 Good evening everyone. I'm Ramiro Salazar, Director of the San Antonio Public Library. It's my pleasure to extend to all of you a very warm welcome on behalf of all the staff of the San Antonio Public Library and the Library Board of Trustees. We're very happy to be hosting this event here and in our auditorium. I'm looking forward to a very wonderful program. I wanted to indicate that this event has been, from my perspective, I'm going to describe it the way I, when it was described to me. So I'll characterize it as the labor of love. There's a lot of collaboration through library friends and advocates of the library and of literature. I would like to recognize Sheila Black and the staff from Gemini Inc. for their participation in tonight's event. Sheila, I know you're one of the principal architects of the event this evening and thank you so much for your assistance. Sheila will be coming up shortly after I complete my introductory remarks. I would also like to recognize NalCast and Charlotte Ann Lucas. Who is not only videotaping and streaming to tonight's event and it will be made available in their archives for those folks that were not able to make it. They will be able to experience this program later on by accessing the archives and NalCast. But Charlotte Ann, thank you so much for being our partner. Thank you so much for supporting programs such as these that are important to the community. I would also like to thank the San Antonio Public Library Foundation and the Friends of the San Antonio Public Library. Those are two key stakeholder groups, support groups for the San Antonio Public Library. They help us bring programs such as programs like these to the community. So we are extremely grateful to the library foundation and the Friends of the San Antonio Public Library for allowing us in supporting with funds to bring these programs to the community. Lastly, I would like to thank our state co-edloguer, Dr. Carmen Tafuea. I understand, Carmen, that you're the other architect of this program and that you and Sheila worked very hard to envision it and then bringing it together. So thank you so much for that and for your participation later on in the program. I'd like to recognize a couple of folks here in the audience. I'll start with the chair of the Library Board of Trustees, Paul Stahl. Thank you, Paul, for being here. I also want to recognize Bryce Milligan. For a couple of reasons. One, we have an exhibit of Wings Press in our gallery. Wings Press is celebrating 40 years and we're helping by providing the venue for their celebration. And so Bryce, congratulations and thank you so much for your efforts. The other thing I was visiting with a friend of ours and it was communicated to me that Bryce and others were responsible for starting this notion of the Latino collection. And so it'll give me an opportunity to talk to you about a very very special project, a project that's very dear to me. And when I see all of you here gathered for this wonderful literary program, it gets me even more excited of getting this project accomplished. We're creating a Latino collection. Well, the Latino collection already exists. We're creating a very special place for the Latino collection. It's currently in the sixth floor. We would like to bring it down to the first floor and we are in the process of racing plans to transform the space that was formerly occupied by the teen library. We're going to create a very special space that will allow for these types of programs, so we can host these types of programs, to have authors and literary champions like Garmin and others, Dr. Tafoya and others, to inspire youth, to inspire emerging writers, to provide spaces for scholars in residence, for researchers to be able to access the Latino collection and be inspired by the Latino collection. And it will also have a space for gallery. And so we're very excited that we are with the help of the Library Foundation and supporters like you, that we will be creating this space so that we can have not only a Latino collection, but that it has a very special home as well. So tonight we're here to celebrate the power of poetry. Poetry tells the stories of our shared past, the wonder of our present and the unknown of our future. Poetry inspires and empowers. Poetry can transform communities and change lives. Programs like tonight's event serve as a reminder of the importance of cultivating creativity and inspiration in the community. As I mentioned before, this event has been a collaboration of many, but primarily two individuals. And one of those, of course, is the head of Gemini Inc. And it's my pleasure to invite to the podium, Sheila Black. And I feel as if I'm going to hide behind the podium because I'm a lot shorter than anyone else in the room. It's my great honor tonight to be here, first of all, but secondly, H.E.B. in the verse. I actually wrote Charles Butte a letter every year Gemini Inc produces a fine rare a fine chapbook made of handmade paper. I can hear it. Is this better? I could almost speak without it, honestly. We every year we honor a literary figure of San Antonio. Some of our past honorees have been John Philip Santos, Carmen Tefoya, Nan Cuba, Abraham Perjese and others who have lived and worked in San Antonio. And we make a handmade limited edition chapbook that's done with a letter press. And it's very hand sewn on and very rare. And it's my great honor tonight. And I didn't even bring the whole collection because I was worried I'd destroy some of the bigger ones carrying them over here to present that entire collection to the San Antonio Public Library. This contribution was funded through the generosity of Charles Butte and H.E.B. And we're really delighted. And also it doesn't end every year we do a new book and every year from here on out, we give you a copy. Yay. Now, I am especially delighted tonight while trying not to get too close to this microphone to be celebrating our Texas poet laureate, Carmen Tefoya. I've known Carmen ever since the second week I came here three and a half years ago. And I thought then San Antonio was the luckiest city in the country to have a poet laureate like Carmen. And now I think Texas, which has not always been fortunate in its elected