An hour with Poet Laureate Huascar Medina

produced at home and broadcast from kansas public radio at the university of kansas this is k pr presents and j mcintyre today and keep your presents kansas poet laureate why after medina who joins us from his home in lawrence grey to visit with you again laughter it's good to be back you've got a new book of poetry out mungo gross in kansas and we'll hear it several of the poems in a bit i started talking about some of the other things you're doing right now you're wanting to podcast kansas that led first i got to say i love that title i think you know i think it's clever it seems like the only option and there's a lot of 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 so this will feature a kansas poets of the kansas writers are specific poets owing to

its poets so playwrights authors of a fishing trip nonfiction i will interview as many people as possible was this something my job i like china's 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 was lit i often wonder if us kansans org caught up in our own little bubbles over articulate there's there's poets and another isn't lawrence in topeka in saliva and there were troubles as treasures korea i've met a lot of individuals 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

bringing to light give them an opportunity to create a platform for lesser known authors and bulls but also bring this out which ones on board as well and have conversations are not as as deeply kraft related but more of what individual is in nyt do that with the work that they do the writing they do who are some of the others the year planning and i'm featuring at least in the first couple episodes aired mchenry kevin raye this but there is absolutely those are typically locals could this is typically based radio so why does star logo and on that billings is also on board and i'm asking everyone so i will at some point i mean i envisioned like having a travelogue of what i mean honestly like about a hundred interviews dr zane i'm doing four out of time sitting down for a day and for interviews america recorded in i can get a lot done and i am a day with interviews with individuals it was

clear this the summit by job so what can the 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 in editing i learned a lot more about it a lot and hitting an end ensuring that they sounded correctly so little like that the technical aspect of it that i was not a prepared for very interesting liane not ok for some of this to 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 justin arranged and done have 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 and endings that we need to do

now that i need to do now that what 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 but to go back to point you just about cancer's others i'm in a book club and 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 have some incredible writers right here in the sunflower state three and i think it's you're gonna need pretending to average out to fix the ticket to get out there at an 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 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 this is i saw the visit as a couple instances where i did to assure that our thing like it that i'm i'm doing the interview and i should let the individual top ten a tale cause i do regular candid conversation which is as good a but no losses than half of a radio broadcast of listening to me so bad except that this one hopefully this one is on the guests on your so that includes incentives answer that i've had to

learn to balance the new field is excited to talk with other human 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 and some familiar and some not police not to me can you talk about that the project 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 yeah as to how light of these poets you know people is one that

i absolutely loved his work just two days ago i believe is the anniversary of 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 less 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 poem that day was a 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 new rules were so you have knowledge about but 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 dishes 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 father's 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 roots your 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 but 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 tutu right training for but also being held accountable 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 and 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 and you know we we do the last illustration and i am giving political at this moment and i apologize for that is that our son but that the prime minister has tried to cut federal funding for international diamond for the arson national wealth july resources these patients you know he does

is employed in most cases you know they deprive the grounds 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 garment dina 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 ninety four 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 long rough ride tickets 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 were 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 them again to 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 mrs solzhenitsyn it's families you know so you know a father and daughter and her 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 there's a list of business right now or over twenty thousand you know does anyone know care about four thousand us at the border and if we're still 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 very contrarian in that project and share some poetry at the event and was very heavy and i'm just very glad to participate in it emilio

what can you describe them or explain the meaning of the title hostile terrain ninety four yes that areas considered a hostile terrain m as as the border was secured more work of brokered by eo but governor at the 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 it 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 are told 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 in which you initially see is as large map order

order 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 in 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 not not want 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 he knows his essence is 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 ono hypothermia from the elements summer's heat exhaustion are theirs there's tangos blunt force trauma you know starvation dehydration i think every said hypothermia hypothermia hanging shooting stabbing there's a reason so drowning as a liberal and so there are a lot of different ways at a mean this terrain is called hostile terrain for a reason you know there's a many ways to toulouse or

