Poets Responding New Website and Blog
Art courtesy of Hedy Treviño
Francisco X. Alarcón reading poetry on the US capitol steps as part of a Split This Rock Conference action 2012.
Francisco X. Alarcón with other Poets Responding Poets and Poets from around the US reading in DC 2011.
Welcome to Poets Responding’s New Website and Blog
We are proud to be in a new home. After Facebook kept changing its platform and ultimately decided to do away with its “notes” feature, which we always knew would come to pass, and after lamenting, say it isn’t so, we decided that it was time to do something new. So here we are — hope you like your new home poets and writers.
In 2010, when Francisco X. Alarcón gathered us together to form Poets Responding (to SB 1070) on Facebook, we never thought the page would continue for ten years. After Maestro’s sudden passing in 2016, a few of us dedicated moderators continued to post people’s writing and current news articles dealing with the issues we write about most.
We do not believe there is a reason to rehash all we’ve done or what we still hope to accomplish. But we will say that we plan to continue the work we set out for ourselves. To continue to call out injustice when and where we see it. We also reaffirm our commitment to the poetry of witness and to encourage young people to read and to write their dreams of a better world — which we believe is still possible.
This year marks the five-year anniversary of Francisco’s passing and because we still miss him and all he did for writing, and the artist as activist, we plan on gathering to honor him the best way we know how, and that is with our poetry. Also, because the ways of our ancestors teach us that how you keep someone from fading away is by remembering and sharing your memories of them, and by telling their stories, we will do that by reading from Maestro’s work as well. Please see the invitation below - if you click on the pages you can see them in a larger format. Thanks for taking the time to read our blog.
Ma Xipactinemi ~ Be Well.
