San Diego Poet Laureate Sunsets with Festival Celebrating Poetry’s Infinite Possibility

Poet Laureate Jason Magabo Perez envisioned Saturday’s Poetry Futures 2024 Coda at the UC San Diego Cross-Cultural Center as both a culmination of his two-year tenure and a new beginning. 

Perez succeeded Ron Salisbury to become San Diego’s second poet laureate, serving as an ambassador for poetry, spoken word and literary arts on behalf of the city.

Over the past two years, Perez has championed poetry as a community-building tool, hosting workshops in schools, libraries and cultural centers to amplify diverse voices and create inclusive spaces for expression.

Last spring, Perez launched his signature initiative, San Diego Poetry Futures 2024, using poetry for community empowerment through diverse programming, including workshops linked to undocumented migration at the Museum of Us, sessions for Arab youth at the Majdal Center in El Cajon and youth-focused poetry exercises along San Diego’s trolley system. 

While not all of his lofty ambitions came to fruition, Perez sees the work as a foundation. 

“A big goal of the Futures project was to plant seeds and get us to really think about how we bring poetry to our communities,” Perez said. 

“Nine months is not enough time — and even two years as poet laureate — to do all of it. But it is enough time to start building relationships, trust, reciprocity and cultures of accountability — things vital to building community.” 

For Perez, Saturday’s poetry festival was an opportunity to celebrate progress while envisioning what lies ahead.

More than 30 poets gathered, including nationally and internationally acclaimed voices, along with California Poet Laureate Lee Herrick and those Perez considers the “backbone of the San Diego poetry and literary community.” 

The event offered a stacked lineup of activities such as poetry readings, creative writing workshops, a zine-making lab, an awards ceremony hosted by Poets Underground and a book fair featuring local literary organizations. 

Perez expressed his vision for creating a space where poets and community organizers can connect beyond sharing their work and inspiring each other with poetry. 

“I want us to dream up new possibilities,” he said. “While this event will be reflective, a culmination and a celebration of my term, I want that to be just a small part. Maybe it’s my nature, but I want to hype up the people.”

“When I was appointed poet laureate, it felt like a win for all of us because I care about all of us,” Perez said. 

Having spent his adolescence in Oceanside and much of his adult life in San Diego, Perez said he has “a lot of love for the city and the county.”

Perez discovered poetry at UC San Diego, using it as a powerful tool for expression and reflection while processing his identity as a first-generation college student and the child of Filipino immigrants, with his father having worked as a janitor for most of his life. Engaged in activism, Perez found poetry deeply connected to community, mainly through his involvement in the Freedom Writers, a multiracial social justice spoken word collective. 

Perez said he spent the last two decades gathering tools through formal and informal education — learning from institutions, elders, young people and peers — cultivating an understanding of poetry as a space of infinite possibility. 

“For language, for articulating our vision for the world, for grieving, for any number of things,” he shared.

Perez said he feels his work most validated in the small, quiet moments, such as when an elder, whether a poet or another community member, reaches out to affirm him with a look, handshake or hug. He recalled a student from San Diego City College waiting for him after an event to share how inspiring he found his work. The educator said experiences like these are incredibly meaningful.

“It’s the connection and opportunity for folks to feel seen,” he said. “I’ve told young folks here, there are poets for everybody. There is a poet writing somewhere just for you and your community.” 

Currently on sabbatical from his “day job” as a professor of ethnic studies at Cal State San Marcos, Perez plans to return to teaching. He hopes to build on the Poetry Futures initiatives, exploring programming around film and poetry. 

He also wants to fulfill some of the visions and collaborations sparked during his term. One key goal is to establish the San Diego Youth Poet Laureate program.

As Perez’s term nears its end, his commitment to the city remains steadfast. 

“I was doing this work before I became poet laureate and I’ll continue doing it after,” he said.