life on the major major united states today on cape pierre presents it's a conversation with was car medina the poet laureate of kansas he's just published a collection of poetry and mango grows in kansas will hear several of those poems and the story behind them when kate pierre presents continues right after this produced at home and broadcast from the university of kansas we are kansas public radio ninety one find lawrence and ninety one three alls bird junction city support for katie are present some cancers public radio comes from sunflower provisions offering pickup and home delivery of sustainably produced meat eggs bread and fresh produce from local farmers ranchers distributors bakers and processors information at some flower provisions dot com two new says make their debuts saturday on kansas public radio join us at five pm for the

moth radio hour true stories told live onstage falling at six pm it's live wire with conversation live music and a result comedy hear it all beginnings saturdays from five to seven pm on kansas public radio i'm kate mcintyre today on keep your prisons and visiting way of kansas poet laureate lustgarten medina was clear your curly in your second year of your poet laureate said and it's certainly been a unique time in and it's challenging times to serve in that position i feel silly asking you this but how is the pandemic changing the way you're doing it you're poet laureate show up projects oncogenes and copper projects i have i've taken it up i've had this was years of you know it's really up to me and i believe with the powerful enough of that lawrence it was a time of other people pay attention to my mind at least up

if i can use that to feature other poets you to keep to help great elie song sliver of financial hole was like an innovative if i can help individuals sell books you know or are paying for readings you know i am with huge as islam is on seven eight five five dot com our callers are up a case as best dp and in topeka kansas we have a live concert series every week and individuals involved are paying their musicians they are poets of ends well it's it's a group collaboration process with viewers as lifelike horse cart as well so trying to create content for people to to take an sos or but also ensuring that individuals were creating content you know paid for it you know that is what i've been focused on

is trying to ensure that this you know pull a fabric that existed is leery of fabric you know doesn't you know from far apart afraid of all parties me and i want to help keep it together in any way that i can't right now people really seem books too you know online and zeros and his experience of what you're reading to two to read in front of individuals is this is paramount to people really feeling the word to you sharon as face of the audience and that can happen right now so we have to find ways to to create online venues you know for a fur for opposing performers of youtube two dissents virtually torre right now you know i'm i'm hoping that they were creating that stop you know of kansas has slipped in the senate five live that common our our live concert series so i've really switched over to trying to advocate for more poetry from other poets and using my page to

promote other poets and the new world coming up someone has and that i'm sharing it assumes has a new piece of inflation of poetry i'm going to try to ride a short piece the really state where they can purchase of seventy five amazing not come up the slack trying to do i'm i'm trying to work hard to ensure that everyone is still doing ok or visiting creatively which is which is not the case to be quite honest with you but i feel better trying you're doing something you do you're done something that to help out yesterday visiting was carol we first man actually gus we first met at a poetry reading several years ago but you were first against un keep your prisons i guess back in two thousand nineteen when you were first appointed kansas poet laureate how is europe poet laureate said obviously it's

been affected by the pandemic that is this how you envisioned spending your poet laureates up i had no i treat patients can tell you i had no idea what i was in for eide to think henry was for filling in on the duties and there's lots of the least of the poet laureate but i you know that fixation from new joint and i'm i'll just happy to i mean for the hubble to recede of his own ideas yourself the last of that before stop you know working these of these readings in his presentations was in in march that was a while ago you know when i didn't get to enjoy a national poetry month i had at least twenty different events but four april when owls ready to be somewhere costly or two places a one day and just really celebrate poetry you know april and that it

happened his year end bell's delta force and then i started to feel a certain way about it in a connecticut time before i when we went into total lockdown and not participating in writing a poem you say for thirty days i actually i've done in time i felt against dupont have to partake in a lot of resistance that are i really felt that this moment that there is a need buffer of poet laureate soupy don't seem to get a king for mashable she was out there is it wasn't safe you know and i had to either change gears to go online at ammo virtual poet laureate trail of kansas itself is a dynamite <unk> get things done but we're all out here trying to get things done when you were just recall it like back in march when i did my last fill in the blank i feel like we drove all of us think way

