"Poetry teaches you to have radical honesty; politics teaches you how to survive," says Antonio de Jesús López. "
He's not speaking figuratively: López, whose parents immigrated to the San Francisco Peninsula from Mexico, currently serves as East Palo Alto's youngest city councilmember, and the second youngest in the city's history.
López is a true factotum: part interior poet, part public servant; part Mexican, part American; part tender, part rugged; part academic, part street.
Modeled after a university syllabus, López' sequence of poems mimics the idea of being "schooled" on various subjects. At its core, the poet relies on the heart and soul of East Palo Alto to convey a narrative about his own attempt to redefine institutional biases by becoming a part of the institution himself.
"We became guarded about everything, about how we built relationships with others," López says.
Meanwhile, López is simultaneously serving a four-year term as an East Palo Alto councilmember from December 2020 to 2024.
source: https://www.kqed.org/arts/13903633/meet-east-palo-altos-poet-turned-councilmember-antonio-lopez
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