officials, is the luckiest state in the union to have somebody as passionate, as open-hearted, as generous and as utterly convinced of the power of the imagination to transform our lives as my friend and everyone's friend who meets her, Dr. Carmen Tefoya. So I am going to introduce her to the states right now to begin the program. And we're going to open with a video tribute of one of her, my favorite of Carmen's poems, Survival Instructions. But first, she's going to tell you a few words about her signature project as poet laureate called, and this is such a great title, Planting Poet Trees. Thank you and thank you all community. I'd say the community of San Antonio, but actually we have people here from Laredo and from some of the other regions, so thank you all for being here and thank you for being such a beautiful community. From San Marcos, Austin, you are the heart of this state and I think this state right now is the heart of this nation. They used to say where Texas goes, so goes the nation, but now they're saying where San Antonio goes, so goes Texas. So that puts us all right at the heart of something very important that's happening. I'm very pleased to be a little part of that. The state poet laureate position is not always as much fun as the city poet laureate position. Don't tell them, those guys in the legislature, but the city really comes together as a community and they really celebrated the poetic arts in a very cohesive way, but the state poet art position is one that is up to the poet laureate, you know, come to the Senate and the House of Representatives and we recognize you and put a little crown of laurels on your head or whatever, give you a little declaration and bye, good luck. We'll see the next one, you know, the next round in two years. Don't bug us until, you know, we'll bug you. And one of the things that I wanted to do was use that state poet laureate position as a platform to bring poetry to the schools that would not be able to bring poets in. There are some schools that have tons of money. There's a few of them. There's some universities that have a ton of money that can bring in a poet laureate anytime they want to, but there are some schools that never get that opportunity. They're struggling too hard to pay their teachers and to buy some books for their library and I wanted to reach those schools. So I talked to my dean at UTSA in the College of Education, Dr. Betty Merchant and she supported it. She not only gave me the permission to stop teaching college classes for a year so I could go teach at public schools, but she also dug into her education budget to provide some monies to help the travel expenses to get to different parts of the state. H.E.B. gave $2,000. We had individual poets that Esa Palomo Acosta who said, I can give you 500 bucks if you take it like 200 here and 200 there and 100 in the last one. And so that we could buy poetry books for libraries so that we could go to schools and present poetry to children throughout the state. And we've had the first round of schools selected. The second round is until November 21st, so if you're interested to November 21st midnight, you can go on Facebook under, I think it's under Tavoya Poet Trees, because planting was too long to get into that title. But in the first round we selected seven schools. Four of those schools are from San Antonio and I know that at least two of them are here tonight. I'm going to start with the ones I don't know if they're here. And that is Roosevelt High School. Anybody give them Roosevelt? Stand up and cheer. And Cameron, oh no, do we have Cameron Elementary in the house? No. The two schools that we know that aren't here tonight are Hausmann Elementary. Stand up, Hausmann. Wave at us. And Hillcrest Elementary. Stand and be recognized. These people care enough about their school to want their kids to have a poet come in and work with them and help them develop their own poetry and submit their poetry to a statewide anthology work. So I'm just very, very proud and grateful to all of you. And I encourage you, if you know people in other parts of the state that would like to have a poet come to their school, tell them to get on and make an application. It's quick and it's short. Thank you. And now we're ready for the video tribute survival instructions. And this is a medley of dramatic presentations by Nowcast. Let's enjoy it. And if I knew how to press the button, I would. All spirits pray that spark her skin and all of the kind. Her eyes bright stars in October's dark sky, arms principle as we do for all Frenchies. But when she unravels her hair, that long, dark wave of a river winding, winding right through our hearts, pouring right through our dreams, that's when she sings. My name is Thaddeus Paportus. I'm a surprising people, Ms. Brownster. It's been nothing more in my life. All the way through school, we have all the teachers speaking English and all the teachers speaking Spanish. And I'm a little kind of interested in this, but I'm not seeing any. But while I look at it, Maria, while I look at it, she got called Mary Bedouin. It's a simple assignment. It's saying, hey, and there was a sense, Jesus, we have to change that. How about Jesse's that everyone loves? I mean, teachers feel smarter than kids who also have that kind. It's going to have to be an enormous effect for all of us, you know. They're doing it for the kind of outside needs, right? They're going to work at it, you know. The teacher looked on to us and she said, Sandra Smith, George Taff, Carmen, Tafolo, is that how you pronounce your name? It's Tafoya. Okay, so I come back to the next day and she'd say, Sandra Smith, George Taff, Carmen, Tafolo, is that how you pronounce your name? You know what I mean? It's Tafoya. I come back the next day and she'd say, Sandra Smith, George Taff, Carmen, Tafio, is that how you pronounce your name? You know what I mean? It's Tafoya. Okay, so one day she catches me out in the hall and she says, now, how do you pronounce your name? He said, Tafoya. The double L in Spanish is pronounced like a Y. And she said, oh, I get it, like tortilla and ventilla. And I said, yes. And I came to class the next day. I was so excited. She went down the list. Sandra