Jen/Eleana (both names gifted from family; either name fine to use) Hofer is a poet, translator, interpreter, teacher, facilitator, knitter, book-maker, urban cyclist, and co-founder of the language justice and language experimentation collaborative Antena Aire (2010 – 2020) and the language justice advocacy collective Antena Los Ángeles (2014 – 2021).
Jen/Eleana lives on unceded Tongva land at the confluence of the Los Angeles River and the Arroyo Seco in Northeast Los Angeles and identifies as a queer white Latinx (Argentinean) Jewish BDS supporter who grew up mostly monolingual in a bilingual/bicultural family and find in both language justice work and literary experimentation a powerful intersection between healing, social justice, and the transformative possibilities of language and radical listening across difference.
Eleana has received fellowships and awards from CantoMundo, the Academy of American Poets, the City of Los Angeles, the NEA, and PEN American Center, and was the 2021 visiting Holloway Professor in Poetry & Poetics at UC Berkeley.
On their own and with Antena Aire, they have exhibited, published, performed, organized, advocated, translated, curated, interpreted, and/or instigated with numerous groups and institutions, including, in SoCal specifically, Armory Center for the Arts (Pasadena), Avenue 50 Studio (Los Angeles), The Front (San Diego), Grand Central Art Center (Santa Ana), El Grafógrafo (Tijuana), the Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), LACE (Los Angeles), the Los Angeles Public Library, LA Zine Fest, Mexicali Biennial (San Bernardino), and Relaciones Inesperadas (Tijuana).
Jen/Eleana publishes poems, translations, and visual-textual works with numerous small presses, including Action Books, Atelos, belladonna, Counterpath Press, Kenning Editions, Insert Press, Les Figues Press, Litmus Press, LRL Textile Editions, NewLights Press, Palm Press, Subpress, Ugly Duckling Presse, and in various DIY/DIT incarnations. Jen/Eleana’s most recent books are translations by Mexican writers Dolores Dorantes (Kenning Editions), Myriam Moscona (Les Figues Press), and Rodrigo Flores Sánchez (Ugly Duckling Presse); translations of Uruguayan poet Virginia Lucas are forthcoming from Litmus Press.