Funding for COLORES was provided in part by: Frederick Hammersley Fund, New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund, and the Nellita E. Walker Fund for KNME-TV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation... ...New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts... and Viewers Like You.

DEDICATED TO CULTURAL STORYTELLING, ALBUQUERQUE'S SEVENTH POET LAUREATE DAMIEN FLORES SHARES HIS PASSION FOR POETRY AND HIS MISSION TO INSPIRE THE NEXT GENERATION.

KEYS NATIVE, LEAH SUTTER, REFLECTS ON HOW THE UNIQUE COMMUNITY AND LAID- BACK LIFESTYLE OF THE FLORIDA KEYS HAVE SHAPED HER MUSIC AND IDENTITY.

HELPING INDIVIDUALS FIND HOPE AND HEALING, MOCA HOUSE OFFERS A SUPPORTIVE SPACE WHERE ART LESSONS BECOME A POWERFUL TOOL FOR MENTAL HEALTH RECOVERY.

Rounded rolling pins cut from cedar smooth with hidden splinters in their hands.

>> Faith Perez: Can you tell me about your journey into poetry?

Like, what inspired you to start writing?

>> Damien Flores: Alright, so I feel like this story is really important to tell for me.

When I was a kid, 10th grade, my mother suffered a stroke and within two months of recovering, she suffered another and passed away.

I was 15 years old when she had died, and during that time I was a student at Albuquerque High School and I had a teacher named John Tritica who taught great books, and during that time it was just coincidental that he was teaching a poetry unit and he had us write a descriptive poem.

And so since I was at the hospital every day waiting with my family and looking after my mother, I wrote my poem about the sounds and sights of the hospital.

And Mr. Tritica had taken note of it and he kind of recognized that I had more inside of me to tell.

And so he gave us a xeroxed copy of a poetry book and he said, your only homework is to take it over the weekend, read 'em all and then write three questions if you could ask the author anything.

And so I went home, I read the poems and they mentioned Old Town Albuquerque, my Street, mountain Road and Rio Grande.

It mentioned downtown, Albuquerque, Fourth Street, all these places that I knew and recognized immediately, and I loved it.

It was so profound.

Then that Monday we go to class and there next to Mr.Tritica's desk is this cool looking vato with his Ray Ban sunglasses and a cool hat.

And Tritica introduces him to the class and says, well, here's Levi Romero.

Levi, who would later become the state poet laureate, the centennial poet of Smithsonian poet.

He wrote your poems, take out your questions.

What do you have to ask him?

And that was my moment that was so profound to me.

And then later that summer I joined the Hispanic Cultural Center's Voces writing program for teenagers.

And that's really where I took off.

I got my first publication.

I started expanding my writing beyond just poetry or short stories.

I got to work with all of these great eclectic writers at only 16 years old.

And that just really set me on the path for the rest of my life as a poet.

>> Faith Perez: How did your grandparents influence your poems?

>> Damien Flores: They were the natural storytellers in my family.

So my grandma and grandpa were there for me and my mother, my grandma would say the legend was that I was 10 days old when I went to go live with them.

And my mom escaped an abusive relationship and moved back in with her mom and dad to get herself resettled and reset her life, and so, by my mother making this- this decision and this sacrifice.

I got to grow up with all my family around and my grandma and my grandp a were still young and spry for their age when I was growing up as a little boy.

And as I got older, the social aspect of my grandparents' house, they would invite neighbors, family members.

I have so many cousins, I have no idea how big my family tree is whatsoever, we'd get lost, and all these folks would come over and hang out and I would be captivated by just their jokes, their stories they told each other.

My grandpa could silence an entire room with just one of his- He had a very big powerful voice.

And so I try to emulate him.

In a couple of my poems, I'll imitate his voice every now and again.

But he just commanded attention and would have everybody belly laughing at one of his, you know, funny stories.

My grandma, she was very serious, but also had a good sense of humor too.

She was the one that influenced me by taking me to church every Sunday, making sure I got my sacraments.

I got kicked out of San Felipe's catechism for, I think I wrote my name like in a graffiti style on one of the coloring sheets and they kicked me out and my grandma stood up for me and we moved to another church downtown at St. Mary's.

And I have a poem about that.

Like it's these- these little experiences that I grew up with really were the fuel for a lot of my narratives that I have turned into poems, but they're just the same as stories that they told anybody.

