WEBVTT

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OK one more, and
this is to welcome up

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Rose Brandt, the publicity
Manager at the U of A Press,

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which has published the Poetry
of Resistance Anthology.

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Rose is going to introduce
our speakers and our panelists

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tonight.

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Please help me
welcome Rose Brandt.

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[APPLAUSE]

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You never feel as
short in your life

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after coming up here
after Tyler, actually.

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Thank you.

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It's a tremendous honor
to be here tonight

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to introduce these
commanding poets,

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to see the power of poetry
and the power of poetry

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as a means of resistance
recognized and celebrated.

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Just six years after nine Latino
students chained themselves

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to the main doors of the
Arizona State Capitol in an act

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of civil disobedience to
Arizona Senate Bill 1070,

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Odilia Galván Rodríguez and
the late Francisco Alarcón came

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to us with an ambitious project.

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Alarcón's response to
these students' protest?

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A poem penned in English
and Spanish entitled

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For the Capitol Nine had
launched a Facebook page,

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Poets Responding to SB 1070.

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This page, really,
this community,

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grew to become a powerful
and dynamic forum

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for social justice.

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It provided a home for more than
3,000 original contributions

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from poets and artists
from around the globe.

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When Odilia and
Francisco brought

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us was what was to become
Poetry of Resistance,

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an anthology of more than
80 established and emerging

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writers that collectively
and powerfully articulates

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the need for change and the
primacy of basic human rights.

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Francisco Alarcón passed away
before having held this book

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in his hands.

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He was a poet who
lived beyond borders.

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His poetry straddled cultures
and bridged generations.

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His words are carried
on and the spark

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he ignited in the many
readers, fellow writers,

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and dreamers his life touched.

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This is true I know, for
the collection's co-editor,

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and his longtime friend
Odilia Galván Rodríguez,

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who has taken it upon herself to
see that Francisco's last work

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carries on.

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A community and a labor
organizer herself,

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Odilia Galván Rodríguez
worked for such organizations

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as the United Farm Workers
of America, and the AFL-CIO,

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in addition to being a poet,
editor and creative writing

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teacher.

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Her family were farm workers.

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Her father a steelworker.

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She grew up in the projects
on the South Side of Chicago,

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among people of all backgrounds
and all walks of life.

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In a recent interview
with Hip Latina,

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she talked about her
belief in solidarity

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and the importance of
not letting society

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divide us along color lines.

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She said we need to
be unified always,

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and we need to always be
learning about each other,

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and making family
with each other.

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I use my creative writing
like I did my organizing,

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to try to unite people.

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Rodríguez is the author
of four volumes of poetry.

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Her latest, The
Red Earth Calling,

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Cantos for the 21st Century.

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She also has her hand
in many projects,

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including curating "Love and
Prayers for Fukushima, Japan,

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World," a literary
blog she founded

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to highlight environmental and
social justice issues, as well

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as editing Cloud
Women's Quarterly,

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a journal of women's work
from indigenous spiritual

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traditions.

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Having lived in Cuba,
Brazil and Mexico,

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her work is truly rooted
in a global perspective

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and shows her
heartfelt dedication

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to justice in a world that has
become larger than borders.

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Called by Sandra Cisneros the
Pablo Neruda of North American

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authors, Martín Espada has been
a tenant lawyer, a bouncer,

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a factory worker and the desk
clerk at a transient hotel.

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But he has always been a poet.

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Espada was born in
Brooklyn, New York in 1957.

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His father, a
community organizer,

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founded the organization
East New York Action,

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and worked with the
Civil Rights movement,

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documenting the struggle
with his camera.

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Espada has said his
father's work in photography

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was attempting to
humanize the dehumanized.

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That's what you can do if
you're a photographer or a poet.

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Of his own work,
he has said, my job

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is to tell stories as
vividly as possible.

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To ground the
narrative and the image

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to the language of the
senses, so you can hear it,

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and taste it, and smell it.

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Often fusing the personal
and the political,

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his latest collection
of poems is called Vivas

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to Those Who Have Failed.

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Other books of poems include
The Trouble Ball, The Republic

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of Poetry, Alabanza,
Imagine the Angels of Bread,

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and Rebellion is the
Circle of a Lover's Hands.

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He has received the Shelley
Memorial Award, the Robert

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Creeley Award, the National
Hispanic Cultural Center

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Literary Award, the PEN/Revson
Fellowship and a Guggenheim

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Fellowship.

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His book, The Republic
of Poetry was a finalist

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for the Pulitzer Prize.

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The title poem of his
collection Alabanza, about 9/11,

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has been widely
anthologized and performed.

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His book of essays,
Zapata's Disciple,

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was banned in Tucson as part
of the Mexican-American studies

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program outlawed by
the state of Arizona,

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and has been issued
in a new edition

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by Northwestern
University Press.

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Espada is a professor of
English at the University

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of Massachusetts Amherst.

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Mari Herreras is a
fifth-generation Tucsonan,

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whose heart and soul
is happiest in Arizona

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with her poetry, her son and
partner, their cats, hiking

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and exploring, and her amazing
group of do-gooder friends

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and coworkers.

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She is a proud
contributor to the Poetry

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of Resistance anthology,
and the former managing

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editor of the Tucson Weekly.

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She now works as Director
of Organizing and Advocacy

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at the Stand Together Arizona
Advocacy and Training Center,

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with YWCA southern Arizona.

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Mari will lead us in--

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lead the conversation
with the poets

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before they read
from their work.

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But first, the poets will get
us started with a single poem.

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Please join me in
welcoming Mari Herreras,

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Martín Espada and
Odilia Galván Rodríguez.

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[APPLAUSE]