Chibbi (all pronouns) is a Mexican-born, Texas-raised queer poet, performer, host, and coach with two decades on the slam stage. A two-time APCA Spoken Word Artist of the Year (2024, 2025) and three-time San Antonio Grand Slam Champion, they have placed in the top three at national slams, including third at the 2017 National Poetry Slam Group Piece Competition with the PuroSlam team they coached and performed with, and second at the 2022 Southern Fried Poetry Slam. In 2026 they won the first-ever hosting slam at the Right 2 Write Poetry Slam Festival in Dallas, a competition that judged the hosts instead of the poets.
Chibbi founded Laredo BorderSlam in 2010 and was a founding member of Write About Now in Houston, one of the most-watched poetry stages in the country. They have hosted stages for the Texas Grand Slam, the Southwest Shootout, Southern Fried, and the Stonewall International Poetry Slam Festival. Their performances have been featured by Button Poetry, All Def Poetry, BuzzFeed, and We Are Mitú, earning millions of views.
They wrote, performed, and produced the spoken word album The Target Shoots Back (2025), are the author of OTRO/PATRIA, and co-edited Contra: Texas Poets Speak Out. They are the founder of Gem.In.Eyes Productions and Editor-in-Chief of Write About Now Publishing, a press dedicated to poets emerging from slam, and they host the Puro Pinche Podcast.
Find them at linktr.ee/gemineyes and @gemineyes on Instagram.