back in march when i did whatever it is that i used to do a pandemic is it has created a lot of challenges for you as a both as poet laureate but as a poet yourself has it also created some some opportunities and maybe some fodder for your own right and it has it has a lot riding on the quite of the writing says a map you out and traveling at atlas road times alive or windshield time in the blueprint phase for others but i do ask a timeout but baum i um um participating as an example of course is abating and alm the wonderfully the chances pose right and because senator next month i've had enough time to take homes from my first year as poet laureate as i chances and ended that i collected

the collection of poetry and working on asylum accommodate scores of kansas you know i am an audition ten homes from his withered chances as a designer for one of the defenses poems i would not have the time to edit this were too sheer if i was an apple has an event just explain what it is with the kansas is you know of course it was a course is that new fresher a method by which a collision word or images or collectively assembled so i decided to go to every reading open my presentation our show that i do and as audience right palm with me we all my lineup paul or a word or phrase two words and i've got to be for locations and each poem is the title and the east called the title is the location as in like say hutchinson no chances of bluebird coffee but kansas office club district i believe those six

or for the particular event and doesn't solve the poll and apple was written collectively i'm a mistake as artists or you know and no one is and benedictine college in and as a cancerous you know and that the data that was a light above the vote november of twenty nineteen actually so i have this collection of poetry that would be sharing about the time that i was able to travel less written by the audiences that i read to or read with and i'll be sharing that on out when in fifty chances pulse of the state of alabama to do that were to sit down and collect it has those hand written on its own to go back in and typing out the best light that i thought i could use on some people's and writings are far worse than mine and asked us a lot to do i really have the integrity of the work so that the polls or a perfectly imperfect in open at that the eldest of the poll m there was this does this collective all experience for us

participating in the writing of the word but there was also a collective message in a drawer or emotion and often together so those areas there's a very harmonious experience well for me and i think for individuals involved i can always read the poem out and at the end of the day or the hour presentation <unk> mike and it was always well received and i'm hoping it's well received you know with with individuals who visit one for the cancer cell i am doing work and i tried to do work and i'm going to use that time to mess my body and try to ensure that at all cheeses is being shared and then in kansas coach especially you know and visit with kansas poet laureate was karma deny his latest collection of poems is an mungo grows in kansas published by spartan press and was gerritsen think we've talked about everything except for your new collection of homes sold

risky you're a busy guy you get a lot of things going on but i'd like for you to start our way of your poem when is mango season in puerto rico oh oh oh iraq as one other conversation with my sister who's been a challenge to just on informational say they could take your father you know he's a broader economy he moved back at this time is that he appeared today before a reason puerto rico now and so she decided to use chip advisor and we went on this trip advisor what kind of hole and i discovered that i loved it is has a trip advisor account and i don't and so the question to her or quite interesting that they're asking and this particular question as the title of the fall and then starts with the actual response from the island of decades on a minute two thousand a

so there's the palm when is mango season and cory go a trip advisor question from jack or somewhere and because there's always a tree with fruit you just need local knowledge i have yet to see a mango tree in kansas i buy my fruit and a whole foods store most things here are from elsewhere even my jam travels into town do you know they grow tired of having an orchard and a place called some pecans and mangoes read non gmo organic forty calories per tablespoon it smells flashy roadside mangoes dropped from a tree two right to grow too old to say there's a summer and yen will go up with a street side parking lots and driveways were paid the mangoes we may go through everything that summer night the taste of mangoes will make your eyes

close i had my first july i didn't mind i never saw it still bless our angels that is does the less damaged legs it'll make your song cyanide no idea that today's a mine are our main goals and an audition casale so off of your poems do mention of mangoes and of course the title of your book is an mungo grows in kansas or what is it with mangos naples grew at my grandma so poor ego amid i ate them off the tree it is something they've ruined the land that my family had available you know that if i'm young cause they haven't announced a green bananas bananas and you go and you know and all kinds of fruit they harvested is

