March 21st is World Poetry Day (audio)

Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Poet Laureate Luis Rodriguez, Alex Cohen (TakeTwo); UN.org

Coiled Serpent anthology of LA poets (Tia Chucha's)

Today is World Poetry Day, a commemoration that the United Nations says is intended to recognize "the unique ability of poetry to capture the creative spirit of the human mind."
 
To mark the occasion, unlike the Los Angeles Times that ignores him, Take Two thought the best guest to have on the radio (KPCC, 89.3 FM) is Los Angeles' very own Poet Laureate.
 

LA Poet Laureate

Luis J. Rodriguez is a Mexican-American (Chicano) writer, author of the most popular book of poetry in the US, one of the most banned books in America, the most likely to be stolen from a public library: Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A.

 

He talks about how L.A. connects to the rest of the world through poetry and previewed a new anthology of L.A. poets.

He wrote the introduction and his press (Tia Chucha Press) curated it: Coiled Serpent: Poets Arising from the Cultural Quakes and Shifts of Los Angeles. 

 

The original call for submissions (TCP)

"This anthology features the vitality and variety of verse in the City of Angels, a city of poets," says his bookstore/press in Sylmar (west San Fernando Valley, Tia Chucha Centro Cultural and Bookstore (the only bookstore in an area serving a population of 500,000) about the new anthology. More + Interview AUDIO

(Laprofe Mex) Nahuatl Poetry: Enduring Voices in Mesoamerican Literature, Spanish/English

(Ccs1989) American: "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot (Anthony Hopkins)

(Shaale.com) The most famous Sanskrit poetry of ancient India by Kalidasa

(Pearls of Wisdom) "To Be or Not To Be" (Hamlet's soliloquy) by William Shakespeare (aka Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford)

 

Always Running: Gang Days in L.A.

This is the award-winning and bestselling classic memoir about a young Chicano gang member surviving the dangerous streets of East Los Angeles, now featuring a new introduction by the author.

Winner of the Carl Sandburg Literary Award, hailed as a New York Times notable book, and read by hundreds of thousands, this is the searing true story of one man’s life in a Chicano gang -- and his heroic struggle to free himself from its grip.

By age 12, Rodriguez was a veteran of East Los Angeles gang warfare. Lured by a seemingly invincible gang culture, he witnessed countless shootings, beatings, and arrests and then watched with increasing fear as gang life claimed friends and family members.

 

Before long, Rodriguez saw a way out of the barrio through education and the power of words. He successfully broke free from years of violence and desperation.

 

Achieving success as an award-winning poet, he was sure the streets would haunt him no more -- until his young son joined a gang. Rodriguez fought for his child by telling his own story in Always Running, a vivid memoir that explores the motivations of gang life and cautions against the death and destruction that inevitably claim its participants.

At times heartbreakingly sad and brutal, Always Running is ultimately an uplifting true story, filled with hope, insight, and a hard-earned lesson for the next generation. More

• FREE YOGA yogaanytime.com (use code "KPCC") 
• Coiled Serpent comes out on March 30th
• Open Mic Poetry Readings every week