Like Bullets For Fascists: Q+A with Political Poet Matt Sedillo
By Viva Padilla
FROM: Dryland
Chicano revolutionary poet Matt Sedillo met up with Viva Padilla (proper masks were worn) in El Sereno this past weekend to catch up and talk about his newest poetry collection Mowing Leaves of Grass (published by FlowerSong Press). During this interview they drove around the Eastside. They came upon a squeaky clean Black Lives Matter/Defund the Police protest in Pasadena, boarded up and tagged “R.I.P. George Floyd” storefronts in the belly of high gentrification in Highland Park, and the homeless encampment at the Veteran’s Monument in El Sereno–a proper backdrop for the political insight Sedillo delivers like a gun-slinger in his book where American institutions rooted in white supremacy are dragged out by the hair and left on the side of the road to rot.
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The National Beat Poetry Foundation, Inc. (NBPF), a not-for-profit organization founded in 2016, has selected Rich Ferguson to serve as the State of California Beat Poet Laureate for a two-year term from Sept. 2020 to Sept. 2022.
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It was approximately 7:00pm on February 27th, 2020 when I sat down with poet Luivette Resto in the small courtyard of Woodbury University’s campus library, empty and silent in the late-night hour. As a slight chill settled in the air, we chatted to the soothing patter of the courtyard fountain, occasionally pausing our conversation as we listened to the droning roar of an airplane flying overhead, courtesy of the nearby Burbank airport. Illuminated by the soft yellow glow of the lights strung above us, we talked about Luivette’s work, her inspiration, goals, and her commitment to living an “unapologetic” life.
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Los Angeles Literature 