Smith, George Taff, Carmen, Tafoya. She was making a little progress. I'm a writer today. I've seen the word Tafoya in at least two of my book titles. And when you look up Carmen, Tafoya on the internet, you find me. I was on the West Side, in San Antonio, Dubai. And I look back on it now and realize that we had an incredible wealth of experience. It was always hard for me growing up to identify with the images that we had, extremely, whatever I was supposed to be because I didn't feel deprived. I didn't feel it was a slum. I didn't feel it was a ghetto. I felt it was a fiesta full of all kinds of frimos and abuelos and fias and fias. It was a life full of guantos. My early experiences were not that different from anyone else's in the West Side of San Antonio. And yet each one of us has a unique experience. Each one of us has something that happened that didn't happen to the person next door. I think about those things. What was it that helped me tell my culture? Was it my grandmother? The fact that she loved to tell stories was the fact that my mother would always take a pen and a paper or a pencil, whatever she would get, and try to write down her stories. And maybe even in letters that she would write her sisters that looked far away. She'd try and write them and capture her own experiences. Was it the fact that my father always told me stories about his mother, a grandmother that died when I was one year old, and he would say, mi mamá siempre decía. No hay sábado sin sol, mi domingo sin nice. Dime con quién anda, si te diré quién eres. He always had dichos that he said, mi mamá siempre decía. My mother always said. And so I grew up saying, my grandmother always said, no hay sábado sin sol, and this was a grandmother that died when I was one year old, and I felt I knew her because of the stories that my father told about her. I knew her through him. We're here, at Mission San Jose, one of the five missions that have just been declared World Heritage sites by UNESCO. This is a very significant moment inside of San Jose. It's an opportunity for something really wonderful to happen, but it's also a possibility that it's going to be less than wonderful to happen. It's very hard for us to move away from a Eurocentric perspective. A perspective that says that all civilization came from Europe. It's very easy for us to praise the Spanish missionaries who came to San Antonio and established the Presidio in 1718 and the missions thereafter. It's very easy for us that San Antonio history begins in 1718 with the arrival of the Spanish conquerors or colonials, however you would like to put it. But if we do that, we miss a chance to understand why the missions are here. The Spaniards were not the first residents of San Antonio because the missions were colonizing somebody and those somebody's had been here for 10 to 12,000 years. It's very important to remember that this is not just an economic opportunity. A chance to develop our missions into money-making ventures, but that it's a chance to change the way we look at San Antonio history and world history and to respect the indigenous peoples that were here and that in San Antonio's instance still are here. Now we may have the last names Garcia or Lopez, Sanchez or Tapoya, but we represent the direct descendants of the people who built these missions and who built civilizations and settlements here before the arrival of Europeans. It's important in today's world to not disrespect those people who still live here and to wipe out their neighborhoods. We saw this happen once before, right before Hemisphere in what was called urban renewal in which in our bios we begin to call Mexican removal and some of our neighborhoods especially near downtown and in the south side of town are beginning to feel that they are being wiped away again, chased far out of town because they can't afford to keep living there. The original settlers, the original owners, the original inhabitants of this city, whether you call it San Antonio or whether you call it Yanahuas, the indigenous, these are magic. We can walk right through the American History textbook and poof, we disappear. It's like people don't even notice when we're here at all. You go up those centuries of letting us be here and people still look at us and say, oh you're Latino, where do you come from? I come from the United States. Yes, but what do you mean like before you cross the border? I didn't cross the border. No, but like before your parents crossed the border, they didn't cross the border. Well, before your grandparents crossed the border. No, we were Mexicans, we didn't cross the border, the border crossed us, we were here. The Mexican Americans have at least two different cultural backgrounds. The newcomers were the Spanish that got here like in the 15th century. The other side of the family was here already. Oh, but that's impossible. The United States didn't even exist and I say exactly. And the part of my family that was here already, they were life walking all around on this ground before you guys said that Columbus discovered America. We were standing here, we were walking all around on the top of this ground, we didn't even know it was here. We had to wait until somebody from Europe came and told us it's here. Oh my goodness, thank you so much. I'm so glad you discovered us. We didn't know we were walking around on top of it and didn't even know America was right here below our noses. We didn't know it was here at all. Well, now we know why Carmen's our premier storyteller. And so she's going to come up on stage with a dance by the fabulous Annette Flores that we will now enjoy a reading of The Storykeeper. Thank you. I'm always flattered and very honored to be able to work with Annette Flores. The granddaughter of El Curro and Teresa Champion, one of the families that's influenced our music and our awareness of heritage and there's a beautiful picture of her displayed outside. I didn't mention, but one of the reasons why I suggested poetry to the Pueblo as a title was that we wanted to celebrate that poetry can have an impact and have all the involvement of the community. But it can also have an impact on different artistic genres, on dance, on the music that you will hear