2021 Kansas Notable Book; Poet Laureate Huascar Medina, Part 1; Unknown

today on k pr presents we're kicking off our series on the twenty twenty one kansas notable books and j mcintyre each year the state library of kansas names fifteen kansas notables the best new books by kansans or about kansas one of those books on mango grows in kansas it's a collection of poetry by was karma dina the current poet laureate of kansas in september twenty twenty i spoke to ask are about his book and some of his other projects including his podcast kansas is let their solo literary characters and chances alive now writing and i really wanna spotlight that i'm really excited to get started in human individuals an opportunity to hear some poetry that they've never encountered before said this will feature a kansas poets at a kansas writers are specific poets owing to its poets so playwrights authors of a fishing trip nonfiction aisle interview as many people as

possible was this something my job is a good job because as you know i have a look a lot of time at home and i found something to do i don't believe that that is behind us what the idea behind kansas as lead i often wonder if us kansans caught up in our own little bubbles over there are you know like there's there's poets and another isn't lawrence and topeka and saliva and they're my troubles is freezers korea i've met a lot of individuals of who the one thing they say is that individuals are not aware of their work so i bought it i could start a podcast as is live and now bring it to light give them an opportunity to create a platform for lesser known authors of balls but also bring this out which ones on board as well

and have conversations are not as as deeply crack related but more of good individual is in nyt do that with the work that they do the writing i do was another say you're planning and i'm featuring at least in the first couple episodes arabic henry kevin raye this but that is absolutely those are typically locals could this is typically based radio so why does star logo and and that billings is also on board and i'm asking everyone so i will at some point either i envision like having a catalog of what i mean honestly like about a hundred interviews doug has an ongoing for out of time sitting down for a day and for interviews america recorded in i get a lot done and i am a day with interviews with individuals it was clear this the summit by job so whatever challenges are you facing is you're trying to set up this podcast

our microphone is right programming and place an egg trying to get the technology to work for me you know and the person i'm interviewing you're listening to new buildings out and try to have an understanding that we don't want background on psalm and then added he had to learn a lot more about it a lot and hitting an end ensuring that they sounded correctly so that the technical aspect of it that i was not prepared for very interesting liane not ok first love the store some of my job but interestingly enough this sounds a lot like my job during the pandemic because a lot of the things that are just arranged and done at the station when i would do my interviews at the station now that i'm doing them in my closet you know there was a lot that i needed to learn in and things that we need to do now that i need to do now that we used to have one of our

engineers do so there was a lot of technical things that i needed to learn a lot of challenges that lie i failed ireland thousands l'oreal recording it took me just about cancer's others i'm in a book club that i am constantly encouraging our book club to read works by kansas others because i think there's a sense sometimes that books written elsewhere about literature happens elsewhere and then we can so you need to be looking for in a subtle what people are reading across the country with our acknowledging the fact that we've got some incredible writers right here in the sunflower state and i think it's you're gonna need pretending to average out to fix the ticket to get out there it and asylum only ensure that the hell on them the bushes i mostly but i do interviews many people as possible you know i do a play

writing and you know i do partake in short story it so i feel like i could have those conversations in a very intimate way with individuals i know cause i was every one i will be interviewing as well direct contact with or of work with our project collaboratively since you are yourself a writer how it is that for your conversation with other writers i had a setback the service outages as a couple instances were added to assure that our thing like it that i'm i'm doing the interview and i should let the individual top ten it came across like a regular candid conversation which is is good but no losses than half of a radio broadcast of listening to me so this one hopefully this one is on the guest on your so that includes incentives answer that i had learned out of balance their new film is excited to talk with other you know writers and creators step to have a conversation

because we are very isolated right now so it unsettles the social and for us and i do want to be informed of love from a listener i'm visiting with was comedy in a hughes the poet laureate of kansas his new collection of poems and mungo grows in kansas when it switched gears for a minute september is hispanic heritage month and you've taken this opportunity to highlight some latin next writers some familiar and some not police not to me can you talk about that and the project are you've been doing and some of the writers eve wanted to bring attention to yes that's really the runners up and bring attention to our riders at it on the surface to be quite honest with you up i'm i'm in you put a community and my experience within country has been you know very little influence and officially the curriculum from public school and mourning what makes writers and i right on

cue as gases website the poor read page of a different god everyday that has influenced me throughout the years but also some that i just encountered i've taken his opportunity their hispanic heritage month to have a better understanding of the last explosive came before you who lay the groundwork and i'd talk about who they were some of the wars they've won a long way but also talk about how i encountered them and most of those encounters didn't occur in school and so i was a senior or out of school radical find work myself so i'll try to you maybe create a shortcut way by using the poor ok john timmons chances to highlight these poets i am in a bill beaty is one that i absolutely love to work just two days ago i believe is the anniversary hour it's a hurricane maria callas in twenty

