poet laureate

Pages

Colorful photo illustration with text Youth Poets
Lynne Thompson, July 13, 2022

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?


Collage of poetry books
Lynne Thompson, November 17, 2021

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.


collage of poetry book covers
Lynne Thompson, May 18, 2021

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.


Luis Rodriguez
Luis J. Rodriguez, October 11, 2016

Let us dare haunting verse of the oppressed,

poems with hoodies, finger-tapping, ambling.

I mean pissed off and ardently expressed,

poems delirious as midnight rambling.

Bebop, Hip Hop, a decima or slam,


Tia Chucha's Cultural Center & Bookstore's mural depicting the tree of life, the masculine/feminine generating principles of the world, and the wholeness of self, community, earth, and spirit.
Luis J. Rodriguez, August 18, 2016

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


Los Angeles Poet Laureate Luis J. Rodríguez and his wife Trini.
Luis J. Rodriguez, July 29, 2016

Ideas of racial/cultural purity or superiority are alive and well in the United States. These are oppressive, non-biological, and unnatural concepts, pushed on us like other lies and illusions in our society. This wouldn’t matter much except people believe them.


Luis J. Rodriguez, June 18, 2016

In the aftermath of the Pulse nightclub massacre, Orlando, Florida, June 12, 2016

By Luis J. Rodriguez

 

Hate becomes death becomes hate.

The world unravels in fear.

 

Columbine: 13 students and a teacher gone.


North Carolina's Great Smoky Mountains. Photo by Henry Hooper.
Luis J. Rodriguez, May 21, 2016

North Carolina has some of the most diverse terrain of any state—from the Great Smoky Mountains, which includes the Blue Ridge peaks of the massive Appalachian mountain range, to the Outer Banks on the Atlantic coast. The state is rich in bio-diversity, history, and people.


1994 photo of Luis Rodriguez and his then 19-year-old son Ramiro.
Luis J. Rodriguez, April 19, 2016

Any good craftsman carries his tools.
Years ago they were always at the ready.
In a car. In a knapsack.
Claw hammers, crisscrossed heads,


Pages

Top