from Asul on film, as you saw, and on theater with our wonderful spoken word performers and also on the visual arts. And outside there's a display of artwork by wonderful, wonderful artists and all the variety, everything from posters for the bus, illustrations to a book, beautiful oil paintings, and we have some of the artists with us here this evening. Coming all the way from Laredo, Raquel Valles and Ties, would you stand so we can applaud you? She has a beautiful series of Chicano writers that I'm dying to work with her on developing into a book about some of the Chicano writers and their work and with these beautiful oil paintings in which she has captured a lot of the spirit of the people that were writing with the Chicano movement and Viana. Also we have with us Delma Ortiz Muraida, my comadre, Delma would you stand. We see two of her works out there. One is an illustration from inside the book, Corandero, which has now been banned in Arizona which means everybody wants to get a hold of it to find out what nasty things are in there. And also a poster, very first point poster that I did was called Voyage and that is displayed out there as well. And we have with us David Hernandez from Mexico City. I told you about Laredo, I told you about Mexico City. And David has two paintings, two pieces of art out there. One is a poster to the poem, Ayí por la calle San Luis and the other is the poem postcard that was made for the via metropolitan transit because they wanted it to be read at their board of directors meeting. And so anyway, take some time to look around at the photographs of Annette and at the school and at the paintings to say hi to the artists and thank them as well. So this poem is called The Storykeeper Instructions from an Historian. In the harros, she says, look in the harros, the ones forgotten or shoved aside with a broken clay lip and color dulled by years of hard use and unmeditated abuse. Search between the foals of rags, the places no one else would look. Often they are there hiding. Look in the garage, in the dark corners, sometimes they are undiscovered, silent in the tecorucho sheds out back or dumped in the alley wiped away from our lives for the trash to take. Others hoarded like treasures, the holder fears to reveal wrapped in a homemade colcha in a wooden box under the bed. In the viejitos eyes, in the twilight of death, you read their secret. The eyes point you to the spot, stamp remember on the almost forgotten box and plead with you to be the keeper of the story. To open the box, unwrap the colcha carefully, save the scrawled story, protect it as best you can. Look in the places where ink does not show, in the breaking voice between the lines of a song. Our history is written in that song, written on the voice, sometimes written on the heart. Look at the hands, the way the woman crosses herself when she passes a certain feel. Everyone knows the story of what happened there late that night, 90 years ago. Everyone knows, but it is not written. The paragraphs of dangling bodies were too long, too ugly to be written. The sentences like unfinished lives, too short to make sense. The letters of the word spelled out distorted incomprehensible like mutilation of body parts that started out in belleza and truth. Look at the way she holds the masa with both hands, protecting, feeling it's warmth, memorizing the moment for just a second before it's split apart into many tortillas. Each to go their own way, some consumed rapidly, some wasted, some disappeared, never to be seen again. In her gestures, her hesitations, her sigh of mourning, lie our history. Ask the whispers, she whispers, breathed out in unguarded moments when the soul is too tired to think the body too worn down to hurt more in the numbness of the night. When the father wrestles with the unwritten history, pleading to save it, speak it, bury it, staring at the pluma across the room, avoiding the paper, singing the Indian chant of a story he will not tell his children yet. They're too young, only 10 or 16 or 36. Wait, wait, he prays. I'm here for them to know what those hate-filled others did to my grandfather. They are too young, perhaps I too, at only 60, and too young to know, too old to forget. Ask the whispers, she chants, learn the chant, sing it slow and privately like he, a sacred song to be sung at only sacred moments. Look in the footwells of our steps, the table corners rubbed smooth, the marks on the walls where we have lived, the fine and tired stitches in the clothing soared and mended, the careful fold of the shuck on the tamale, the thumbprint curves of crepe paper flowers trying to make canta out of yores. Learn to read the eyes, the hands, the spine. You must be like a detective or a spy, subtle, unnoticed, unrelenting, for they are out there our stories, to be read in the tracks of tears now made into wrinkles on the face. In the scars we carry with pride, in the grocery list marked with crayon on a junk mail funeral home advertisement. In the Western Union telegrams of money sent home to Mexico. In the eviction notices sent people whose address has stayed the same for 150 years, you must be persistent, courageous, go quickly, urgently, go into the dark corners, unveil our treasures from the attic, go find it here, touch it, write it down. This is how we keep our history. This is how we also keep our soul. And for this poem be recognized early historians, Antonia Castanera, Dr. Antonia Castanera, she's the inspiration for this poem, she's the historian who told me our story isn't in the history books, it's in the songs, it's in the people's faces, it's in their lives. Thank you, Antonia. One definition of a poem that I love is that a poem is a message in a bottle, destination, anyone in the world. And I think that poems set to music are especially that way. They seem to become the voice under and inside us all and we're very lucky tonight to have Azul singing songs based on poems by Carmen and isn't that the perfect name for a great singer, Azul? Welcome. When this beautiful challenge was given to me I was a little hesitant on how to make justice to these beautiful poems and I decided to do a couple of, well, two of my favorites. This is my other favorite, which is called