there and to go to the senate to find sustenance in your whole the girls are naturally like mangles do not have to work for it for the land to give it to you ballet set place like oh so when i'm away from home and i'm at a store and see mangoes i wonder does mangoes are from my home that lovely when i first saw your book and mango growers in kansas the title for me was immediately air pocket of that classic coming of age story a tree grows in brooklyn but there are parallels that we should be drawing here oh no and i'm not writing and that loneliness at the undue i wouldn't draw any parallels from that to be quite honest and not not a bottom up to go back and revisit that work preserving

these influences in ways that were not aware of so you know that that i was really just medals on growing cancers us a poem says i am i feel like i've grown <unk> despite being in kansas and that is that his part in the message in the words you know that i've i've come to be this is bright and vibrant and the visual but for so long things diesel grand park and i feel isolated so to build two to come to fruition as individuals have been and satisfy with themselves and coffin who the onward a stand in and how they're living their lives at it it took a long time to get there and this is that journey this is we're rising in kansas and this is really the last fall asleep traveling through cancer is an end and thinking about all the mosaic got me to wear on that today

you do belong here of course i do yes i do and i feel i'm trying to say that in your work as well you know in the polling the satirical a rose in kansas in i establish well my daily quite clear why and that that i am i'm ok with been seen in in and being a boy and being different and i no longer feel that it is a judgment on me and it's something that i've accepted and i'm willing to share with others let's have you read that poem that in just a minute the poem when mango growers in kansas but i can only get us their first could you turn to page thirty five and read your poem new american that's only an election is a bison considered at a political goal and it is as we identify with the idea that too often feeling was used to describe

immigrants is so many years now is that show session made a statement that the things that they've tied to the word anagram now i did that for a generation that feels like its full front and center in politics so i don't believe that that word stirs me anymore i decided to use a different word and the word is new american and is it i want to be referred to this one because we we are part of the united states and we're here and there's not a sudden change so this poems and filed new american don't call me immigrants i'm the new american striving and new america as an american i've not to invade or not an animal no criminal i'm a just person just striving and a new america a new america i

am a full time student over time worker hearing in my free time the plant enough ahead for free time and i can even afford the three time it's awfully time has approved a record a new america they're shipping warehouse second shift my house always on call no days off freelance for life for jobs that we knew and white color don't call me immigrant i know american surviving in america as a new american i have not joined later not an animal no criminal i'm a just person just surviving a new america this isn't america stood alone for all high rent hire utilities low pay rising health care costs because the living deadly know living wage living enraged my cousins and kate for wanting to live a different part of new america don't call me immigrant i'm the new american living in new america as an american

i'm not to invade or not an animal nor criminal i would just person just living in a new america strong and proud able to withstand the distance i have traveled the distance from my family the distance between us the distance of a dialect the distance in our church is the distance in our homes the distance between my ancestors that my grandchildren the distance from the streets to the distant from the field to the corner office suite don't call me immigrant i have the new american dreaming of new america as an american i'm not sure if they were not an animal no criminal i am not just personally just dreaming of a new america oh america don't be afraid we're all america north america central america south america where all americans will strive in america's we'll survive in america's role is in america is they are all the same america will dream of a greater

america i want you to be paid a living wage live an affordable housing without college debt or medical debt or credit card debt or national debt i want no more racism i'm speaking of a new america i'm part of a new america whether united are not so join me pleas that's was the medina reading from his poem a new american which is in an mungo grows in kansas what's going to revisit one of the lines in the poem that you repeat over and over again i'm just a person with a media latinos in show had been stolen jobs were it wouldn't of oil is right where the wood against ayers were drug dealers you know where the where the rate is you know these are languages being used right now and i am i'm just i'm just a person i'll adjust

