Rich Villar is a poet, essayist, and educator originally from Paterson, New Jersey. He has been quoted on Latinx literature and culture by HBO and The New York Times, and his work is most recently anthologized in The BreakBeat Poets, Volume 4: LatiNext (Haymarket Books, 2020), and What Saves Us: Poems of Empathy and Outrage in the Age of Trump (Northwestern University Press, 2019). His debut collection, Comprehending Forever, was a 2014 Editor’s Choice selection from Willow Books.

Rich is a 2020 New Jersey State Arts Council Fellow in Poetry and is the founder of La Cocina, an interactive event series and grassroots initiative fostering Latinx art, culture, and community in New York and New Jersey. He proudly serves as Program Coordinator for New York University's Prison Education Program.