English and creative writing at Incarnate Word High School.
