San Diego's poets laureate on being a 'government artist' and knocking poetry off its pedestal

What does it mean to be a "government artist" in San Diego?

Outgoing Poet Laureate Jason Magabo Perez shares the lessons he's learned from his two-year term, where he brought the city's neighborhoods to life through his vivid poetry. As Paola Capó-García takes on the mantle, she talks about her plans to bring a fresh perspective to the role and expand poetry's reach.

"I think that poetry has a way of winning anyone over if you're showing them that a poem can look and feel and sound like anything, that there's humor in poetry, that decoding a poem can feel like a game that you do with friends. And how one line or one word can have infinite meanings," Capó-García said.

In this conversation, both poets dive into how they demystify poetry for students and the public, and how they can connect and uplift San Diego's diverse communities through verse.

Guests:

• Paola Capó-García, San Diego poet laureate (2025-27), Professional Learning Coordinator at High Tech High Graduate School of Education
• Jason Magabo Perez, San Diego poet laureate emeritus (2023-24), Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at California State University San Marcos
• David Tomas Martinez, writer

Watch: David Tomas Martinez shares a poem from his second collection, "Post Traumatic Hood Disorder"

Poems read in this episode:

Yellow

Paola Capó-García

When I was young I thought the soul was a body part

To the right of my heart and in between the pre-breasts

this soul-thing would nest—and then one day it fell out?—

No It stuck around too long

and made a house of my insides The walls were

yellow which I now know is the color of hunger and

that's why I crave baby chicks and gold There

was so much furniture shoved inside of me and even if

the décor was mid-century, the style was mortal My

memory is hungry She wanted me to paint my face

every morning Makeup could enhance better

make use of this face But then my dog licked the second

face off clean That is my favorite movie

From "CLAP FOR ME THAT'S NOT ME" (Rescue Press, 2018).

Found Fragment on Ambition

David Tomas Martinez

v.

if a hood is a sense of place

& a sense of place is identity

then identity is a hood & adult

hood is being insecure in any

hood a hood scares the whitest

folks why folks scared to stop

in the hood & why folks stop

wearing a hood & call it white

nationalism if i tried i would

fail to pass if i failed i would

try to pass when can i retire my

bowl stop needing to beg for my

person hood you see academically

my ghetto pass was revoked please

sir can you direct me to the window

to turn in my man card where

can i apply to enter the whiteness

protection program ive lost

my found identity is a hood

a hood is a sense of place

a place places a hood hood in us

From "Post Traumatic Hood Disorder" (Sarabande Books, 2018).

We Draft Work Songs for the City

Jason Magabo Perez

Here is a parable,

a prayer, perhaps,

for those unmapped;

Here are new students

considering new lives,

new interrogations, new

footnotes, but no new

friendships, no news. None.

Still, the problem of loans.

Still, the problem of rent.

Still, the problem of property.

This alley off University is

a gallery of abandoned mattresses

Stacked against limp wire fencing that

leans against wood panels that

shade the driveway where the

unmapped fall asleep.

Ancestral spirits are

no less spectacle than

principled remembrance:

The craft of this tissue

we often call ourselves.

From "I ask about what falls away" (Kaya Press, 2024).

Mobility

Paola Capó-García

I keep finding people living in my house mouths I've never seen expressions through paint chips and light fixtures ‎I keep coming back to this place I label "house" because my plane tickets are designed to get me here and the bed has been made in the shape of an invitation

I learned to ride a bike on Wednesday and felt new I always resisted I didn't know how to balance on pavement or glitter I didn't know why that would be required of me this bike does not know the road to my house

Website says woman in tight dress slips on butter for twenty minutes, calls it art well what would you call that? an accident? It seems really lovely to me how the butter would go in and out of her pores as if it's always been trying to get back to that place

From "CLAP FOR ME THAT'S NOT ME" (Rescue Press, 2018).

Jason and Paola's literary influences:

• I Was Born With Two Tongues  ("Pillars" plays in episode)
• Talib Kweli / Black Star ("Definition" plays in episode)
• Fredrico  García Lorca
• Langston Hughes

Poems Paola often shares with her students:

• Lucille Clifton on the origins of poetry
• "A Small Needful Fact" by Ross Gay
• "Literature of Resistance Re-Imagined with Pepsi" by Tiffany Midge

Photos: San Diego’s poets laureate, captured between words and worlds

Mentioned in this episode:

• San Diego Poetry Futures | Poetry initiative from Jason Magabo Perez that brings people together through workshops, collabs and community verse
•  Love Hoops NYC | New York City-based basketball collective hosting open runs, skills sessions and events that build community on and off the court
• Ada Limón, United States poet laureate
• Lee Herrick, California poet laureate

Sources:

• City of San Diego Poet Laureate (City of San Diego, 2020-2025)
• Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowships (Academy of American Poets)
• Creating Poets Laureate Positions in States, Cities, U.S. Territories, and Tribal Nations (Academy of American Poets)
• San Diego Poet Laureate wraps up term by dreaming and planting seeds in new festival (KPBS, December 2024)
• "Here’s why Kendall Jenner's Pepsi ad is so controversial" (Washington Post, May 2017)
• Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Admin (The Art Story)