one of his students finally told him: “Mr. Z, you’re always telling us to chase our dreams, but why don’t you chase your dreams and be a poet?” “He was right to challenge me,” Zihua- tanejo says. In the early 2000s, Zihuatanejo began attending poetry slams in Dallas. At his first slam event, he signed up to read a poem, but he scratched his name from the list when he saw the poetry battle erupt on- stage between two poets like rappers from Eminem’s 8 Mile and noticed the audience booing judges whenever they disagreed. “I teach English,” he thought. “I’m not cool enough.” “It was an impossibly cool thing,” he says. The next week, he went back again and took the stage and won. Then he won again and again and again. Dallas spoken word poet Rock Baby had been hearing about “some Mexican dude” winning the slams. Zihuatanejo recalls Rock Baby saying to him, “You’re real good. These cats ain’t got no taco money and they mad at you. Keepin’ the haters at bay.” Rock Baby and Jonathan “GNO” White became Zihuatanejo’s mentors, and he says he kept asking them questions about slam poetry. They could tell he was hungry to learn. “He was a dynamic force with new en- ergy and new words,” Rock Baby says of Zi- huatanejo. “He was pretty dynamic, and that was the spark, and he kept on going like a rocket over the years.” Rock Baby and Zihuatanejo traveled quite a bit together, sharing their poetry with the world. They performed individu- ally and as part of the Dallas Poetry Slam team. Both appeared on the TV show Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam in the early 2000s. “In terms of Joaquin, his passion for po- etry, the writing, the technicalities and au- thentic stories, I’m not surprised that he is the poet laureate of Dallas,” Rock Baby says. “He is definitely deserving.” Teevee Aguirre saw Zihuatanejo per- forming on Def Poetry Jam and noticed that Zihuatanejo was from Dallas. A few months later, he picked up a copy of The Dallas Morning News and read an article featuring local artists who were up and coming. Zi- huatanejo was on the list. Aguirre sought him out on Facebook and realized that Zi- huatanejo was holding poetry workshops for teenagers in Dallas. Aguirre’s daughters, Fe and Anastacia, were only 10 and 8 and not quite old enough to perform with the older kids. But he went ahead and took them to the workshop. “I saw the benefit of it, being in love with words, handwriting and sharing their sto- ries,” he says. Anastacia was a shy kid, she says, and Zi- huatanejo helped her to get comfortable with her voice. Her first memory of him was his willingness to visit with them and listen to her poem, which was about lettuce, when he had somewhere else to go. “He helped us grow and taught us how to write,” says Anastacia, who is now 17. “He didn’t just tell me this poetry isn’t good and here is exactly how you can make it better. He really pushed me to expand my boundar- ies. In my mind, he’s like a second father. He’s become part of our family.” Since delving into poetry slam, Zihua- tanejo found himself winning the Individ- ual World Poetry Slam competition and landing in Paris in 2009 for the World Cup Poetry Slam competition and competing against 20 national champions from around the world. He made it to the final rounds and was the last poet to take the stage. He followed an English poet who read what Zihuatanejo calls a “phenomenal” poem about having an English lover and Spanish lover and reading the poem in English and Spanish. Then she mentioned her French lover and read that part of the poem in French. The French crowd erupted in cheers. To win the slam poetry world cup, Zi- huatanejo needed to score 30 points, a per- fect score. He took the stage and read “For Jon,” a poem that involves sign language in ASL. He’d written it for one of his high school students. He won. Whenever he is on the road visiting young poets, Zihuatanejo often tells the story about his world cup win to encourage them to pursue their poetry dreams. He mentions that when he was a child watching soccer, he’d tell his uncle and grandfather that he would win the world cup. His grand- father would ask him for whom: Mexico or the U.S. “I ended up with the poetry world cup instead of the soccer cup.” As the first Dallas poet laureate, Zihua- tanejo will spend the next two years pre- senting original poetry at schools and official city meetings and “promoting a love of letters and culture throughout the com- munity,” as the Observer pointed out it in June 2021 when the announcement was made that the city would be looking for its first poet laureate. At the inauguration, Zihuatanejo also received a $20,000 honorarium and a pub- lishing contract with Deep Vellum Books. Deep Vellum director Will Evans shared in the announcement, “There is no doubt that Dallas, is, and has always been, a literary city, and the Dallas Poet Laureate will nur- ture new generations of readers and writ- ers from right here in Dallas, cementing the literary arts among the city’s proudest cul- ture offerings.” Anastacia attended her mentor’s inaugu- ration at Dallas City Hall in early April. She recalls her poem “Blood Burden,” which he helped her to compose. It’s a poem about fa- milial pressure and about how, as we grow older, it can turn into a heavy weight on your shoulders. “The first poem that I ever wrote was a silly poem about lettuce,” she says. “He al- lowed me to feel comfortable. It was so new to me. And it went from that to him helping me publish a book of poetry. He has always allowed me to be myself even though I’ve always been shy about sharing my poetry.” And while he’s aware of the residency rumblings on Facebook, Zihuatanejo de- cided not to address them online. He’d rather stay focused on the positive that he’ll be able to create and inspire in the diverse culture of Dallas. “We all need to share a light with each other because there is a lot of dark,” he says. Celebrate Mother’s Day with the Giſt of Beauty Shop with us May 1-8 and receive 20% off Avalon Giſt Cards www.avalon-salon.com West Village 214-750-5667 WIN THE PRIZE PACK DALLASOBSERVER.COM/ FREE/SRFGIFT 1111 dallasobserver.com dallasobserver.com | CONTENTS | UNFAIR PARK | SCHUTZE | FEATURE | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | MOVIES | DISH | MUSIC | CLASSIFIED | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS DALLAS OBSERVER DALLAS OBSERVER MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2014 APRIL 28–MAY 4, 2022
