SAN ANTONIO — Poetry may be a classical form of expression, but Eddie Vega inflects his stanzas with a contemporary sheen—incorporating references to Marvel, the census process and gun control.
It isn't just a way to better connect with readers and listeners of his work, he says. It's a way to more pointedly share what's on his mind.
"A poet has to respond to the world that they’re in," Vega says. "When things come up, it’s your chance to say something about it.”
A native of McAllen who has called San Antonio home for 30 years, the award-winning poet is acutely aware of the relative lack of Latino voices, faces and influence across media. He comments on that very absence across his work.
Take, for instance, this line in his poem "They Gave Us a Month," referring to Hispanic Heritage Month: "For 56 million Latinos in America / they gave us 30 days / We've been here more than 300 years / and they give us 30 pinche days."
Vega's growing platform will get even larger on April 15, when the 48-year-old writer and educator is officially appointed San Antonio's seventh poet laureate, an honorary position he will hold for three years while working to "promote literary poetic arts and literacy in the community," according to a city release.
Here are five things to know about Vega as he begins his tenure as one of the city's cultural ambassadors.
He started writing as a child
Vega's poetry has always come from a personal place. That includes his earliest works, which he wrote for his mother when he was 8 or 9 years old, or "maybe younger."
"I didn’t have an allowance to be able to buy her a gift," he said, "but I could take some flowers from the neighbors, put them in a vase and write her a little poem."
The writing would continue through high school and college, but it wasn't until the last 15 years or so that he started sharing his work more widely, performing at open mic events and getting his words published.
The 'Taco Poet' origin story
Vega's nickname has roots in a short-lived blog he ran with a friend through which they'd review local taco joints. From there he adopted the Taco Poet of San Antonio nickname before expanding to Taco Poet of South Texas.
"Then I was somewhere at an open mic or reading somewhere and the host, I think it was (San Antonio poet) Vocab (Sanderson) actually, she says, 'You're the Taco Poet of Texas,'" Vega recalls. "She declared it. Once somebody else declares it, then it's more official."
The name is more than a reference to a revered regional food, however. It's about cultural context, personal experience and recalling the many things something as simple as a taco conjures up.
To Vega, that provides food for thought, and fodder for his poetry.
"When you're talking about those things, it's more than just the actual food. It's about the emotion, the feeling, about the people that you're with. The occasion for it and all that."
He's a published author
The start of 2024 has brought not just Vega's appointment as the city's poet laureate, but the release of his latest book, "Somos Nopales." The poetry collection sees Vega exploring themes of identity, displacement and culture, with the title (translated directly, "We are Cacti") a reference to prospering in stringent conditions.
He also edited the 2022 collection "Asina Is How We Talk," which featured Tejano poets upending traditional form through code-switching and bilingual writing.
"That kind of goes back to that idea of representation," Vega said about the unorthodox writing styles found in the collection. "As American poets, we're told to write in English or speak in English, and Mexican poets will write in Spanish. But we're Mexican-American poets, and sometimes the way that we talk in this area is to use both. I wanted to highlight those voices of poets that were doing that."
Vega's first book, "Chicharra Chorus," released in 2019.
He's empowering budding poets
In 2021, Vega embarked on a venture to help other local artists find a platform: The Mouth Dakota Poetry Project, an open mic group that meets biweekly on Sundays on the east side.
"We were coming out of COVID, so I wanted to offer an open mic for people," Vega says about how it started.
Mouth Dakota Poetry Project has since hosted events themed around celebrations like Black History Month and Hispanic Heritage Month.
Vega says poetry offers artists a direct, bite-size way to share their perspectives with audiences—an "appetizer," as he calls it, to others' experiences.
"We want to read poems or hear poems that sound like us, that we can relate to because they sound like us," he said. "Visual media can do that, too. The difference is the sound and the word... we offer you a quick bite over the poem. It’s a little morsel so that you want to get some more."
He cites other Latino authors among his favorite artists
Vega's bio page on Poets & Writers shows South Texas writers Carmen Tafolla, Jacinto Jesús Cardonas and Trinidad Sanchez Jr. are among his authors of choice.
Of those, perhaps the most notable is Tafolla, who has garnered international acclaim and served as San Antonio's inaugural poet laureate from 2012 to 2014. Vega's list also includes the Mexican journalist and poet Amado Nervo, who was born in 1870 and is regarded as one of the "most distinguished Mexican poets" of his time, according to Britannica.
A line of influence can be drawn from Vega's cited sources of inspiration and his own work, which follow in his favorite authors' preferred subjects to write about, including culturalism, protest of stereotypes or obstacles, and specificity of experience.
Vega will be introduced as the city's seventh poet laureate at City Council Chambers on April 15, but his tenure officially began Monday. He will serve in the position until March 31, 2027.
>TRENDING ON KENS 5 YOUTUBE:
