[APPLAUSE]
Welcome back.
[LAUGHS]
It's awesome to be back.
Thank you, Tyler.
I just want to acknowledge the moment that we're in.
I prepared this talk or sort of introduction to the book,
but I want to acknowledge that much of what I would like to say
will go unsaid, and the hope is that we
can continue to lean into how we can best say the things that we
need to, in this particular moment that we all know--
is, again, I'm going to use the word unprecedented,
but unprecedented and also dangerous.
Good evening, everyone.
Thank you so much for joining us tonight.
It's an honor to share space with you
and the three remarkable poets who have traveled to Tucson,
Arizona to help us celebrate the first of many launch events
for Like a Hammer: Poets on Mass Incarceration.
It's important to recognize the special community that
made this anthology possible through resources, attention,
support, and guidance.
My heartfelt gratitude goes to Haymarket Books
and the entire team there, especially poet and editor
at large Maya Marshall, Kima Jones at Triangle Literary,
Kathie Klarreich from Exchange for Change,
who provides writing and communication-based learning
to students incarcerated in South Florida, prisons
and jails.
Tyler Meier.
Tyler Meier and the entire Poetry Center team,
including with the highlight to Paola Valenzuela, who
sat with me valiantly in the Poetry Center library one
day as we both asked our ancestors to guide us.
The Art for Justice Fund and the Community Openers
for the Art for Justice Ambassador Readings, Joe Watson,
Reginald Dwayne Betts, founder and director of Freedom Reads.
And lastly, all of the poets who generously
contributed their time, hearts, and minds to this anthology.
Where I'm from, the town of La Puente in the San Gabriel
Valley, we don't talk about trauma.
We talk about the gloves the neighbor put on her son
during his wake to conceal marks left by a rival gang.
We talk about money, and whether there's
enough to allow my dad to attend his mother's
funeral in shackles.
We listen as brothers, one of whom entered prison at 15
and served more than a decade in the California
Department of Corrections, wonder from one end of a phone
line about an upcoming release and whether Home Depot
hires felons.
This anthology is deeply personal to me,
not just as its editor, but as someone whose life and poetry
has been profoundly shaped by the criminal justice system.
My first book, Tracing the Horse,
delves into the San Gabriel Valley
of my youth, a place where many people I grew up
with went to prison, spent time in prison,
visited someone in prison, or might never leave prison.
At eight years old, maybe even younger,
I found myself sitting in a holding cell alongside my mother
and brother, arrested after my mother did something very
benign, like sell weed or something like that,
to undercover officers.
And whether I realized it then or not,
that moment, marked by uncertainty and fear,
shaped my lifelong exploration of writing about power,
resilience, and survival.
This anthology emerges from that same urgency.
The necessity to speak openly about our collective trauma,
to acknowledge the realities of Black
and brown communities disproportionately impacted
by mass incarceration, and to use poetry as a means
of amplifying our survival and our resistance.
Tonight, we are honored to hear from three key poets featured
in this anthology, part of the 36 poets
whose works appear in the book, 15 of whom
are still behind bars.
Roque Raquel Salas Rivera's work is
critical in tracing the origins of the carceral system,
illuminating our increasing desensitization
to ongoing injustices.
Vanessa Angélica Villarreal's poetry
profoundly future-oriented confronts detention centers
that remain active and threaten to expand
unless we understand and act upon their interconnectedness.
Sin à Tes Souhaits' poetry vividly
portrays the day-to-day realities
faced by individuals navigating life outside incarceration,
societal stigmas reflected in how we speak, dress, and fear,
and fundamentally, how we move through this world.
The poems you'll hear tonight interrogate our flawed justice
system.
Challenge us to envision a life beyond prisons
and affirm our shared humanity in profound ways.
Through these poet's words we're reminded
that art isn't merely reflective, it's transformative.
Poetry can and will shift perspectives, build empathy,
and mobilize us toward more meaningful reform.
This anthology, when I began it, was so confusing to me
that I had no idea what to do with the hundreds of poems
that I had to look through.
And there was a moment when I could not figure it out
because I had been reviewing all of these other anthologies,
and, of course, in a style that is
I think, just specifically mine, I said well
I'm not gonna do it that way.
And the publisher said at some point,
well, that's how the anthologies work.
And I said no, this is going to be
a book that I'm going to ask everyone
to read from beginning to end.
You're going to read it like a story,
and it's a story about the America's carceral system.
The anthology intentionally structured
to be read from front to back, mirrors
the cyclical and perpetual nature of the carceral system.
I organized it this way as I envisioned our circumstances
coming full circle, culminating with one
of the earliest and most painful historical abuses of the justice
system--
the execution of a young George Stinney Jr.
The anthology also includes a study guide
to encourage deeper exploration and conversation
around these critical issues.
And additionally, as Tyler mentioned,
I co-produce films with the Brinkerhoff Foundation Films
that are currently available to support and extend the dialogue
surrounding mass incarceration.
Tonight, I invite you not just to listen, but to allow yourself
to imagine a future in which we replace
bars and shackles with understanding, healing,
and critical justice.
Through stories and actions, we have the power
to change our future.
I want to remind everyone that we do not need to be experts,
we do not need to have all of the answers at the outset,
but we must allow ourselves to feel deeply for one
another, which I believe is the true purpose of art.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]