Is your work political?
Yes
What is the place of literature in politics?
All literature is political —“if you’re not part of the solution, you are the problem.”
What is your favorite political work?
“The Viet Arcanes” by Jack Hirschman
Do you feel voting is important?
Yep
What are your hopes for this election?
We survive.
Paul Lobo Portugés— Teaches creative writing at UCSB, taught at UC Berkeley, USC, and the University of Provence. Books include “The Bullet Had His Face in the Dove of His Blood,” “Sorrow and Hope,” “Breaking Bread,” “The Visionary Poetics of Allen Ginsberg,” “Saving Grace, Hands Across the Earth,” “The Flower Vendor,” “Paper Song,” “Aztec Birth,” “The Body Electric Journal,”” The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson,” “Ginsberg: On Tibetan Buddhism, Mantras, & Drugs,” “Witness,” and “Cradle to Cradle” (forthcoming 2021). Poems are scattered in small magazines: Prairie Schooner, Floricanto, The American Journal of Poetry, Hambone, Chelsea, River Styx, and anthologies (“El Tecolote,” “Overthrowing Capitalism,” “The Asian Writer, Naropa Anthology”), across the Americas, Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Awards from the National Endowment, the Fulbright Commission, et al.
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