>> Faith Perez: Wow!

And could you tell me a little bit about Juana's story?

>> Damien Flores: Oh, definitely.

So Juana Henrietta, the poem is called- the full title of the poem is called, "El cuento de Juana Henrietta."

And I had this idea for this poem in 2006.

And what I was trying to accomplish with this was to take an established folk legend, John Henry, and write it from my cultural perspective.

And so for me, Juana Henrietta embodying John Henry, her machine that she's fighting against is the Tamale factory machine.

I got the idea for this poem in particular when my family had a Christmas party and grandma didn't want to make tamales on her own.

So that's too much work.

Nobody appreciates me, we're just going to buy 'em.

We went to El Modelo down by the Hispanic Cultural Center and I saw all of the cooks in the back, feverishly making dozens at a time, just working, just almost in sync with each other, preparing all of these orders, thousands and thousands of tamales for Christmas for other families.

And of course my grandma decided like, oh no, this is too expensive.

So then we went to the Bueno Food Factory, which is just up the street, and we went into this very sterile environment.

We got to see the machinery and everything, and there was exactly the John Henry story.

We saw El Modelo with the women making handmade homemade.

And then we saw the factory making processed food.

And so that's where the idea kind of kicked in.

And I always had loved that story of John Henry.

My family was working class.

My grandpa had worked at Utility Block Company.

My Uncle Jim worked for and was an owner of a tractor parts company.

We've always been as the title of my book is called Junkyard Dogs.

And so really that's where Juana kind of steps in to show another perspective of a familiar folk legend.

Alright, now I'll recite for you my poem, El Cuento de Juana Henrietta, and I first performed this at the National Poetry Slam in 2007 in Austin, Texas, and we made it to the final round.

And so here it goes.

There was no wind the day Juana battled the machine.

Smoke rose from the stacks of the downtown tortilla factory slow like the wrinkled steady hands, the Las Viejitas.

Cocineras, whose fingers were callous as the spirits of their mothers.

They were the assembly line of ancient faces.

They worked for coins off their husband's wages.

Mothers of the New Deal labored their bones dull with the factory whistle at dawn, arena y manteca became the skin on their palms, 50 pounds of flour each dark morning and their grip stung with salt grains.

Leavening tortillas rounded like the suffered crown of the God carved in the altar.

Their God hung above the stove, rounded rolling pins cut from cedar smooth with hidden splinters in their hands and dough rose before the sun.

And this morning hung bitter in Juana's mouth like the daylight did not stretch over her tongue.

When she woke, the women found machines on the factory floor where they once stood.

Here are your replacements.

The boss growled like rusting metal, there's no work for you here.

I want you all out.

And the ancient faces gazed like forgotten saints they once prayed to.

Some curse the foreman's name their fists clenched tighter than the gears in the machines that took their jobs.

But Juana didn't move.

She stood still heavy.

Her wrinkles run fierce like flooding arroyos.

When she said, I'm faster than any machine.

And the engine fired, conveyor belt rolled tamales.

Each an exact copy of the last.

Juana took the table beside handful of Masa corn husk hidden in her skin.

She spread masa carne y chile, each glide of her hand like wiping tears from her daughter's face, wiped sweat with back of fist her salt, a blessing of food at the table.

It didn't matter if she beat the machine, she'd gone like so many mexicanas riding like nopales beneath the tractor's heels just as their men's backs were replaced with forklifts and back hose.

But an engine does not name its children after a passing.

Raincloud does not brush dead leaves from headstones and never learned the recipe from her grandmother's tongue.

The machine fired, la hoja, la masa, la carne, el chile, by the crevice of the hands.

La hoja, la masa, la carne, el chile, wrapped the bandana of Juana's hair.

La hoja, la masa, la carne, el chile.

Her daughter's birth cries.

La hoja, la masa, la carne, el chile.

Her husband buried in the Philippines.

La hoja, la masa, la carne, el chile became the peasant maid's machete as the engine sang the death of the laborer's breath.

The foreman's eyes never left Juana's face.

As the machine slowed down, smoke and motor oil snaked the air.

When the conveyor stopped, Juana crushed the last tamale.

Her snakes venom, stung in the Chile as she spoke to the foreman.

Besame fundio mala gracido, and her shadow stained the floor where she stood.

The next day the machines were unloaded and the women manned the controls.