Me llamo soledad. We're back. I'm here. I'm Carmen Tefoya. I'm Eduardo Garza. That way you don't get the two of us confused. And we're going to be doing a little composite of three poems in two voices. And we're going to be doing a little composite of three poems in two voices. Sometimes three. Maybe four. Yeah, right. San Antonio, this is what is ours. As we walk down through the centuries, through el mercado and feel our heritage seeping up through the dirt. At el mercado. The farmer's market. You're here. All ready to be cured with little grains of rice. Velvet pictures for your living room senora. Just look at this magnificent tiger here. Or here. Jesus with his crown of thorns. Or President Kennedy. He was so good to us Mexicanos. Get it for your comadre. The ones that's so involved in the neighborhood meetings. Excuse me. Do you have some breros, those great big ones, you know? Chiles. And at a good price. Chilepetin. Chileserranos. Jalapenos. Chile colorado. All ground up already. Excuse me. Are these hot? It feels so hot already. It's bugging me. My father used to call these days la canicula. The dog days. Y la tencha. Why isn't she here today? Did she miss her ride? Is that her brother? The one that lives with her. He went to the social security office so he could get paid his retirement. And that they can't pay him, they say because his boss hadn't taken out anything for social security after 40 years. And that his chest is hurting him, but he doesn't want to go to the doctor because he doesn't have the conque, you know, the weight, what? And he's still not 65 for the Medicare. So he just kept quiet and he took it and he didn't complain no more. No. That guy never complains. Is it far from here to the Alamo? Baya. And that yesterday, when tencha gets home with that big old mountain of paper flowers in her arms, you know, the ones that she sells and getting those likes so much. Well, I'm getting inside the door loaded down with everything and not seeing what was there, that she stumbles on the body of her brother on the floor. She falls on top of him con flowers y todo. And the poor guy did her naive. Que la tencha feels like dying of pain. Why didn't she make him go to the doctor and pay it for him? You know, and let him down payments or something like the layaway at the store. So I'm feeling bad, poor thing. What a shame, hombre. Yeah. Poor tencha. Listen, if you go by her house, bring me the flowers and whatever else she has to sell and I'll sell them for her here. So the poor thing has for her expenses. Okay, mano. And you know what? The corn and the fruit that I don't sell today, I'll take it to her. After all, tomorrow's another load. Yeah. Tomorrow is another load. Ay, así es la vida. That's life. Sí, así es la vida. That's life. Well, Cajetes, all ready to be cured with little grains of rice. This is what surrounds you. It surrounds you. It's right here, aquí. Aquí, aquí mero. He wanders through the crooked streets that mimic riverbeds from long ago and breeze the anxious air in traffic that's filled with tension left from the quivering bow strings in woods under attack. She shops the windows happy where the stalking once was curled and her kitchen floor is built on bones of venison once Jeffy roasted. It's a good place for a party. He concurs to his friends now dressed in jeans. The ground was already beat smooth and festive by the joy of ancient dances. They feel the warmth and yet don't know their soul is filled with the spirit of Cajetes past. Walking through the west side breathing our history, our cultura. This is what feeds your soul, San Antonio. This is what feeds you. What takes your tomates and makes your tacos and feeds your soul. Feeding you. Alimentándote like a mother speaking to her child. Dear me, slip chile under your skin secretly wrapped in each enchilada hot and soothing. Carefully cut into bitefuls for you as a toddler increasing in power and intensity as you grew until it could burn forever. De metido chile debajo de tu piel descretamente envuelto en cada enchilada caliente y calmante. Cuidadosamente cortada en mordiditas cuando eres pequeñín aumentando en poder y potencia según crecías hasta que pudiera quemar para siempre. Silently spiced into the rice soaked into the bean caldo smooth into the avocado. I have slipped chile under your skin dropped my fiery drop until it ignited the sun altar fire in your blood. Like a prayer silenciosamente y oviznado en el arroz enjuagado en el caldo de frijol emparejado en el avocado yo he metido chile debajo de tu piel gota por fugosa gota hasta que encendiera el fuego altar de sol en tus venas. I have squeezed cilantro into the breast milk Esprimido el cilantro dentro de la leche de pecho made sure you were nurtured with the clean taste of corn stalks. Para esugurar que te nutrieras con el sabor limpio de maíz verde with the wildness of leaves con los salvaje de hojas espezas of untamed monte de monte no domesticada of unscheduled growth de crecimiento no planeado I have ground the earth of these américas in my morcajepe until it became a fine and pecan spice sprinkled it surely into each spoon full of food that would have to expand to come to your soul. I have ground the earth of these américas in my morcajepe until it became a fine and pecan spice sprinkled it surely into each spoon full of food that would have to expand to come to your soul. Dear my son Dear my son Dear my daughter The cilantro, my children This is your herencia This is your herencia This is what is yours This is what is yours This is what your mother fed you to keep you alive This is what your mother gave you to keep you alive to keep you alive to keep you alive, to keep you alive, para que pudieras sobrevivir. The stories of this city and the voices of this city are many and fabulous and each distinct. And it's my great honor right now to be introducing the section in which thanks to Carmen we'll get to hear a good many of them. So please come on up to the stage in a big hand for Amanda Flores, National Grand Slam Poetry Champion, dedicated Gemini Instructor, and just a fabulous poet. Let me thank you. Thank you, Carmen. There you are. Thank you, Carmen. Such a pleasure, always a pleasure. The poem I'm sharing today is