What would a poetry pachanga be without the Valle’s own Poet Mariachi? He is, after all, a force of language and literature in our community. His play with words and music taught me to be comfortable with our cultural imagery in my own work, and his work has introduced hundreds of students how powerful our own identities can be.

As pochos, we are not used to finding our own voices and colors define themselves in the literature we are asked to read in school. But his work is sure finding its way into the hands of librarians and educators that are more than happy to share his unique style of rhyming and emphasizing the patterns of our language.

Daniel García Ordaz approaches his audiences by sharing a universal approach to the written word. He writes about what he knows – of belonging to immigrant roots, pertaining to an American dream, of legacies and family, accents and superstitions.

Maybe you’ll even run into a mariachi song in his book, You Know What I’m Sayin’?.