He was colorful, charming, inclusive. He read beautifully, to a roomful of friends and admirers. Alejandro Murguia was celebrated at the Koret Auditorium as the sixth Poet Laureate of San Francisco.
Alejandro was certainly pleasing. He accepted the title “in the name of the community” and kept reminding the audience that “Everyone is a poet until proven otherwise.” Perhaps this can be said to a group of people who have no interest in poetry. For those of us who work hard and dedicate our lives to the art, his was a very curious statement. It is like saying you are an architect or a surgeon until proven otherwise. Poetry, then, is meaningless, if we were all poets.
We are definitely all poetic and capable of self expression. But then we should draw the line right there.
Photo from SFPL.