But Juana never showed for work.

Some said she joined the army or maybe opened a restaurant.

Some said she became a corn plant rooted in burning soil, but really none of them knew.

Still their throats all burned from the steam.

The gears grind off and rust in their dreams.

The mouths all dry when they say the name of the woman and sing Legends of the Day, Juana Henrietta made tamales against the machine.

>> Faith Perez: As the seventh poet laureate of Albuquerque.

What responsibilities do you feel come with this title and how do you intend to fulfill those responsibilities?

>> Damien Flores: Oh, there's always a responsibility of the poet.

There's many poems that I could reference that I've heard.

Like the- the poet's job is to speak truth to power.

The poet's job is to speak for the people who they represent, speak for the people who are, oh my gosh, the young.

There's so much that's in the ethos of being a poet and representing your community and yourself.

And so as a poet laureate, there's really a sense of duty to promoting literacy within our community.

And so with my skillset, I been teaching, now this is my 15th year as a high school teacher.

And even before then I was teaching youth writing workshops when I was still a teenager myself.

I used to volunteer at the Corn Stalk Institute and I taught poetry workshops at Washington and Jefferson Middle School.

That's when I was in the 11th grade.

So I've really been a lifelong teacher in that way.

And not even that I wanted to be a teacher.

I love sharing knowledge and cool stuff.

And so with this idea, my project is going to be a series of workbooks for elementary, middle, and high school on how to not only write poetry, original poetry, but also reading poetry written by New Mexico writers and in the upper grades, giving them encouragement and showing them how to write analysis of poems.

And so really that's at the heart of that.

It's like I want to showcase New Mexico's poets to our students because it really broke my heart when I was at Albuquerque High School the last five years.

And every year, less and less kids knew who Rudolfo Anaya was.

Less and less kids knew who our prominent New Mexico writers and authors were.

It's like we've got to do something about that.

So that's my plan.

>> Faith Perez: Why do you think it's important for kids to learn about poetry and to write poetry, to have that as part of their life?

>> Damien Flores: I mean, there's a necessity for it.

It is, I think, an outlet that our students are really empowered by once they get exposed to it.

Even in the digital world right now, I don't know how many students that I've seen that after we do that poetry slam demo in the theater at Albuquerque High, the poets in the pack, how many kids are joining the poetry club like that next week and seeing them at the coffee shops for the all ages poetry slam reading.

Like there's just something that sparks that creativity, especially at that age.

And I know it's not just me.

I know an entire community of youth poets who started out at the same age that I did around the same time, that still are writing and still traveling and performing.

Some have become teachers, professors, some have gone on into other trades, what not.

But they all say what inspired them to accomplish and to succeed academically was being on the Poetry Slam team.

And so that was a motivator.

But then also the- just the basic human need for art and expression.

A lot of these students that aren't taught poetry or aren't taught the value of it, will kind of grow up and live their lives just happily without poetry.

But for those students that are exposed to and that have that love, it inspires them, I believe, not only to be the best person that they can be, but also inspires them artistically.

And you can see that in the way that they approach life.

And I really believe that that is a beautiful thing that our students have.

And particularly in New Mexico, we have such a deep rooted history in important literature.

Some of our best writers in the United States of America are right from here, and to share that and let the students know that those students themselves are represented in this writing.

They come from the same place that Rudy Anaya did.

He went to Washington Middle School, he went to Albuquerque High.

And so did they.

So there's the connection there that I want to show them.

"I found you" [Guitar strum] It's a special group of, of individuals who live down here.

And we love this town.

And we realize when we've left and gone somewhere else, how amazing and unique the keys are.

And so many people work their entire lives just to get down here.

And we were blessed to live here and grow up down here.

Being a Keys Kid is.

It's like a badge of honor that we all wear.

Oh, I love to be called a singer songwriter.

I pull from a lot of different influences.

So I love folk and bluegrass music, but I also love top 40 country music as well.

I grew up with that and the songwriting, as well as looking up to women who played guitar and singing.

I feel like my style and why I do music is so much those influences in my life.

These days, I definitely love to like lean into the acoustic singer songwriter with some of like the more country flair, but I tend to play music from a variety of genres, so a little bit of everything is influenced.

(music) I have a lot of pride being from this town.

I love the keys.

I born and raised here, literally born on the island.

So I have so much pride saying I'm a conch.