a poem by Anthony Flores. But I do write my own poems. So if you'd like to hear those, you can check out amandadepoet.com or buy one of the CDs outside. If you like this poem enough, you can also hear it on the CD over yonder in the foyer. This is a poem about Manu Ginobli. It's called Manu Ginobli. Manu Ginobli is a thief. He'll strip you at center court, down to your Adam in the Garden crotch leaf. Just leave you hanging there, so to speak. Meanwhile, he's on a ragged jagged zigzag roller coaster ride to the other side with his all the way to the hoop hocus pocus. Now you see me? Now you don't. Think you'll stop me? Betcha won't. This is Raging Bull and Ali in Melody. This is machinery meets poetry, the surge of skin and bone, dissecting defenses with precision surgery. Here's the incision of cutting vision, the no-look cross-court assist with a twist that'll knock you on your ass, because there's both English and Spanish on that spinning pass. This is Rock and Roll meets Argentine tango on the highlight show, super G2O in the flow, off the give and go. And don't you know, you're too slow, so gonna blow right past you. Inote, no hes, just gotta got the corazón and the cojones to outlast you. He'll have you off your seat and on your feet, and so prepare the whee, the gee, the wow, the damn, but don't forget that he plays D just as tenaciously as O. He's the brick wall that moves with you and no matter how fast or large, just when you think you've gotten through, abracadabra, poof, at a thin air, he's there to take the charge. And so you've got to give him credit, don't you see, cause Manu Ginobli is just like Visa. He's everywhere you want to be. He's your ball and chain, the hunger of will that feeds on fear and pain, and the shadow that you can't outrun despite the absence of the sun. He's a thief, as I said, and he'll steal your dreams away, cause no one comes any harder when the clock says it's time to play, it's Manu's day. And here's the way your nights descend to mark the end. With time running out, the ball in his hands to finish, the buzzer-beating pass to Timmy on the no-look dish, the fade to black, cause your hopes have just faded. Step back, fade away, through it's shore, better yet the magic move you can't forget, the crossover fake into the paint, think I'm going that way, but I ain't. I'm taking flight to boom the rim and rend your heart a thunder. And yes, that was lightning, you just saw flash behind your closed eyes, LeBron James. In case you were starting to wonder, cause Manu Ginobli just threw down another left-handed dunk, and you've just been kissed by thunder. Thank you. I think we're rocking the house. My next poet was recently called on by the US Air Force to come share her fabulous words in Abu Dhabi. Now she's back with us in San Antonio, Andrea Vocab Sanderson. Question, how do we profit from what we love to do most? Me, well, I feel like I'm sneaking through a cemetery, searching for my own ghost oil, trying to dig through sedimentary rock buried beneath the heap of my life's compost. I feel like a scared soldier that went AWOL from the cemetery, abandoning her coast. Contrary to what I always dreamed, I would be like a victim of my own negligence, running from me, standing amongst a host of like-minded individuals struggling for originality, puzzling such a complex simplicity so I end. Each day, disastrously, knowing, thinking there has got to be more, but eventually takes too long to get to, five steps from too far away, and I personally have no patience when it comes to that destination, but you say that there is a predetermination factor, and you say that life is a stage and that here are all actors, well, damn. I must have forgotten my lines, or that my strength behind is my mom's womb, but it's my vision that's blurry, but I can see the writing on the stone of my tomb. I don't want to be doomed here in the limbo of complacency, blatantly out of place, deliberately keeping a monotonous pace, inadvertently going to waste or pasted to the monetary codependency of the next check. Like my boy Justin once told me, living my life in retrospect, I want to learn to protect my best assets, but always bid high when I bet. Send my eyes on the prize like the opposite of sunset. Look back having no regret. Consolidate my pain like debt so I can hone all of my energy into overcoming. Select my weaknesses to be my strengths and always represent what you see in the fine print, because I've spent too many times trying to turn tables and downs into dollars, but I was always just making sense. So now I'm trying to maximize my day minutes in life like I was calling my friends and family members, to sprint to sprint, or Timo, because you see. This life's journey is long distance and walking bristly is too risky. I've got to set my feet to move faster because there is so much in life that I am after. I'm looking for that tech and the color finish line with the pot of gold, but I don't want to end this chapter the way it begun. So though I am young, I succumb to my sentences and songs, write on then stay up all night when I'm rising around, hit the rope, then call, then stick to my job, burn up all my vacation, have a personal leave, and sick time. I know my day is coming, but I'm still waiting in line, hoping that my heart won't be declined. I'm never expected to have anything handed to me so I won't earn minds on the road to success. There's no such thing as exit signs and I'm only defined by my limitations. I won't accept any imitation. The key to staying ahead in this poetry game is all about innovation. So yeah, I'll accept any invitation to fill the open slots. And if the slam is full, that's cool. I just rock the open mic spot. My talent and my passion is all I got. And when I set off stage, I accept tasks, first no check, then run. I accept tasks, first no check, then run. Tell me that my words touched your soul because that statement is worth more than you'll ever know. Worth its own personal weight and goal of answers to the question that I posed about three, four minutes ago. We as poets talk about the value of our words, may yours, and yours, and yours, for friendship. Next poet, one of the masters of making you feel like you're on a smooth stroll