Writing Through Memory: Poetry, Trauma, and Identity

Featuring Dario Cvencek

Join us for an evening of poetry, conversation, and creative reflection with author Dario Cvencek, an immigrant poet from the Balkans.

Drawing from his poetry collection PTSD Martini, Dario Cvencek will share poems shaped by war, immigration, trauma, gun violence, and resilience, weaving together Balkan stories, Slavic folklore, and reflections on identity and belonging in America. Tender yet provocative, the collection explores survival, healing, and the emotional legacy of displacement.

The reading will continue with selections from Mirror Made of Words, a lyrical meditation on self-discovery, love, pain, growth, and transformation. Through vivid imagery and musical language, the poems navigate the search for meaning and self-acceptance while illuminating the emotional and philosophical struggles of the inner life.

Following the readings, the author will engage in a discussion with the audience on some of the collections’ most prominent themes, including trauma and recovery, immigrant identity, the role of memory and storytelling, emotional resilience, and poetry as a vehicle for healing and self-understanding. The evening will also include a brief guided writing workshop inviting participants to reflect on themes of memory, identity, resilience, and belonging through their own creative expression. Writers of all experience levels are welcome.

About the presenter: Dario Cvencek is an immigrant poet from the Balkans and a research scientist at the University of Washington. By day he studies how children construct identity. By night—or by whatever hour the poem arrives—he writes about war, trauma, displacement, and the slow, stubborn work of rebuilding a self in a new language. His words have appeared in Rattle, Zone 3, Hobart, and numerous other independent literary magazines and presses. His debut full-length collection “PTSD Martini” was published by Carbonation Press in 2025, with his follow-up collection “Mirror Made of Words” being released in 2026. He started writing poetry as a teenager during the Bosnian War. He has not stopped.

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