Raúl Sanchez
Raúl Sanchez is the former City of Redmond Poet Laureate 2019-2021. He teaches bilingual poetry. He runs the Poetry in the Park bi-weekly readings at Meadowbrook Pond in NE Seattle, as well as the neighborhood “Poetry Pole” in front of his house. His inaugural collection, All Our Brown-Skinned Angels, published by MoonPath Press, was nominated for the Washington State Book Award in Poetry for 2013. When There Were No Borders was published by Flower Song Press in 2021.
2024 Jack Straw Alumni Poetry Series:
“Sanchez writes borderless in borderless times. He breaks through the ancient Mexica figure of death and transformation, Coatlicue, to poems as pyramids to the Sea of the Salish in the Pacific Northwest and unto cool-rebel Pachuco dialect of the US-Mexico borderlands.”
–Juan Felipe Herrerra
My Tongue / Mi lengua
My tongue retains the roaring sound of rivers, of the earth after the rain
falling over leaves, branches and flowers.
My tongue is stained with the juice of sweet pitayas, red, delicious, grown
under Tonatiuh’s rays, our father sun.
My tongue reveres nature and all living beings, mountains, rivers,
oceans, night and day.
My tongue wears Quetzal feathers mystical birds from the Mayan paradise.
My tongue is impregnated with Calpulli, Tonalli, Xochitl, Xochipilli,
Mictlantecuhtli, Cuauthemoc, Moctezuma, Quetzalcoatl, Tomatl, Centeotl.
My tongue speaks of temples, demigods, copal, flowers, medicinal plants,
jade masks, golden pectorals, obsidian stones, volcanoes and blood.
My ancient tongue speaks Zapotec, Nahuatl, Purepecha, Tzotzil, Otomi,
Chamula, Mayan, Tarahumara.
My tongue is my identity—the connection to my people, my roots,
my culture.
My language is from the earth, from the heavens, from my soul.
My tongue speaks, my soul feels the breath of the earth,
the sound of the wind Ehecatl.
My tongue, my language,
My culture and pride.
Sound Clips
Education Projects
Fuera de la Caja: Poesía de Denny 2019 READ MORE >
Las Voces del Futuro: Poesía de Denny 2020 READ MORE >
El Año Cuando Cambió Todo: Poesía de Denny 2021 READ MORE >
Los Poemas de Nuestros Corazones: Poesía de Mercer 2021 READ MORE >
Voces Locas: Poesía de Mercer 2022 READ MORE >
Tu Mundo, Nuestro Mundo: Poesía de Denny 2022 READ MORE >
Todo es posible: Poesía de Chinook READ MORE >
Nuestras Historias Contadas: Poesía de Denny 2023 READ MORE >
