San Antonio became the first major city in Texas to create its own position of poet laureate, a local figure who works with local organizations to promote poetry and literary arts.
Seven poets laureate have taken the helm since then, including Carmen Tafolla, Laurie Ann Guerrero, Octavio Quintanilla, and Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson.
Spoken word artist and poet Eddie Vega was selected in March as the seventh San Antonio Poet Laureate and will serve his three-year term through 2027.
Vega is known as the Taco-Poet of Texas and is an educator at Holy Cross of San Antonio. He is the first high school teacher to be appointed to the position.
“I use poetry in the classroom and that’s kind of one of my goals is to have more poetry integrated into classrooms that don’t have to be English or literature classrooms,” he said.
Vega is the editor of "Asina is How We Talk", a collection of Spanglish poetry by South Texas and borderland writers. He has also published the poetry collections "Chicharra Chorus" and "Somos Nopales".
Somos Nopales touches on themes of borderland life and talk. This includes references to nepantla, the concept of “in-between-ness” introduced by Chicana scholar, Gloria Anzaldua .
“(There’s) this idea of being a nepantlero,” he said. “You are neither de aqui, ni de alla. You’re not from here, you’re not from there. You’re stuck in the middle somewhere.”