seventeen and i decided to radicals about a disney region going to was one of the founders of the new rich a poetry movement in europe and his palm upward obituaries one that has us to start with me i remember turning hp he's a poacher might an early october and it was my first time to kind of be around other poets and i do not have the words to discuss all silly i haven't heard from my family in weeks and says i decide to reduce his palm that day was a was cathartic for me in and i was well received by the group as always am what the speak easy poetry group so i've been doing a little personal account but also more on the academic side of who these animals were so you have knowledge about which also good understanding of me and how i've developed as a poet and how some of these upwards of help me my life can you give me another example of a poet that you've highlighted this past

month yes drool or the burgos is from puerto rico's well she's considered the first american poet the dish was born in nineteenth fourteen carolina puerto rico who to manhattan love to die today to the thirty nine a ceo very much was part of love has a lot of poets us this is a through line through a lot of that poetry that i'm sharing and poets their political pull at your local activists and is this is something that is in the nature of writing poetry if your latino iowa show we are this way to the circumstance really right word that comes across as political because the landscape that we live in this costly changing and we were trying to get a handle on that in a bit of control of wow we saw a fairly creative ideas she wrote and now in new york and she was i probably won the most influential poets flow from puerto rico

o'neill university has a cultural center of the latin quarter center is named after julia the rules so she's written three books of poetry and one posthumously and i didn't know this you know i went back and counted her work and i learned by searching for these political reading interviews you know sandra cisneros who i've always considered a fiction writer you know house on mango street sign go back and find out if she has poetry so i read an interview from vienna la times or almond asian or other side's you know encountering all this work it's been a wonderful experience a learning experience for me that i'm trying to share of other individuals so they can go join me on this journey of discovery i guess maybe we should go back and explain your background a little bit your first

generation can send tom a little bit about your background yes my mother is panamanian we moved to the states my father was a military man a mother in panama went to germany came to the us she was a drizzly army so we were on a recovery years and i never quite got center anywhere to a mood to kansas and i decided by richard average have my life in kansas now and a lot of that poetry into manga raising taxes is reflective of me trying to find out the connection between location and identity i'm visiting with was comedy in a hughes the poet laureate of kansas his new collection of poems and mungo grows in kansas again will talk about some of those poems in just a minute i want to follow up on that little bit a lot of these writers that you've highlighted during hispanic heritage month or once he said you've you discovered long after becoming a writer yourself how are they shaping the way you right now

they're content it was into some records why they write what they wrote really wrote it you know despite us one that i came to low you know and i was listening to an interview with jazz as ailes researching the writing of the word that it now which has come across and some have said is political work that i'm doing political messaging with the poetry writing which i i cannot identify with because it just does a live experience from it has been politicized in much of his father has a very specific quote in izzo as a latino poet and political force a circumstance you know and inevitably he talks about that and try try to two to write great of work but also be in trouble and by his peers and and and his

group of men and his view of his community and i feel that same kind of responsibility to appear some a group into my community which is the latin x writing committee what's clear what people characterize poetry whether be yours or someone else's when they characterize the poetry as political does is he might better way to resist the influence of their poetry or to be dismissive of it it has to be dismissive of it i believe i'm the minute it says azar the bounds of being categorized as art individuals tend to turn out because some only want to see or its human traders even african performers as merely entertainers you know we can't have a platform that has a certain level of influence or are have an opinion about something that is important center city make that parallel between athletes and and politics and talk as

i was thinking the same thing and yet art and writing has always been political correct it is a system that i have a question to stay or wrong there's a kind of resistance when he said i love what why you're writing about this i don't know what this my life was i'm i suppose or write about you don't have the luxury of ignoring the political world i can't right now i don't think any one candidate is not only coming across it and my writing out like i'm actually it involved with with organizations doing political work now like there's a there's a reason why i'm i'm so busy right now it i believe are is at this point really to your dues and some self evaluation an seiu where were you standing with this presidential election and i'm am a member of art for biden and they are they

have national chamber adventurers everywhere and omar for biden chances are the co directors working on is trying to stand there and you know what we would try to to show the importance of the arts you know in politics right now we are advocates in it you know we within the lesson is tradition and i and in a political ad this moment and i apologize for that is so that was somebody that the prime minister has tried to cut federal funding for international diamond for the arson national oh oh endowment for humanities of the arts in july resources these patients you know he does is employed in most cases you know they deprive the grants in a forward there were doing some of the work that i've done i would go to do without grant funding i will be my position would be as it isn't it wasn't for so i thought it is very necessary for me too

partake in global activism right now to ensure that the arts is so poor the conversation when it comes to you know who's running our country today and keep your prisons and visiting with kansas poet laureate was scar medina what's that like ten change direction and a little bit but not but not very much the mall fame art museum at washburn university in topeka is currently hosting an exhibit hostile terrain ninety four can you describe that this exhibit in your involvement in it is intense it was a very intense i still too today you're choked up about it my own sitar in the eighties you know before a hostile terrain before pablo ortiz of it and it's from the un not look alike human migration project or by the nomination by the end i had to write toll tag for an individual who died across the arizona border in the

