The Puerto Rican Literature Project

Carla Teresa Cavina Meléndez (author name: Carla Cavina) was born in 1975 in Río Piedras, Puerto Rico, and was raised in the Río Hondo neighborhood of Bayamón. She is the daughter of an Italian father and Puerto Rican mother. Cavina Meléndez authored Corredora de Sueños (Editorial Río Ingenio) and Un lugar en la niebla, published in La Impresora’s First Books Series. She received her B.A. in Fine Arts from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. During her university years, she worked as a model for art classes and was involved in a number ofperformances, collectives, and initiatives. Her work is influenced by poets such as Ángela María Dávila, Pedro Pietri, José Raúl “Gallego” González, Julia de Burgos, Nicole Cecilia Delgado, Raquel Salas Rivera, Kelly Díaz, Xavier Valcárcel, Amanda Hernández, Karen Sevilla, Shinji Moon, and Cindy Jimenez-Vera. From 2007-2018, she stopped writing poetry and dedicated herself almost exclusively to filmmaking and the movie Extraterrestres, returning to poetry in 2018. Her poems and short stories have been published in the literary journal Cruce and the anthology Santurce y ocho crónicas de viaje. 

Works Cited

Cavina, Carla. Interview. Conducted by  Roque Raquel Salas Rivera, 18 May 2021.