The Voice of the City: A Talk with San Antonio’s Newest Poet Laureate
By Nick Blevins
Photography by Torry Sledge
Poet Laureate Eddie Vega speaks on his poetry outside Ruby City
Eduardo “Eddie” Vega: “Straight across; do you see?”
Scene In SA: “Okay, yeah!”
I’m standing with Eddie Vega, San Antonio’s newly inducted poet laureate, on the coral terrace of Ruby City, looking across San Pedro Creek at a couple lines of poetry inscribed into the embankment below. The words are his. It’s a bright, hot May evening.
Vega expounds on the mission of a poet laureate at San Pedro Creek's Mustard Seed Plaza
E: “This one was moved. It was supposed to be somewhere else, so it was a different poem. When they said it was gonna be here, across from Ruby City, I changed it to be a little more… I pictured somebody would come out of Ruby City and see it, so it’s a little bit more about the arts.”
We squint at the poem in the sunlight.
E: “I can’t read it right now. [laughs] I don’t have it memorized, you know.”
S: “Is it included in any of your collections?”
E: “No. No, it’s just here. Maybe later it’ll get put somewhere in something. I mean, I have it written down in my phone; let’s do that.”
He produces the poem on his phone and begins reciting:
“...And we write in cenzontle melodies, sing in moonlight cumbias, paint the scenes in alegria tones.”
S: “Alegria tones…”
E: “Yeah. So it’s kinda about the scene, and its art, and who we are; and it’s bilingual, you know? It’s puro art.”
The poem, one of three of his compositions greeting visitors along the San Pedro Creek comprises Vega’s contribution to the space as an artist – and one of his first in an official capacity, as his three-year term as San Antonio’s poet laureate began on April 1. Vivid, compelling, and tonally-savvy given its proximity to the esteemed contemporary art center, I start to get a glimpse of the process that led Vega, spoken word artist, noted taco authority, and educator of over twenty years, to becoming the seventh Poet Laureate of the seventh largest city in the country.
A poet laureate’s purview, according to the City of San Antonio’s Department of Arts and Culture website, “is to promote poetry and the literary arts in San Antonio” by “developing innovative and inspiring public events and programs in conjunction with local organizations and the Department of Arts & Culture.” With a number of ongoing initiatives – including his Mouth Dakota Poetry Project at the Dakota East Side Ice House, where participants of all skill ranges are encouraged to take the stage and share their pieces live – and his role as an active educator in the community, he seems particularly well-positioned to hit the ground running.
As we walk and talk, he elaborates on the themes behind these new installations, his feelings about what his appointment means, and what exactly he has in mind for it looking ahead.
And so, each of the poems were made specifically for those locations?
“You could say that. They were made for the [San Pedro] Creek. I researched [and] the Creek was just as important as the San Antonio River back when San Antonio started, so there’s a whole lot of history along this entire area. People have been settling here for a very long time. And this one…”
We stop in front of a different poem at street level, set in stone under the breezy shade of low trees.
“This one was serendipity, because I didn’t know exactly where [the poetry installations] were gonna be, but I knew [of native] plants, and I really wanted to incorporate Spanglish; so this one says:
‘Our anteposados walked in their huaraches among the huisaches, dipped their nogalitos in these sacred waters’
–and this right here,” he says, pointing to a small tree nearby, “is a nogalito [little walnut tree]; And that just kind of happened to be there.”
Shaded and serene, we made our way over to one of the benches at the nearby Mustard Seed Plaza. (Author’s Note: At the time of writing, only two of the three poems are available for public viewing, as the San Pedro Creek continues to undergo a dramatic revitalization.)
As our new poet laureate, what do you see as being your responsibilities to the city?
“I think, first of all, [it’s] to just represent poets, poetic arts, literary arts, and make sure that it’s for everybody—that our literary art is accessible to people, and our artists are accessible to people. So, it’s not just me, but it’s also bringing people with me, to spread our art with people.”
Do you feel any different?
“[laughs] I think there’s a little bit, maybe, more spring in my step, a little more confidence going; I feel, like, a sense of authority, maybe? In a good way! In [terms of] how I feel, that’s probably the biggest thing. There’s also a sense of responsibility that I have. I’m just very careful about what I say and how I say it.”
One of Poet Laureate Eddie Vega’s poems along San Pedro Creek
The San Pedro Creek is currently undergoing extensive renovations
That’s really interesting, because you’re super engaged on social media. Has this new title impacted how you engage online?
“Maybe a little bit of ‘how,’ maybe about ‘what’ I [engage with]. Like, right now, there’s this big thing about the whole ‘Edgar’ haircut, right? I feel like the assumptions about people with a certain haircut are wrong. I think it’s also important because it’s also about who we are as a people and who our kids are. I teach a lot of kids with that haircut, and they’re not bad kids. It’s kind of unfair to be generalizing somebody, and I think that’s something that we can hopefully talk about and discuss in this city, more than just ‘ban a haircut’ or ‘ban it from the premises,’ or just saying stupid things about it.”
Between being high visibility as both an educator and a poet laureate, how do you continue to make space for an intimate creative process like poetry?