desert azhar activism been a little rough i get to say like dom the lives names of individuals who loesser lies along the way trying to come to the united states you have to take a different path than i did when it's in front of you you i wrote or five hundred toads as is five hundred souls that that parish on the way to find the american dream and they remind me how lucky i am to have a father who join the military and goddesses states you know your ego is you know part of the united states for not a state with us citizenship and about leaving down in puerto rico we have the same shows as anyone else's of the us citizenship which is as an office and the physicians are slow it more than others and i can imagine it was about four thousand told eyes and total

that we run out and to have them laying on a wall at the modern art museum to see them to see the main bit like the weight of all to jesse kelly's one and to write the names out and to see the descriptions unedited described you know where we never found who found them ann and what state the bodies were found then you know and then some that's really graphic m is not such as the number it is not just four thousand people also life trying to come to the us across arizona border this is not that at all it's people this is soles as aids families you know so we were you know a father and daughter and a half unnamed like these individuals are just in their lives and contacts to who they were coming to united states their family still considers them missing

they don't know where that this is will be any question did that my child and my parent make it unites states and they didn't remember me ordained to come back for me it says it's it's a very you know it's a very i was a dog that is a very real experience of partake in that ilk as we're at it was a savings account this is tragic event i'll place right now says many license was a pandemic and it i wrote an article for the excesses reflect or you know about how people are interesting and battle fatigue and unable to really socialize the number of deaths occurring pandemic so my article stated you know if you're you know at the time i was about a hundred and fifty thousand you know the sweetest business right now or over twenty thousand you know does anyone know care about four thousand us at the border and

were so business as usual and us in that were masked with over two hundred thousand us to even care about individuals or even considered you know americans you know they say is the value of human life is was what was in question that there's this point in our we just tuning out that that's occurring right now so i try to highlight on the loss of four thousand lives trying to receive injury in that project and share some poetry at the event and was very heavy and i'm just very glad to participate in it i'm really of what's not can you describe them or explain the meaning of the title hostile terrain ninety four yes that area is considered a hostile terrain m as as the border was secured more work of brokered by eo but a government that time was to send individuals into more difficult terrain to

cross to come to united states so that area is considered hostile terrain it is more to use in trouble we are following and it was trying to you know humans or try to go to united states you know trying to escape persecution or poverty or starvation we're falling into the horror parts of the border to get to the united states and that's where the term hostile terrain for senator is known as hostile terrain what about the night before and i forecast they you know they started keeping track of these lies are just from ninety four till now so as is a four thousand years as it to now i mean about a year ago when this watch was finally sent out to us can you describe just what their exhibit looks like for people who haven't seen photographs of it is there are ten feet by twenty five feet i believe anti a full size told tax and their true colors until tax their yellow orange

george moore it and identify bodies and the yellow awnings and there's a little that age if it is that they think it actually that body compositions were also treated who found them and the way they died so you walk into the modern art museum and which you initially see is his larger out of the water and on the border you see just the change whole touches on top of each other like shingles has layers upon layers upon layers and also allege that you're wondering how the wall can hold up all these top tax break out how they're not going to like you pull in the war or have it come out of a cell phone from the weight of all of these individuals as you so there's a bit of clip on with the location where nobody has

died so exact locations geolocation worries individual dioceses you go up there to this exhibit and petticoats or even as his candidate ends mtv sometimes a story about the individual who died from the person was a family that you left behind so there's it is interactive but the visual aspect of it this large twenty five by ten foot map with just a border and showing all the last loss at the border that is a white background and he had this just discovered the skull of caution acknowledges this hanging over itself and the front and center of his exhibit do you remember like one particular when he filled out there's a individual who has to his young about around my age now not to give her name to the name was given a was an unknown toll tag and the cause a death is individual

was hanging bridges in just wear were out there you know wow i could do that you know there's you know it's just those kind of things as religious latinos like questions you know that i didn't want to dig into further so i can understand people's apprehension about paying attention to you of this this crisis is occurring at that the border sodium cyanide to get too deep into that but you know says instances like that make those individual die from gunshot wounds and like why you know it's a very difficult last year adobe senate that i guess it had never occurred to me that it will end and forgive my ignorance but it hadn't occurred to me that not all these people would have died of natural causes well no there is

there's anger is blunt force trauma you know starvation arm shooting stabbing there's a lottery scenes are drowning as a little and so there are a lot of different ways at a mean this terrain is called hostile terrain for a reason you know there are so many ways to toulouse your life on the major major united states was karma dina is the current poet laureate of kansas our conversation originally aired on k pr presents on september twenty seven twenty twenty although the hostile terrain ninety four exhibit has since closed out the mold in art museum and speaker you can still see photographs and read more about the exhibit at undocumented migration project dot org that's undocumented migration project dot org i'm kay mcintyre we'll have more of my conversation with kansas poet laureate was karma dinner right after this