New San Diego Poet Laureate Sees Poetry as Empowerment Tool

Jason Magabo Perez was named the second San Diego Poet Laureate in January. He succeeds Ron Salisbury, appointed to a two-year term in 2020.

Perez is the author of two books, The Phenomenology of the Superhero and This Is for the Most Defenseless, which included poetry, personal essays, fiction, and oral history. He graduated from the University of California, San Diego and is director of the Ethnic Studies Program at California State University, San Marcos.

“I think I’m here to share what I’ve learned over the years as a community organizer – as a poet, as an educator, as a scholar, in hopes of demystifying poetry a bit,” Perez said.

Perez spoke to KPBS Midday Edition about poetry and how family and community history influences his work.

Pérez made his debut as Poet Laureate in San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria’s speech on the state of the city on January 11 with his poem “We make work songs for this city.” The poem is reproduced below with permission:

We write work songs for this city

Jason Magabo Perez

whenever we draw out the grammars of pacific anxiety
whenever another blackout grants us much needed silence

whenever the surrender of this silence is enough of a typhoon, we
sketches of work songs for this city mighty we draft

futures are mighty, we are at the mouth of the river at rush hour, we
chants of protest and dump syntax we draw on the corner

Black Mountain and Mira Mesa here on the pavement of tattered
shoelaces and lost grocery lists we make plans to survive

we survive on the smell of beef broth the smell of basil
turmeric cilantro carne asada from freshly cooked rice

steamed freshwater fish bok choy deep fried rice
paper we work song at this bus stop for students we work

song at this bus stop for tech workers this bus stop for lolas
y abuelitas we work song in a tin drum guttural syllables

distant homelands we compose litanies on every street lamp
altar we compose poems on napkins and plastic products

bags wherever elders play chess and wax
geographically outside of the donut shop when it’s most needed

silence promises a new hour whenever the pacific knows
to break the coastline whenever a typhoon is a fractal rumble in

chest we compose work songs for this city we are raw
literature we are the distillation of afterlife dreams we exchange

Philosophers, we make work songs on the corner of Genesee
& Clairemont Mesa we paint gutters dotted with pink

bean straws and dried palm leaves that we prepare for mothers and children
bustling bouquets of carnations from the bike path we draw

for parolees in orange vests, they sell local stands from the center
the island we draw on the Murray Range where the family sells roses and

chocolate from a white bucket whenever the short hour rings
collect whenever breaks in the line set us free whenever the rumble

in the chest comes like a ghost in the throat we compose work songs we whose
hands wash the sky we who grow gardens and orchards against anxiety

we, whose mighty pain remakes history, we compose working songs here
in an alley near the University behind 49th street we draw perfectly

reusable red plastic car slide full of birthday balloons
a small pile of middle-class paperback books, a golden purse full of fresh

broccoli and rubber gloves black tote bag stuffed with wet salad
and the white surgical masks we paint at backyard family parties

And barbecues for the whole block, we work, a song where it smells of freshness.
tires and tortillas made from flour, where dried lemon peels stick to the pavement

work song from peeled chicken bone wrapped in foil work song from
rain soaked box springs work song for infamous hot cheetos

clockwork fire burrito fairy tale work song graveyard work song
Shift Survivor Song A song about a nail salon in a parking lot

Sky photo under the future outside between two buildings
the work song we make up when patrol cars fill the lane we make up in protest

medics throng the alley we are designing, and Muslim taxi drivers park their cars together.
Priuses at the mosque at tackeria child’s work song

chase mosquitoes with a hammer wherever there is a community of uncles
collected in the common parking lot of banh mi shop & Somali

a restaurant wherever we feel like we lived traffic here
lettuce picker sings here strawberry picker sings here

messenger, postman, caretaker, hotel maid,
caretaker landscaper gardener builder nurse teacher waiter

dishwasher bus driver grocer labor organizer mechanic therapist here
the nurse sings here the refugee sings here the native sings here

migrant Oh, what a job! Oh what a song! Oh what a city! when our statement
this is an archive when there is a historical countdown, when we do not demand anything

without collective joy, and here we are in the Motherland composing working songs for
this city we write work songs for this city we write work songs for this city

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