antmen pimentel mendoza is a writer and educator based in Oakland, California. antmen is the author of the chapbook MY BOYFRIEND APOCALYPSE (Nomadic Press, 2023; reprinted by Black Lawrence Press). Their poetry has appeared in Split Lip Magazine, New Delta Review, Cream City Review and is anthologized in Best New Poets. They have received support from the Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference, Kundiman, and the Vermont Studio Center and an MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University.
chapbook
Nomadic Press published MY BOYFRIEND APOCALYPSE in 2023. Following the press’ closure, Black Lawrence Press reprinted the chapbook.
With a disco ball as a north star, MY BOYFRIEND APOCALYPSE responds to the myriad, simultaneous apocalypses we are and are not surviving, from the everyday crises of being a body to the global emergencies of devastating climate change and unfettered white supremacy. These poems ask what it would be like to make out with the end of the world: Who slipped tongue first? Is the apocalypse a good kisser? Are you?
Buy MY BOYFRIEND APOCALYPSE from BLACK LAWRENCE PRESS.
poetry
BAKLABAYAN BOX: TONDO in CREAM CITY REVIEW, forthcoming.
Opposite of Hallelujah in FOUR WAY REVIEW, 2026.
Dead Air in NEW DELTA REVIEW, 2026.
Do You Like Games? and Meditations on Blood and Gratitude after the Doctor Congratulates Me on Losing Weight in FAULTLINE, forthcoming.
Solo Travel (Hans Men’s Sauna) and The Oil of Every Pearl or Poem Ending in a Trough at a Now Defunct Piss Play Party in & CHANGE, 2025.
A Hookup Explains His Planned Ouroboros Tattoo as I Contemplate Deleting All Photos of My Ex from My Phone in ANMLY, 2024.
A Stroll Through the Museum of My Gender Ending with a Minor Capitulation to Commodity Fetishism in THE QUARRY: A SOCIAL JUSTICE POETRY DATABASE by Split This Rock, 2023.
Eau D’Bedroom Dancing (I Learn from You) and After Campari Sodas and Modelo Especial, Before The Good Wife in DIODE POETRY JOURNAL, 2023
Self-Portrait in a Canadian Tuxedo on the Road to St. George, UT in SPLIT LIP, 2023 (Anthologized in BEST NEW POETS 2023)
Ode to the Durian Emoji, Though it is Yet to Exist and Olfactory Ode in MAYDAY MAGAZINE, 2023
Self-Portrait as Tschockes in the Bedroom My Love and I Share and Dear God (With Text Messages from the Author’s Father) in MILVIA STREET JOURNAL, 2023
Jhené Aiko Reads José Esteban Muñoz and Eats a Pluot in a Bathhouse in LIWANAG, VOL. 3 (SOMA Pilipinas, Kearny Street Workshop), 2022
Toward a Place in the World (Featuring the Queen of Wands’ Pet Cat) or a Poem in Which the Only Italicized Words Are a Joke About a Diana Ross Song in GIGANTIC SEQUINS, 2022
Nagladlad in APOGEE, 2021
The Takoyaki Vending Machines and I in PINE HILLS REVIEW, 2020
Ode to the Moon, the Earth’s Only Satellite, with Years of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in LANTERN REVIEW, 2020
The Gay Dads in the Milk Ad that Tells Me to “Love What’s Real” Consider a Gay Divorce in PEACH MAG, 2020
Carry in HOMOLOGY LIT, 2020
I Lean Into the Throat of Summer & Self-Portrait as the Potato that Flew around My Room in UNDERBLONG, 2020
On Grammar & Poem Named after the Grindr Notification Tone in COSMONAUTS AVENUE, 2019
press
“I Need to Feel Safe More Than I Need Forever: Poet antmen pimentel mendoza” with María Equinca in KQED, 2023
“Process Note #15: A Brief Note on Play” in PERIODICITIES blog, 2023
Interview featuring two poems, Family Portrait as a Deck of Cards & My College Boyfriend Really Liked Kill Bill, or “Not to weigh down one’s thoughts with the weight on one’s shoes” (after Nadja) in RADAR blog, 2020
recorded readings
APAture 2022: Autonomy—Voice: A Literary Arts Showcase, Kearny Street Workshop, October 28, 2022, San Francisco
National Poetry Month Reading, Apogee Journal, April 20, 2021, online
Interdisciplinary Writers' Lab, Kearny Street Workshop & Asian Art Museum, September 12, 2020, online