Raquel Salas Rivera Named Philadelphia Poet Laureate

Philadelphia has named Raquel Salas Rivera the city's newest adult poet laureate, reports The Philadelphia Inquirer. John Timpane talked with Rivera about the gig, her relationship to the city, and self-identifying as a migrant. From their conversation:

As a Puerto Rican, and as a person self-identifying as a migrant, you have very mixed feelings about this country, with its burdened colonial past, its prejudices, its class structure. Yet here you are.

I don’t identify as an American, but I identify as a Philadelphian! That’s a common experience for a lot of people, often unspoken. This is a huge country, and every place is really different, and beyond the U.S. political borders, many people identify with regions, with cities and towns. To say “I’m an American” is a political statement, and “I’m a Philadelphian” is an identity locator.

You’re going to be a poet laureate, meaning you’re about to get really into Philadelphia, a city of neighborhoods.

I’ve never seen anywhere else the post of a city’s poet laureate be what it is in Philly – a position of such significant social service. There is so much to do, neighborhood to neighborhood and culture to culture. We do have bridge-builders here: Poets like Kirwyn Sutherland and Yolanda Wisher are moving between spaces. Yet Philly is still very segregated along racial lines, and people often stay within their communities. There are ways of changing that, putting people into spaces they wouldn’t ordinarily be in. And that’s something I put in my application that I wanted to do. I want to do a series called We, Too, Are Philly, based on Langston Hughes’ poem “I, Too,” in which we involve poets of color and poets of more than one language in different activities.

Philly has so many incredible poets here for a city of its size. There’s so much going on in the sanctuary movement, this being a sanctuary city, so much good stuff being written about the immigrant and sanctuary experience. Maybe it’s the time for it.

Find it all at the Inquirer.