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Platica Y Poetics S4E7 : Eduardo “Eddie” Vega

Season 4, Episode 7 : Eduardo “Eddie” VegaIf we both had shown up with a bag of tacos in hand, our platica would have run for hours.Where we would have forgotten the whole interview and entered a taco platica, where we would have talked in the language of taquito, and painted a culinary picture in the studio where like a ‘Water for Chocolate’ aroma fumes would have peeked and emerged out of our mics. Eddie being a taco connoisseur and myself a cocinera estilo revolución would have perfected the perfect taco. One that exist in the sanctity of our mothers and abuelas kitchens. I counter that with the perfect puesto on the side of a windy dirt road in México, señoras greeting, slapping masa on comals, filling with el guiso del día. Eduardo “Eddie” Vega, San Antonio’s current Poet Laureate, storyteller, spoken word artist, and educator, is rooted in laughter, chistes, memory, tacos, and verdades. Eddie reflected on how poetry first entered his life not as an academic exercise, but as a necessity born from lived experience, barrio rhythms, and familia wisdom. We traced the cultural roots that shaped his voice, the poets who opened caminos to him open, and the urgencies that compelled him to write ‘Somos Nopales,’ a collection grounded in survival, nourishment, and collective memory. Our conversation weaved between the sacred and the everyday, from the responsibility of being Poet Laureate to poetry as a tool for community healing, resistance, and preservation. Along the way, we detoured into taco theology (yes, carne guisada and chorizo con huevo get their moment). Eddie offered powerful readings that embody the spirit of Somos Nopales: about our gente rooted in resilience, rooted in orgullo, and unapologetically ours. Todo se puede, somos nopales. (P.S.: so hungry after the interview, we forgot to take the photo. Ya ni modo.

Platica Y Poetics S4E6- Octavio Quintanilla

Episode 6, Season 4: Dr. Octavio QuintanillaGrey cumulus clouds hung low like a soft, familiar plush blanket, as an heirloom passed down to keep us warm through dark days. In this intimate plática, poetic creation stories were bestowed as a gift by Texas Poet Laureate Dr. Octavio Quintanilla as he reflected on who he is as an artist, tracing the ways poems emerge from image, ritual, and lived experience. A fluid space unfolded between visual art and language as Quintanilla spoke of his interdisciplinary practice, where FRONTEXTOS ‘arte fronteriza,’ art born from the in-between and the border, and wordplay become entry points for poetry to exist through shape, color, and form. He shared how poems often arrive through acts of looking, how journals hold the first raw gestures of language, and how art and text converse and transform into a living manifestation on both canvas and page.Our conversation turned to his acclaimed book Las Horas Imposibles, a work that holds grief, love, memory, and bilingual intimacy as artistic necessity, reflecting on “impossible hours”, those unspeakable moments poetry is called into action, and on the lessons found in darkness, vulnerability, and shedding. As both former San Antonio Poet Laureate and current Texas Poet Laureate, he spoke of poetry as an essential lifeline for survival, community-building, and cultural resistance. Our plática closed with a shared acknowledgment that all is in constant evolution—thoughts, responses, beginnings, endings. We are the evolution, the internal revolution. The future of poetics is a camino unknown, an uncharted lyrical and prose territory. What remains constant is the irreplaceable power of human connection and observation. Darkness, he reminds us, is one of our greatest teachers; the light exists and always will, but only if we are willing to sit, listen, and observe what darkness has to say

Platica Y Poetics S4E5 - Dr. Norma E. Cantú- Intimate, reverent, and border epistemology plática

Platica Y Poetics S4E4- Cloud Cardona- A jean jacket dressed in nostalgia.

Platica Y Poetics S4E3 w/ Sonya Rosario- The Sofa as Witness, Memory, and Agency

The Empower Hour w/ Armando Estrada - Patricia Jimenez, The Raul Jimenez Thanksgiving Dinner

The Raul Jimenez Thanksgiving Dinner was started 46 years ago with the intention to serve the elderly community of San Antonio. Today we talk to Patricia Jimenez, Rauls daughter, about the event, the history and the importance of community. 

The Resilience Within S4E4

The Resilience Within S4E3

Happy Hour w/ Elda Olvera w/ Childrens Chorus of San Antonio - Dr. Cruse