“I think that when we get to the project that I have to put forth on behalf of the City and [the Department of] Arts and Culture—that’s definitely about making space, and I also have an open mic every other weekend for artists to come and just show their work."
But how about yourself? With all the demands on your time?
“That one is tough. I was told recently that at a certain hour, we should go on ‘Do Not Disturb’, and that’s family time, or me time, or our time. Scheduling, you know, there are times when I’m like, I can’t do anything that weekend or that time. And then a lot of mornings, you know, there’s usually not a lot going on. On a weekend morning, that’s a time when I can write, and be creative. Or later at night too, after I’ve gone on ‘Do Not Disturb’. [laughs]”
I’ve seen you perform live a number of times. You’re one of the funniest poets that I’ve ever seen. How does humor inform your approach to poetry?
“I think that we can’t always take ourselves so seriously. That’s part of it. Another part of it is, I know there’s a lot of introspective poetry and a lot of poetry that goes like, ‘This is how I’m feeling and I want the world to know that, and I’m feeling upset about things right now.’ But I think there’s a lot of poetry that celebrates the world, and I’m trying to pivot to that kind of poetry: to celebration of things.
The other part is, as a poet, I’ve been playing with words for a long time. Making puns, right? Or being just clever with words. And I think it helps to get the message across, to do that.
I don’t know, I think I have a penchant to be a stand-up comedian, but I didn’t really make it, you know? I did it twice, and it was like, you gotta prepare a lot, and I was funny for about thirty or forty seconds. But with a poem, I can do it for about two minutes!”
And so you do find people tend to be more receptive, then?
“I think so. You gotta be clever. You can’t just… This one’s a little bit tough, because there are certainly a lot of poets out there who are like, ‘No, this is how I feel,’ and I’m like, I accept that’s how you feel, but I think that we can’t always be dwelling in that, in that kind of emotion. It’s good to have a comedic break every once in a while, because otherwise that’s where we’ll spend all of our time—in the muck. I think as a spoken word artist, as a poet, as a writer, let’s get out of the muck sometimes.”
You can be earnest and humorous.
“Yeah, exactly! I think so. I’ve always liked that approach, of being earnest and humorous at the same time. I don’t know if you’ve heard Olmos Park, [my] poem about how we’ve always lived in Olmos Park, because we were ‘Olmos’ successful; I ‘Olmos’ went to the beach on Saturday, but Janey got the diarrhea, you know, whatever. And then shifting from there, into we ‘Olmos’ won the election; we ‘Olmos’ graduated from high school; or I ‘Olmos’ graduated from college. So, kinda start with the familiar, the funny part, and then have a little turn.
My food poems. Start out with something funny about food and barbacoa, but then it’s actually about culture, and it’s actually about us as a people.”
By the time it turns, they’re already strapped in.
“Exactly. I already got you.”
So you’re a self-professed flaneur, a person who lounges or strolls around in a seemingly aimless way. I don’t imagine you get much time to, lately?
“Not lately, and I’m surprised—nobody’s brought that up in a long time! But yeah, I love walking, especially in a space like this Creek, right? And just absorbing. Whenever I’ve gotten commissions about different places, I always go and I walk that area.
There was the Poet’s Pointe park [an installation by San Antonio artists Kim Bishop and Luis Valderas on the corner of Emory and Mistletoe], over there near Woodlawn Lake, and it’s a little park, and there’s seven poets that [the Department of Arts and Culture] had write poems. And for our poems, we each had a street. You know those streets out there, like Mistletoe, Magnolia, and Huisache? I had Mulberry, so I went to the coordinates because it wasn’t built yet, and I went to go walk the space, and breathe in, figure it out, you know? See what’s there. I ended up writing a little poem. It’s more of a memory about mulberries. But I think that’s really, really important: just be out there, be walking.”
Are there any other poems, poets, or trends, perhaps, in the world of poetry right now that pique your curiosity?
“It’s been becoming a little bit more popular to write novels in verse, especially for young adults. I’m starting to try that and see how that goes. I’ve got something outlined, but time is what it is, so I’ve been trying to do that. I like the idea – and maybe we’ve done it before – of jazz poetry, where you’ve got music playing behind your poem. And that, l think, leads to a spoken word album. I want to be, like, a Tejano Gil Scott-Heron, maybe, and have more of a Tejano groove or vibe to my poetry. And I’d like to explore that. There’s a time element. There’s also if I’m gonna record that, I need to get a studio space and musicians along with me, so there’s a chance for a grant there somewhere so that I can work on that.”
Do you have particular projects in mind for yourself that you’d like to weave into your work as poet laureate?
“I like our local libraries, and I need to sit down with the library people
and maybe do a tour of our libraries, and bring along some locals to those
libraries, and some kids to either be writing poems and reading poems out
loud in those little spaces. I would love to see more of our local poets in the
local libraries; like, not just physically there, but their words there, staying
behind. I mean, the John Igo library is named for a poet. I think that’s a
cool start!”
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Poet Laureate Eddie Vega's poem Mulberries and Opportunities, one of seven featured at Poet's Pointe