person you know i'm just personally as it having committed no crimes by being a human being i am i'm here to just to live just like anyone else and and as one with a very clear and i have to repeat that line because i am a just a person i would make sure that you are aware of that and you're also just a person correct that is that is that is correct if you just remove all these these these titles these days prefix is two two identifying us right in the cages be us da and wonderful wonderful thing and i wish we could be in that place right now but the reality is where we're not things are getting pretty divisive and i'll return to being just a person right now is is it's not it doesn't seem like it's going to happen why because you're either republican or democrat red blue liberal conservative of

flow liberal you know urban educator an educated oh why quiet hispanic sense though that you know across the board it's we can't just describe ourselves as us of person to it and best as divisive in itself dividing us of a return to that very basic idea that we disperse it over just you and i the things they cited in all different this past year what's go back to the last line in that poem throughout the poem there's kind of an increasing level of ten of tension in terms of your insistence that's you're just person we're all americans and there's a sort of out add a growing tension but then your very last line let me read the last two lines are less three lines rather

i am part of new america whether you like it or not so join me please talk about that last line and how the tone of that completely chefs from whether you like it or not to please rise grace an end and eighty seven has been intense and a handful of emotion trying to re center myself you know it is it is necessary to be polite to be heard to to take a stance on that is too loud as a false identity come on people tend to turn you off i'll turn the volume down you know to dismiss you only political but it ended with so join me pleas

is as an invitation i am no longer making just declared a statement i am i'm asking for their involvement and also letting the audience know that we're already here that we we've been here are very long time i slept slept in those let us looking as we we we've been here oh forever i audacious it astounds me that we're still having these conversations you know and i discuss that you know in the book as well you about having to write the same homes over and over as is every every poll that comes you know from a latino background who's hispanic has to write the same taunts and we're still having the same conversations that none of us have been able to to break that yet it is like this

this family this week harry as best as poets let let you listen that we are still trying to be accepted here but knowing that we have this possibility of letting you know that we are acceptable and how to accept us and we still had to do that a creative artistic way race without fully turning away or alienating the audience and i'm not sure if anyone has has done that yet and people for an incredible great work and what to say after all these years of love of writing poetry reading poetry or does experience of of revisiting earlier poets you know i will been writing the same type of heart for decades if not this country at this point

it is you know and visit with busk heard medina he is the poet laureate of kansas was there when you were first named poet laureate and i had you on keep your prisons in the early months of your poet laureate since i had you read your poem surrogate city could you read that for us as a city that's a look as well i'll go their whole shadow go anywhere and also none of us go anywhere anymore in certain city mama historian robert casey has adopted me she too where is our own garments of concrete and glass will set me to cross the street reminds care for their sirens in the air she hums a highway lullaby for basso went there so i may pass the

night sky lights don't resemble it yeah sons you know in the piece she embraces your son the son and sold my soul her mother casey has been good to me i love that poem a love letter back to san antonio you know this was waiting to topeka you know you can say just in general it was from san antonio let's jump from there to the last poem the of the buck than mango growers in kansas logo grows in kansas you have found me it in elite field within the husk of corn growing for you i am ready to play only in your hands remove my skin fuel way my color find that i am tender soft and sweet e disney until there is nothing

and your mouth are empty bellies filled what is left will live as seed to grow again brighter hardened and less bitter that's been mined oak grows in kansas by was common dean and that's the title of his collection of poetry and mango grows in kansas was clear what the poll and it seems like you're home that last line less bitter it's true you know to accept herself and to understand that accepting yourself as completely separate from others accepting you is when mills at tiffany's an individual like myself has to have sodas trial as westerners like to understand that my whole it is within me there they're my memories there they're my

emotions and that it's ok for me to plant that hole here it all to to grow here on that my medication is not my identity that is okay to have my identity or oh in my location which is carrots is some searching as with this work was overturned your journey as president kansas be to very much so i'd been visiting with was karma dean at the poet laureate of kansas his new collection of poetry is the mango grows in kansas plus carrie this has been a pleasure thanks so much for listening with us today i'm came an entire k pierre presents is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas