Poets Laureate Series: Fresno, Aideed Medina

Keeping Poetry Alive: Poets Laureate Across the Nation

Michael Sedano

La Bloga launches a series spotlighting Poets Laureate and their work to foster literacy and poetry in their community or state. Inspired by the Laureate program in Altadena, California, La Bloga encourages other communities to establish a Laureateship.

Who Are Laureates?

The United States Congress supports a Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, more readily known as the US Poet Laureate. The Consultancy, dating to 1947 (link  https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/who-are-the-united-states-poet-laureate-consultants-in-poetry) features a roster of esteemed poets. The US Laureateship has bestowed its honor recently on leading voices such as Juan Felipe Herrera, Ada Limon, Joy Harjo. 

Fifty US states and the Navajo nation appoint Poets Laureate. Numerous communities recognize local writers as their Poet Laureate. There’s a widespread poetry community in our culture, as this roster of state Laureates illustrates (link  https://poets.org/text/current-us-and-state-poets-laureate )

Spotlight on:

Today, La Bloga-Tuesday is happy to feature Aideed Medina, Poet Laureate of the City of Fresno, California, and Medina's signature project, the San Joaquin River Poetry Project. 

City of Fresno, California. Its 7th Poet Laureate

The City of Fresno's citation:

On April 8, 2025, Mayor Jerry Dyer appointed Fresno poet, Aideed Medina, Fresno’s seventh Poet Laureate. Medina was honored at City Hall with a Proclamation during Fresno City Council’s April 10th meeting and recited an original poem for Fresno following the proclamation. The appointment serves as a highlight of National Poetry Month.
 
Aideed Medina is Pushcart Prize-nominated poet, award-winning spoken word artist and playwright, and is the author of 31 Hummingbird: A Suite of Poems (Editorial Xingao, 2023) and Segmented Bodies (Prickly Pear Press, 2024). Her poetry and prose have been featured in many publications, including Fresno State’s Club Austral Literary Magazine, Chicano Writers and Artists Association Journal, La Bloga, Poets Responding, Split This Rock, and Nueva York Poetry Review, among many others, as well as in compositions for the 559 Mural Project and Fresno Grand Opera’s Opera Remix.
 
“Drawing inspiration from her family’s experiences and the broader farmworker movement, Aideed Medina’s poetry captures the resilience, struggles, and hopes of those who have long been the economic backbone of our region,” said nominator, California State Senator Anna Caballero. “Through her work, she pays homage to the labor and sacrifices of farmworkers while giving voice to their enduring spirit and contributions to our community.”
 
“In my poetry practice, the poet attempts to create and share in service and for the community's enjoyment,” said Medina. “In this spirit, I hope to serve as Fresno's Poet Laureate. Flor y Canto, Flower Song for the people, with love.”
 
Medina succeeds Joseph Rios (2023-2025) as Poet Laureate and joins former Fresno Poets Laureate, James Tyner (2013-2015), Lee Herrick (2015-2017 and California’s current Poet Laureate), Bryan Medina (2017-2019), Marisol Baca (2019-2021), and Megan Bohigian (2021-2023). 

=== The Laureate's Vision:

Poetry allows me to revisit what defines my purpose every day.  I was raised with a sense of responsibility for my community, and being selected as the 7^th City of Fresno Poet Laureate deepened my desire to be useful. 

Fresno compels writers to dig deeply into their abilities and create work that speaks to the core issues we face as human beings because of the terrain, the weather, and the value we place on labor. This part of California also demands everything from the land and watersheds that sustain us.  Poetry is the one resource I can offer in unlimited supply, and I am free to put it to work in service of my community.  

I am dedicating the final year of my term to strengthening the connection between the people of our region and the San Joaquin River. We need the river, and the river needs us to advocate for its health and continued existence. That conviction inspired the yearlong San Joaquin River Poetry Project: guided nature walks and poetry-writing workshops at public access points along the river. 

The project is straightforward and one of many community actions aimed at protecting the San Joaquin River. On the fourth Sunday of every month, we gather at a public access point along the river. I lead a planned walk, identify key plants and animals, and share geological facts; then we sit down and write poems. Each participant can carry that experience into the wider community by talking about the San Joaquin, visiting it again, or returning with others. The river has too often been treated only as a commodity rather than recognized as an essential part of our community. Our lives are inseparable from its well-being, and each poem written there can help us regard the San Joaquin as beloved and worthy of protection.  

===Poems by Aideed Medina

Encariñamiento

Aideed Medina 

Encariñame 

con las orillas del río, 

con los robles, y la escobilla de coyote 

con la silla abandonada en la sombra 

por seres que hemos abandonado, 

con basura de la autopista, cigarrillos 

piedras y peces. 

Con el grafiti del puente 

exaltando los nombres de quienes 

visitan el río

con frecuencia, 

con pasión muralista. 

 

Encariñame

con las orillas del río.

Es un arte, una ciencia 

amar un río en zonas 

industriales y capitales agrícolas. 

Con campos de golf 

A la cuesta de

 vecindades 

Lujusas.

do you remember your river?

Aideed Medina

 do you remember the sound of the river’s flow?

do you remember your river— 

before they cemented its banks,

before they made cement from its sides, 

                              before they disguised its path,

before they said we couldn't go to the river, 

before it became a refuge 

beneath the rubble of progress? 

do you remember its soft bends, 

its loud rocks,

its hidden depths,

the deer splashing into the water

and the fox burrowing into the riverbank?

do you remember your river— 

before it became another neighborhood

 to oust the unhoused from,

 to want to sweep them away 

in water and refuse?

do you remember your river—

when the salmon swam through and we fished 

with spears almost as tall as the grandfather

who held the spear? 

do you remember water,

 free and without a dam, 

spanning from one side of the valley to the other, 

able to sweep up towns and histories? 

do you remember the river— 

before it was disguised as an irrigation ditch?

before it was a commodity, money in the bank?

do you remember your river?

does the river remember us?