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Buenas noches.

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Good evening, everyone.

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It's good to be here on this
inaugural return, I guess.

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I want to thank you
all for being here.

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Thanks to Tyler,
Paola and Diana.

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In fact, to all the Poetry
Center and any university staff

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whose labor is invisible
to us here tonight,

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but whose work also went
into making this evening

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special for us.

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I'm especially grateful to
Diana whose invitation gave me

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the opportunity, gifted me the
opportunity to immerse myself

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in Laurie Ann Guerrero's
words, her poetry

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essays and her readings,
lyrical rootings in place

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over and across time.

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She's a lover of words.

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A kind of geo-choreographer
who in dancing on the page

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and on the stage moves us over
cultural landscapes, and time

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scapes, and territories
of the heart.

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Everyday histories
and history makers,

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she's elegantly attentive
to the elemental.

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She is, as so many of you
know, a poet, a gorgeous poet.

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She is also a grace giving
pedagogue whose pedagogy

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is an homenaje to
traditional home knowledges

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and our antepasados, our
elders, including the trees.

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Hers is a pedagogy
inflected with the spirit

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of those fierce feminists and
women of color mujeristas, who

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have long called us to
claim our education.

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An inspiration for all who
teach, and especially for those

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of us who are called
to teach at a land

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grant institution, an
Hispanic serving institution

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on unceded Indigenous
territories.

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She encourages her
writing students

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to understand that
they're not here

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to receive their education.

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No, she says.

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Rather, build upon the lessons
distilled through generations

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to give their own
inherent knowing

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in return in the name of
something far greater.

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For her, education
seems to imply

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a reciprocal relationship.

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There's hope in her pedagogy
and a deep, abiding respect.

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These words I've shared
with you are from her poem

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Between The Soil and The
Sun, where she also writes,

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"it's the history
in your hands."

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This line suggest each student
arrives with something to offer

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and whatever they hold on
to from their educational

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experience will be added
to what they arrived with,

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which to her is never nothing.

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Recognizing the
history in your hands

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is another way to
honor our abuelitos,

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our abuelitas as the makers,
the holders of history,

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historical actors in and from
our own homes, our comunidades.

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This poem appears alongside
two other poems whose authors

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are first generation students.

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Zine writers, new poets, this is
another mark of Laurie's work.

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Expansive and elegant.

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She makes space
through her words

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and her actions for the
emergent, the everlasting,

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and the everyday.

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Her poetry highlights
tracings from the past that

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linger imperceptibly
sometimes, but she reminds

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us that's with us still.

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She says be ready to cough up
songs, corridos plucked first

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by a revolutionary whose gun
smoke you wear in your hair.

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Such sensual imagery.

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She writes of the spoken and
sometimes unspoken, but ever

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present lingering wisdom
of our antepasados.

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You hear that so
clearly in her words.

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The grandmothers know
what the trees know,

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but they're not speaking either.

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Her work makes
place based meaning.

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It probes the contradictions
of different memorializations.

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In How To Sacrifice
Your Son she writes,

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"kiss the tiny fingers
he'll wrap around triggers

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made for killing boys."

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These words, connected to the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial,

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untethered, float as admonitions
for this moment, too.

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She notes in part 4 of
Stealing The Crown: Sonnet

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as Reconciliation that by
writing she learns who she is.

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I believe in us
reading her work,

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we can get closer to who we are.

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It's a pleasure, a
delight, and honor

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to introduce Laurie
Ann Guerrero to you

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tonight, born and raised in
the south side of San Antonio.

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She's the author of Babies Under
The Skin, A Tongue in the Mouth

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of the Dying, A
Crown for Gumecindo,

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a collaboration with visual
artist Marceo Montoya,

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and I Have Eaten
the Rattlesnake.

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She holds a BA in
English language

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and literature from Smith
College, and an MFA in poetry

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from Drew University.

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She's an associate professor
and the writer in residence

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of at Texas A & M San Antonio.

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In 2014, she was appointed poet
laureate in the city of San

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Antonio by former
Mayor Julián Castro.

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She was shortly after
appointed poet laureate

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of the state of Texas.

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And I'm sad that Diana
stole this from me.

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Maybe I stole it from her.

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I don't-- we'll have to
battle that out some time,

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but Laurie Ann Guerrero
is in two words bad ass.

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Please join me in
welcoming Laurie Ann.

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[APPLAUSE]

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