Raquel Gutiérrez works as a poet and arts writer working through ekphrasis as one way to reflect upon queer brown life in the arts in the Southwest borderlands. They work in a range of topics that have continued to inform their writing and teaching, including critical race theory, Queer and Latinx aesthetics, and performance art in the Americas.

Their poetry, non-fiction, and critical writing are rooted in explorations of movement, mobility, and migration from Mexico and Central America to the United States. These explorations elaborate on Gutiérrez’ perspective as a queer and brown writer engaging histories of desire and colonization in the Southwest United States or Greater Mexico, according to José Limón. They enact these elaborations through cross-genre engagements with performance studies, ekphrasis, and experimental memoir by centering around questions concerning artistic identity and performativity. Their poetry and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Los Angeles Review of Books, The New Inquiry, FENCE, Huizache, The Georgia Review, The Texas Review and Hayden’s Ferry Review. Raquel’s first book of prose, Brown Neon, will be published by Coffee House Press in the Fall of 2021. And Raquel's first book of poetry, Southwest Reconstruction, will be published by Noemi Press in 2022.