For the last days of National Poetry Month, Bookmarked teamed up with the Academy of American Poets to highlight three of their 2024 Poet Laureate Fellows. The fellowships recognize laureates’ literary excellence while enabling them to undertake meaningful and innovative projects that enrich the lives of community members, including youth, through responsive and interactive poetry activities. Each participating fellow responded to questions from Academy Content Editor Nadra Mabrouk. Today’s post features Joseph Rios, poet laureate of Fresno, CA.
What inspired you most about bringing poetry to your community as a poet laureate fellow?
I became a poet because of other Fresno writers. It’s criminal to some, I know, but I used to fold books of poetry into my back pocket and carry them onto the bus and read them any chance I got. There’s an early anthology of Fresno poets called “Piecework” that traveled a lot of miles with me. My early experiences reading poetry made me see where I grew up with new eyes. This anthology and others like “How Much Earth” transformed my view of my hometown and sent me down a new path towards a life in poetry. I’m thinking about works by poets like Gary Soto, Juan Felipe Herrera, Luis Omar Salinas and others who found beauty in Fresno and in the surrounding valley. The landscape became a character and working people had a voice in a way I hadn’t seen till then. It has been over twenty years since there has been an anthology of contemporary Fresno poets. It has been a dream of mine for some time now to bring another collection of our poets into the world. That’s what we are doing right now. We aim to raise up the names of a new crop of poets already making a name for themselves in hope of inspiring others to follow.
How do you think your work changed the way your community engages with poetry, both now and in the future?
I can’t stress enough how much feeling seen in works of poetry changed my life. Fresno has a reputation of being in the middle of nowhere, of being backwards, and Hicksville USA. And, funny enough, that may be partly true, but that’s what gives our poets a chip on their shoulder. Only we can speak ill of our city, and we are willing to go to the mat to defend it. We are not perfect, but this place is beautiful and so are the people. We just don’t hear it enough, I think. With that in mind, I programmed and participated in dozens of readings and workshops during my time as poet laureate, and I hope that people saw themselves, their stories, their city as something worthy of the page. We have a lineage of poets where I’m from, and I’m not the first or last to write about Fresno. There is something emboldening about that notion. We poets are not alone in this endeavor. The outside world may not know us or care, but we have each other. We have a tradition. Many have looked upon this place and been compelled to write. If I accomplished anything, I hope I reminded people of this and I hope many poems came into being.
What partnerships were you most excited about when embarking on this project?
I am very excited to work with A is A publishers to bring our Fresno anthology to life. They are a small press in town with big dreams and the art book chops to back it up. I met Juan Karlo Muro and Vicente Velasquez in 2023 when we collaborated on an installation of José Montoya’s work at Arte Americas in downtown Fresno. Montoya’s poetry and his drawings opened up a conversation about the intersections of Fresno art making, activism, the working class and the open road. A Fresno poet laureate often acts as history teacher and a keeper of the stories of past poets. This work is never-ending, and I never grow tired of it. This anthology is just another part of that work. Our anthology is directly inspired by “Of Poetry and Protest,” a book of contemporary African American poets edited by Michael Warr. The book includes portraits of the poets and is a large format book, a coffee table size you might say. We aim to recreate this. The designers and I want to emphasize the book object and present the poetry and the poets in a way that begs for the book to stay off the shelf and to be on display.
How has being a poet laureate changed your own writing and how you approach poetry?
I come from a tradition of poets who wrote about immigrants, working people and working-class neighborhoods. In the poems the first person I is really a collective we. My experience has reinforced my belief in the utility and necessity of poetry in public life. Not everyone has to become a poet or devote their lives to it, no. However, I do believe there is a need for it, now as ever. Poetry has a way of getting to the root of things. It can validate one’s experience and feelings in a way that lets us know we are not alone in our suffering and even in our joy. In a way, poets are peddlers of empathy. The good poems make us see ourselves, our parents, our lovers and our neighbors in full light, faults and all. Then comes grace, I think. Forgiveness and love, if we are lucky.
Is there a laureate whose work influenced you and your project? How so?
I have the privilege of having been alive for two Fresno U.S. Poets Laureate in Juan Felipe Herrera and Philip Levine. I didn’t know Levine, but I have been able to spend time with Juan Felipe over the last few years. Juan Felipe is the Tata of Fresno Poetry. Grandfather of Fresno poetry is the direct translation, but in Spanish it is more of a term of endearment than that. I have been reading his work since I was in high school. Juan Felipe is a singular artist, a singular poet. I delight in every moment I get to spend with him. Every conversation with Juan Felipe is a lesson in how to bring more light into the world. Juan Felipe is light. He brought that light to his role as U.S. poet laureate along with a uniquely Juan Felipe-like grace, and he remained who he was before his appointment: a champion of migrants, working people, a champion of peace and radical love. The laureateship challenged me to think more about how poetry could serve others, serve a community, and could serve a city. I am grateful to have Juan Felipe’s example so near and close to me in my city. I strive to replicate even the smallest bit of magic he so freely brings us all.