For Laurie Ann Guerrero, former Texas poet laureate and current writer-in-residence at Texas A&M University San Antonio, writing is like breathing.

And with each breath, she gives her ancestors the space to tell their stories. 

“Trust your hands know the work / even if you do not know the work. / You do not speak for the dead. / The dead speak for you,” said Guerrero, reading an excerpt from her poem, “Ars Politica: How to Make Art.” 

The poem is dedicated to the artists of San Antonio and Guerrero’s response to the often-asked question, “how do you create art?”  

Tapping into ancestral knowledge and traditions is where Guerrero finds inspiration for the themes that weave through most of the art she creates. 

“Go back to your ancestors and find their voices,” Guerrero said.

San Diego City College World Cultures program, Punete and the English department hosted Guerrero on April 6 in honor of National Poetry Month. 

Guerrero performed selected works, many from her latest collection, “I Have Eaten The Rattlesnake: New & Selected,” which was published as part of the Texas Christian University Press Texas Poet Laureate series in March 2021.

“I Have Eaten The Ratttlesnake: New & Selected” covers sex, race, loss, abuse, ancestral history, culture, and how they intersect in her own life and community.

“It’s a huge honor to have a book in the series,” Guerrero said. “Coming from the people I come from, who are migrant workers and many of whom were illiterate.”

One way to begin this journey into the past, find something that is meaningful to you, no matter how small, and write about it, said Guerrero. Any object with meaning to you has the power to spark creativity.

The title of the collection Guerrero is now working on, Redwork, refers to the style of embroidery she uses, passed down to her from her mother and practiced often with her aunts during childhood.

Through embroidery, she learned how to sit alone silently and find space to let poems come through her.

The first piece in Redwork, titled Atlas, centers on the idea of understanding one’s own body and the inherited knowledge that exists within.

Guerrero drew on the advice her mother gave her just before the birth of her first child for this collection. 

“My mother had told me that my body would know what to do when the time comes,” Guerrero said.

Guerrero’s other collections include “Babies under the Skin,” “A Tongue in the Mouth of the Dying” and “A Crown for Gumecindo.”

To learn more about Laurie Ann Guerrero and read more of her work, visit her personal website here.

More information about the City World Cultures Program and upcoming events can be found here.