The New Los Angeles Poet Laureate Is Luis Rodriguez

Los Angeles Times announces LA's new Poet Laureate! The position goes to poet, youth activist, and memoirist Luis Rodriguez, author of Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A.

"Luis Rodriguez is an example of how powerful an impact literature can have on young lives, and as Poet Laureate, he will impact youth across Los Angeles,” Mayor Garcetti said in a statement. “I have no doubt that Luis will run with this new role and take it to heights.”

Rodriguez is the city’s second poet laureate, succeeding Eloise Klein Healy. During his two-year term, he is expected to compose poems to the city, host at least six readings, hold at least six classes or workshops at public library branches and serve as a cultural ambassador.

Those things should come naturally to Rodriguez, who is the founder and editor of the Tia Chucha Press, which has a bookstore and cultural center in Sylmar.

“I’m honored to be selected as the new Poet Laureate of Los Angeles — to expand on the new and imaginative journey Mayor Garcetti has embarked on to make this a livable, welcome, and artistically-alive city,” Rodriguez said in a statement. “To me, poetry is deep soul-talk, a powerful means to enlarge one’s presence in the world.”

Rodriguez’ poetry collections include “My Nature Is Hunger,” “The Concrete River,” “Trochemoche,” and “Poems Across the Pavement.”

His most recent book is the 2011 memoir, “It Calls You Back: An Odyssey Through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing,” a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

For more on Rodriguez, check out this 2011 interview at Blue Mesa Review.