In the summer of 2009, Deborah Paredez joined fellow Tejana/o poets, Norma E. Cantú, Celeste Mendoza, Pablo Miguel Martínez, and Carmen Tafolla around Norma's kitchen table and dreamed of a world where Latinx poets could regularly gather in a community of creative inspiration and mutual support. They dreamed of and then set about building a "song-world," a canto-mundo, and by the next summer they were hosting their first writing retreat for Laitinx poets
CantoMundo is a national organization that cultivates a community of Latinx poets through workshops, symposia, and public readings. Founded in 2009, CantoMundo hosts an annual poetry workshop for Latinx poets that provides a space for the creation, documentation, and critical analysis of Latinx poetry
CantoMundo's first gathering convened in 2010 at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In an effort to serve poets across the country, CantoMundo has held workshops in various locations including: University of Texas at Austin (2011-2016), Columbia University (2017-2019), and University of Arizona Poetry Center (2020-2021). CantoMundo has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Academy of American Poets, the University of Texas's Center for Mexican American Studies, Columbia University's Division of Arts and Sciences, the Poetry Foundation, and the Poetry Coalition.