It's such a unique, community that supports art and music and expression.

There's no way I could be doing what I do without the support of the community.

And their love of live music, as well as the musician community that we have down here.

We have so many talented people who we are all there for each other.

Being from here, I think has really taught me about who I am as a person and as a musician.

You know, you come to the keys, you got to slow down a little bit, take a look at the beautiful Paradise that's around you.

So I've learned to just be a laid back person as well as a laid back musician.

So I just try and enjoy myself, make sure everyone is relaxed, enjoying themselves as well when I perform.

The keys is an amazing, amazing place, which is what has kept me here.

(music) You say I know something special when I see it.

I hope you meant me.

Life changes its hand, things don't go as planned.

oh what a discovery.

It's almost too good.

I want it to be true.

Someone like you only comes once in a blue moon, a blue moon.

So maybe the stars aligned.

And it was finally time I found you.

(music continues) It's crazy how we stand.

Two ships from two lands we come to collide.

'Cause on the sea there's storms and people fall overboard.

But you're by my side.

It's almost too good.

I want it to be true.

Someone like you only comes once in a blue moon.

A blue moon.

So maybe the stars aligned.

And it was finally time I found you.

Oh, I found you.

Oh, I found you.

Oh, I found you, I found you I found you.

I found you.

I found you.

Like you found me too.

And we just open this toolbox up and get it out and it helps us.

>> Emily Nulph: Art is a way of expressing ourselves.

Sometimes it comes out a little different in what we think, but then it's like we're looking at an abstract and we can see something in that.

That's what art is, experiencing your talent and getting things out that are bothering you.

My husband's always very surprised when I come home.

Look what I made today.

Look what we did.

And he knows that I'm happy here.

I'm very happy here.

And, you know, at one time, when I, before I came here, I would have been afraid for anybody to know I had a mental problem or bipolar.

But today, I think people are realizing there is hope, and it's nothing to be ashamed of.

I didn't ask for it, but I'm dealing with it, and I'm doing it through MOCA.

>> Jen Grim: MOCA House is the place where people who are working on their mental health recovery come to have social opportunities, activities to work on, life skills.

And so one of those life skills that we encourage is art.

In that art program, people can express the feelings of depression they may have or the anxiety symptoms that they have, and they can get encouragement from each other through the art process.

>> Emily Nulph: I came in one day when they were having art, and at the time, I can do art by myself, but I was having a problem in a group setting.

But Jackie put me on a little table by myself and I eventually, now I'm sitting right with everybody else.

>> Jackie Hunter: When Emily first started, she came in and she was very careful, very depressed, and she moved here from another state.

And she really didn't have anyone.

She didn't have any friends here.

>> Emily Nulph: I mean, it was a big move.

Maryland to here.

And I left my, I'm a breast cancer survivor.

I was in a group with breast cancer people.

I didn't have that here at the time, and I just felt totally lost when I got here.

>> Connie Barnard: Sometimes, you know, we don't know what's going on in somebody's life before they come to our class, right?

What is watercolor?

It's paint and water.

And you've got to get that paint to move to make it work.

Okay?

I really believe in art therapy, even though I am not a trained art therapist.

But I see when people are doing art, they lose themselves in it.

I like to say your soul, and lots of times some of the trauma that's going on in your life, gets swallowed up in your art.

So, art here can be beautiful, but it can also show some other aspects of our lives that are going on.

We're just going to close our eyes.

Put your feet flat on the floor.

Make sure your rear end is flat on the seat of the chair.

And then remember what we do.

We take some deep breaths and a way to remember the kind of breath we want to do is we breathe in through our nose, like we're smelling a rose and then we breathe out.

Emily Nulph: If I have anxiety, I know to deep breathe.

I know to meditate.

They give us tools here.

It's like a toolbox we have and we just open this toolbox up and get it out, and it helps us.

It reminds us we do have the tools, we just have to use them.

This place makes me feel happy and I'm not lost anymore.

The award winning arts and culture series ¡COLORES!

is now available on the PBS App, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and at NMPBS.org.

From classic episodes to brand new shows, ¡COLORES!

is everywhere.

Watch now on your favorite NMPBS platforms.

Funding for COLORES was provided in part by: Frederick Hammersley Fund, New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund, and the Nellita E. Walker Fund for KNME-TV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation... ...New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts... and Viewers Like You.