LAPL Blog
poet laureate
In my role as the City’s Poet Laureate, l issued a call to L.A.’s middle schools for students’ poems responding to the following questions: What location or site in the City means the most to you & why? What part of Los Angeles would you want to save forever?
As I indicated in the November 4 episode of Poems on Air, there are a slew of new or forthcoming poetry collections that I’m excited to add to my reading table.
One of the benefits of literature is that it allows the reader to empathize with the protagonists or—in the case of poets—with the themes and issues that concern them.
First, a number of greetings in the language of a few native peoples on this continent:
Yaa'teeh – “It is good” in Dine/Navajo
Kwira Va – “We are one” in Raramuri
Walk with the young, America;
be young, again, America,
among the defiant and awake,
solid in their dreams.
Be the revolution in the marrow
where passions, ideals, fervors,
purpose and courage,
are not just qualities
people had in history books,
When I received the call last September from Mayor Eric Garcetti that I’d been chosen as the new Poet Laureate of Los Angeles, I had to keep this quiet until the official announcement in October.