In Books on the Border news, New Mexico State Poet Laurette Manuel González receives a national poet laureate fellowship and headlines at the Percha Creek Poetry Festival in Kingston on Saturday.
Susan Morée:
Manuel, you're already New Mexico Poet Laureate and now you've just been named a Poet Laureate Fellow by the Academy of American Arts. That's a pretty big honor. Tell us about that fellowship and what you plan to do with it.
Manuel González
Well, first and foremost, it involves my students because I had to come with them with a proposal for what I would do with the fellowship. And my fellowship involves taking my students across New Mexico and putting them on stages to recite their poetry. And I work at the Native American Community Academy, so my students are Indigenous students and they're going to read poetry about their experience and being high school kids in New Mexico and being Indigenous and what that means. So their poetry is about healing. It's about trauma and it's about understanding and appreciating the wonder, beauty and magic that's the world all around us and all the time.
Susan Morée:
That sounds pretty exciting for those students. It really will give them an opportunity to have a voice.
Manuel González
Yes, it gives them a voice. It helps their self-esteem. It helps them dig into figuring out who they are and where they come from and then express that to one another. There's healing in medicine when it comes to this authentic and sincere self-expression that we do like this.
Susan Morée:
Manuel, this Saturday you're going to be coming down to our region to read poetry at the Percha Creek Poetry Festival at the Black Ranch Lodge in Kingston. Full disclosure, I'm also going to be reading some poems at that event. Tell us about what you'll be reading and will there be any new work that you'll be sharing from some of your ongoing projects?
Manuel González
Oh yes, most definitely. I'll be reading some of the work that I've been working on. I'm a poet and I write about what's going on and how I feel and what I'm encountering and the things that I'm experiencing. So I believe that poetry is a living, breathing art form that's always evolving and constantly creating. And so, yes, I will be reading new poetry, but also I'll be reading some of the old stuff that kind of got me to where I am. More important than that is that it's an opportunity for us to come together as a community. There's going to be an open mic and poetry readings where I get to share the stage with other poets like yourself and other local poets from around the area and around New Mexico to share our experiences and add our stories to the greater lexicon of what it means to be from New Mexico in that way.
Susan Morée:
I think that sounds great. And your poetry feels to me like it falls within the spoken word tradition. Would you say that and can you describe your poetry for listeners a little bit who might not be familiar?
Manuel González
Yes, most definitely. My poetry comes from the spoken word tradition. I come from the poetry slam. I started writing when I was very young, but as I got into poetry, I got into the poetry slam and I was the Albuquerque poetry slam champ four times. And poetry has taken me all over the world. But I definitely have a style that comes from the tradition of spoken word and an oral tradition of being spoken. My style is meant to be experienced and heard.
Susan Morée:
I've seen clips of you perform and I think you're quite the performer. Do you have any Las Cruces poetry readings in your future, Manuel?
Manuel González
I have to visit all of the different counties in New Mexico as part of my laureateship. So yes, I will definitely be in New Mexico, in Las Cruces. I will be in Silver City. I'll be in Deming. I'm going to visit all the different places down south, see what kind of poetry happenings we can find in Hatch. All of it. We're going to be down there. Yes.
Susan Morée:
All right. Well, I look forward to that and also to this Saturday as well. And thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on poetry with us.
Manuel González
Oh, thank you for having me. And please, bring your poetry to our open mic and bring your heart to our poetry reading because we will definitely give you something to feel while you're there.
Susan Morée:
All right. Thanks so much.
Manuel González
Thank you.