through a crowded neighborhood, about to eat some delicious pandooste. Jesse Cardona, wonderful poet and teacher. Please come on up. This bike to La Panaderia del Pueblo. Sometimes I would go alone. Sometimes I would dream I took a vuelo by the hand. I remember pandooste tasting even sweeter after confessing my sins at St. Joseph's Catholic Church. Nothing like dulcified bread for crucified bones. And I remember standing in front of the glass displays telling El Panadero, I'll take one of these and one of those and one of these. Unlike the cool pachuco who came in asking for and the polvo, un regallo, y un hueso azucarado. I had not mastered the names of pan dulce. So imagine the thrill. Imagine the authority in my chavalon bones when I returned asking for dos huesos azucarados to go. Yes, I remember pan dulce. La Virgen de Guadalupe bordered by blue neon lights and how the smell of canela reminded me of abuelitos, peloncillo, skin. And no, I don't live on Avocado Avenue. And I've never been in the vicinity of trees. But I must confess, de vez en cuando, I would rather be un vagabundo hawking velvet avocados por los barrios de aslantejas USA. Yes, I must confess, I am an avocado aficionado. I will vouch for any avocado you see avocados or not. Volsiferous, they are content to be philosophical with window sills, visualize two avocados, two summer syllables, ripening on a window sill, and you visualize world peace. Paz, paz, paz. You see, avocados or not equivocados, they are not into hate, do not equivocate. Avocados or not into voodoo economics. They just want a place on your Mexican plate. But what must the avocados think? Mexican food is chic, it's made the New York celebrity list. It's Gucci bags next to guacamole bowls. Meanwhile, there are no revolutions on Guadalupe Street. Only the blooming rosebushes by Rudy's transmission. Thank you, thank you. My next poet really needs no introduction because his name says it all. Anthony, the poet. I have a 6-year-old kid and I have been working with youngsters for many, many years. So a lot of my poetry sounds like nonsense because we just try to have fun. That's where this one started. I almost threw it away because I thought it was so crazy. I had like 10 Lone Star beers when I was writing it and I thought it was great. And then I was like, no, it ended up in the trash. But I'm glad I pulled it out. I normally don't write love poems, but when I do, they're about huevos rancheros. I tell the waitress and all the meseros, please bring me an order of huevos rancheros con jalapenos or abaneros. Just make them picosos, mis huevos rancheros. I sit at the table con mis abuelos, all of my ancestors, y huevos rancheros. Not just a raza, que to mis sombreros y ven de Northside los huevos rancheros. A todos les gustan, including huevos, who can resist them, our huevos rancheros. Parker, Genobli, and Duncan, los tres veros meros, todos los Percy huevos rancheros. Don't eat too many, you might get the pedos of calling the city with huevos rancheros. The breakfast of champions de los guerreros. Don't eat the wheaties, try huevos rancheros. You sit like a baby making pocheros whenever they run out of huevos rancheros. The coke has a beard, don't put in no bellows. I don't like no hair in my huevos rancheros. The clock says it's too late. Just break them and make them mis huevos rancheros. If you get the ojo, don't eat curanderos. Just rub your own forehead with huevos. I sent out a love note con mis mensajeros. Baby, I love you, make me huevos ex honor at the valeros. But I think the picnic has huevos rancheros. Don't get me no sweet bread at the panaderos. I'm in the mood for some huevos rancheros. The yolks look so pretty, but only enteros. Don't ask for them scrambled. Those are not huevos rancheros. Palabras antiguas en los cancioneros. Siempre que vivan are huevos rancheros. I lick the plate clean. Nothing left for the perros. Don't ask me for none of my huevos rancheros. All right, now it's my great honor to announce a tremendous reunion. The Women of Il Repute was a legendary, early San Antonio spoken word collective. It was founded in 1999 by Amalia Ortiz. And tonight we have original members Francis Santos, Victoria Zapata Klein, and Lisa Cortez Walden. And I am so excited to see them. It's taken out with our individual voices that are threaded by our love for her and San Antonio. This is a poem called Mercado, about the San Antonio Mercado that was once a real Mercado with fruit and vegetables. And then they took it apart. And then they made it a fake Mercado. And that's perfect sense. My grandmother used to shop there. She still has, we still have the family house on Camarón. And right there in front of the creek, by five points. And a big old house on Stilts. Today, Mama and I drive downtown, past pecan trees making whisper sounds. Take the Dusty Rose Cadillac Park, far in the back of Calle Pecos La Trinidad, by El Mercado. Y en esta día estamos comprando. And the year is 1961, when wooden boots and stands carried eggs and sweet bun, leche quemada and caramel flan. Other stands carried metates, molcajetes, and cast iron skillet pans. Mama would take out her thick cotton sack and move right along with her plan of attack. Onions, olive oil, salt, cilantro, potatoes, peppercorns, garlic, omino. She'd haggle with Mr. Peña, the produce vendor. I'll give you a dollar for all the ones brewed. And he'd look at her, half insulted, half amused. And he'd tell her, Senorah, claro que si. You do me good business by taking this junk from me. And then they'd wink at the inside joke. And I'd wonder what next Mama would provoke. Because next we'd buy fruit, some soft and some firm. The sweetest most luscious she would discern like the anthropologist searching for sacred bones, like the geologist searching for lost stones. Mama would scavenge that wooden fruit stand until she held the perfect ayuakate in her soft and strong hand. Eh, so she'd say, you know, but it's a little bruised. And then the fruit vendor, half insulted, half amused, would give a small break on already the cost. And Mama counted every small victory not lost. And finally, on top of that thick cotton sack, on to the dulces, the booths toward the back. And Mama allowed me to pick sweets from the stand. Oh, I chose some pineapples, some sweet potato, and yeah, bastante, she'd yell without shame. Porque ya estás gorda, and your father's to blame. But I didn't worry because at home I would find that she'd snuck in some extra. She had it there all the time. And now our day is done at the market of the sun, driving home at 15 miles per hour in 1961, driving back down to our little house downtown, back toward the con trees that make the whisper sounds. Mama, me, and the thick cotton sack, us, low and slow, in a rose Cadillac. Hi, I'm really honored to be up here with sharing the stage with all these wonderful poets. This one is simply an ode to Garmin. You are sonnets and salsa. You are the turquoise revosos that brighten your eyes, wise as missionary nuns, yet wild with the light of children at play. You continue to teach. Con orgullo y gusto. You don't stop, you don't quit. For that alone you should be honored. But today we celebrate that as a city, San Antonio chose to honor you as our poet laureate, our inaugural poet laureate. You are the poet of the pueblo. We celebrate you as you celebrate us with this river here. Even while your body fights cancer, you continue to work more and more as the days go by. You travel to Paris, France, and just about every town in Texas performing, presenting poetry. You don't stop, you don't quit. Even through all the challenges you face as a daughter, as a mother, as a wife, through all the strife you persevere, you remain the people's poet. Now you are the Texas state poet laureate. You don't stop, you don't quit. You continue to share your words, your energia, like a curandera. Healing throughout hills, valleys, plains, you inspire all. Garmin, you are the chili peppers, serranoi, chilepequins, feeding our hunger. Garmin, you are the blue, the green of our San Antonio's river, soothing our souls. Garmin, you are the dazzling yellow of the esperanzas, the scarlet crepe myrtles, flowers that flourish, even with nominal life-sustaining water. Garmin, you are the pride of San Antonio, and we love you. I posted on Facebook that I don't usually read my poetry because I don't really think of myself as a poet, but Carmen always encourages people so much to read their poetry and to think of themselves in terms of poets. Thank you, Carmen, so much. Most holy poet, St. Carmen La Santarubia, faithful muse. You do not seek our devotion, but come on. We all know you're the patron saint of obstinate poems and the overworked poets who cannot ignore them. The Santarubia that I may receive your vision in my time of need, my deadline. Get this poem sitting in my belly out of me. Hit like rocks in my gut. They are the fruit of fear. They are the 500 years of mis ancestros whispering. Santarubia, these fears eat me from the inside, and my body can no longer host them. I must set them free, turn their accurate taste to phrases of love for humanity. And so I petition your intercession. Help me form these rocky ruminations into diamonds. Give me bravery to dig the darkest caverns where they hide. Strength to move meters and form feats that walk in brilliance. Bring me clarity of metaphor. The power of rhyme. Keep my memory in truth and not nostalgia. Ay, Santarubia, te pido, te pido, te pido. Let my words be indigina. Chicana, Palestinian, Jew, Syrian, Filipino, Kenyan, Ugandan, Chinese, Scottish, Italian, or... Look at they are. Let them travel through my body so that they remember me wholly. My scent, my disappointment, my sex, my joys, my exes, my fears. Let them use my identities for my communities who need them. Let these words that I will free bring them entered energy. Let them bring pride to our old and hope to our young. And should you choose to honor this petition, I vow to attend ten poetry readings. Not performances, straight up poetry readings. And not thinking in the back of my head that they really pulled that one in their breath pocket or that it's totally derivative or maybe irrelevant. They're all in red oracle. I pray to you again. A special last poet who's going to come up here. She's never read a poem out loud in public before. It's in Spanish. Her name is Cristina, and she wanted to read a poem for Carmen. Come on up, Cristina. ¿Qué es poesía? Es poesía mientras tú clavas tus pupilas en mis pupilas. ¿Qué es poesía? Cuando te digo poesía eres tú. Inception outside. There's a couple of things I want to tell you about it. One, there's great food, there's great art. Last but not least, at Carmen's special request, there's a wall and there's magic markers and there's post-its, and it's our poetry wall. And we would all be honored as poets if you would all write one beautiful word, one beautiful line, something in your hearts to share with us. And before we do that, I have a personal request. Can we all stand up and just give Carmen a huge round of applause? She will stand and have in a community. We have been so lucky as a city and a state to have somebody with the capacity to not only express that in her work, but also to really communicate it as our last poetry reader said. She's our real saint of poetry. So, yay, Carmen! Close this down, because I think she should. I don't know what I can say. I mean, all of these wonderful performers, everything from the huevos rancheros to the... I mean, y'all have been fantastic. Azul, those were amazing songs. Gente, niña, con tu poesía linda, preciosa, articulada. Niña, tú tienes un talento magnífico de poder no simplemente apreciar la poesía, pero para también presentarlo en público. I just am very, very fortunate to be part of this pueblo. I invite this pueblo to go out there, put whatever inspires you on a piece of paper and post it, note it. They're post-its, right? And post it, note it wherever you think it goes, and somebody else may come around and rearrange it, and we're going to have a poem that's created by this entire city and by this entire beautiful community. Go out there and listen to the poetry that's in your own hearts. It doesn't always have to sound fancy and doesn't always have to have Shakespearean words, but it has to reflect your life, your emotions, and validate you as important. You are the ones that are the poetry of this world. Thank you very much.