On Sunday, August 23, introductory readings for the new Orange County Poet Laureate and Youth Poet Laureate were held in front of the Bristol Food Court in Santa Ana. An awning feebly protected the poets and audience from the blistering heat, a drop or two of sweat trickling down my back.
Sarah Raphael Garcia, poet and Founder and Executive Director of LibroMobile Arts Cooperative, MC’d the Poets Laureates reading and hosted the reception. She ensured the reading was short, saving the poets’ bios for later, when everyone in attendance was back under the cool air of her bookstore’s air conditioner. LibroMobile sat just a few storefronts down.
The new Orange County Poet Laureate, Alexandria Umlas, was unable to attend, as Garcia said Umlas had only been informed of the appointment the week before. The new Youth Poet Laureate, Clara Mejia-Yuan, was the second to read.
The Orange County Poets Laureate program was founded in 2021 in a partnership between the Orange County Public Libraries, the National Youth Poet Laureate Program championed by Urban Word and LibroMobile Arts Cooperative (LMAC). Its goal is not only to promote poetry in Orange Country, but to celebrate and honor “local poets who exhibit a commitment to not just artistic excellence but also civic engagement, youth leadership and social justice.”
Spearheaded by LMAC under the direction of Sarah Raphael Garcia, they created the program as one way to help make the literary arts in Orange County more reflective of its population. It’s “a region,” Garcia said in an Orange County Register article, “that is 60% people of color.”
This year, as the program introduced its second Youth Poet Laureate and its third Poet Laureate, LMAC is the sole facilitator of the Poet Laureate Program.
For the first time, the Poet Laureate program includes honorable mentions. Two—Jesus Cortez and Alexis Jaimes—for Poet Laureate, and Caroline Shin for Youth Poet Laureate. They read as well. Garcia said so many worthy poets had applied that she felt compelled to award honorable mentions.
Even the current Poet Laureate, Gustavo Hernandez, whose term ends in December, read a set of poems to close out the reading.
To kick off the reading, Caroline Shin read two poems, one titled “Everything Will Be Alright.” The poem contained the most powerful line I heard: “In a country that still argues over its own beginning.” This deep understanding of the complicated and contested history of the United States, expressed so concisely by a high school senior, said so directly, revealed a level of intellectual maturity that, in that moment, gave me reassurance that the next generation will actually confront the historical conflicts and divisions that the country has yet to resolve.
As a second generation Korean American, Shin founded the Liberation Archive, a project of reclamation, resistance and remembrance. She realized how little she knew about Korea’s modern history. As she says on the project’s website: “I knew the country my family came from, but not the people who organized labor movements, challenged authoritarian rule, risked imprisonment, and fought for the democracy that exists today. I recognized a critical lack of knowledge about the histories I inherit.” Because of this she started the archive from the “belief that remembrance is a form of responsibility. As a Korean American, I research and write about Korean history, allowing me to carry forward the stories that shaped my lineage and community.”
When Youth Poet Laureate Clara Mejia-Yuan took the mic, she recited two poems, including “the airport-hospital hypothesis,” previously published in the local journal Angel City Review. Her term began with Sunday’s celebratory reading and reception announcing her appointment and runs for one year.
Mejia-Yuan’s appointment is the re-launch of the Youth Poet Laureate program that’s laid dormant since 16 year old Tina Mai held the inaugural position in 2021. As with Mai’s appoint, LMAC’s appointment of Mejia-Yuan is in partnership with the National Youth Poet Laureate Program that “works with local youth literary arts organizations across the country to identify and celebrate exceptional youth poets who use their voice to inspire change.”
Mejia-Yuan’s poems, such as “the airport-hospital hypothesis,” demonstrate why she was chosen as Youth Poet Laureate.
The poem is about the fleeting nature of time and life, especially in places where people experience moments of transition such as airports and hospitals. These places, especially, strip away the distractions of everyday life and reveal the depth of human love, connection and the fleeting nature of time that lie underneath. The two lines that stood out where: “Airports and hospitals are the places/that have seen the most humanity.”
Her inspiration for writing poems that dig beneath the surface of what we typically see and understand stems from her own experiences as a Chinese Mexican American and from the stories she’s encountered growing up in Fullerton.
After Mejia-Yuan’s reading, the two Honorable Mentions for Poet Laureate took the mic, one after the other, as mostly Latinx patrons entered and exited the food court, many pausing only briefly or glancing toward the readers to figure out what was taking place. Their coming and going didn’t disrupt the reading as Santa Ana’s own Alexis Jaimes read his poem “Tiger Stripes,” which moves between English and Spanish. The poem reveals a skin condition he describes as “Zihuatanejo white sand to eroded Guanajuato soil.”
He uses his skin condition to discuss how skin tone is used in creating one’s identity and how it gets politicized in American and Mexican politics. The lines that best exemplify this are: “Born an imposter from birth: pocho or illegal either/neither/both.”
Yet, as a bilingual elementary school teacher, Jaimes works to carve out opportunities for his students that he did not have, “like ensuring students are able to become bilingual, biliterate and bicultural,” he said in a VoyageLA interview.
Jaimes, along with Jesus Cortez, has the opportunity to impact the public in similar ways by creating accessible opportunities for community members to engage with them as civic and cultural resources. Along with Alexandria Umlas, they will engage with the community through the monthly OC Poet Laureate office hours, first established by current Poet Laureate Gustavo Hernandez. These hours are hosted at LMAC’s LibroMobile bookstore, reflecting LMAC’s commitment to promoting cultural events, programs, and services that benefit residents throughout the county.
Then Cortez read. He first explained that he incorporates the struggles of his Chicanx community into his poems, drawing from the working-class realities of West Anaheim and ensuring that he includes the people actually fighting for their equity. Their social, cultural, political, and personal equity.
During the reception, Cortez told me that this approach to his poetry is an extension of the community organizing he did when he was younger, which he stopped engaging in as he got too old and when he stopped trusting the organizations he worked with. As a way to continue his activism in a form he is still capable of.
Cortez doesn’t hold back in his work. One of the two poems he read, “Noble Savage,” demonstrates this. At one point, he declares, “I have no respect for western civilization.”
Finally, Gustavo Hernandez took the mic. The Poet Laureate for the past three years, he stood before the audience looking every bit like a vaquero, wearing a white Stetson hat and sporting a bushy push-broom mustache. Having moved to Santa Ana from Jalisco, Mexico as a child, making the city his home, he read a full set of poems from both his published books Flower Grand First and Bachelor.
Before he shared his poems, Hernandez spoke about how he implemented the addition of office hours because he wanted his time as OC Poet Laureate to benefit the county’s residents through education and mentorship about poetry and what the role of a Poet Laureate is. As Hernandez told me during the reception, he made sure the implementation of the office hours—a fairly new way of connecting the position to the community—became a permanent part of the position, evolving it beyond its ease of use as simply a résumé builder. Personally, Hernandez said, no matter what was going on in his life, the office hours have always centered him.
Then, Hernandez read poems stemming from place. Through place, his poems explored family, his identity as a gay man, love and loss. At one point, he mentioned the county’s iconic Costa Mesa Freeway, saying, “on the 55 Freeway.”
Though Alexandria Umlas wasn’t available to be introduced as the incoming Orange County Poet Laureate, the reading didn’t lose its celebratory nature. The two honorable mentions—Jesus Cortez and Alexis Jaimes—will be working closely with her, and their readings gave the audience a meaningful introduction to the poets who will help her carry the Poet Laureate position into its next chapter.
Los Angeles Literature 