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Poet Laureate

Sacramento Poet Laureate 2020-2024

Poet Laureate

Sacramento Poet Laureate 2020-2024

Andrew Bell aka Andru Defeye

Whether sharing stages with legendary beat poets or your favorite Hip Hop emcees, Andrew Bell, aka Andru Defeye’s unorthodox writing and performance style has made him a fixture behind microphones around the country. 2020 saw the release of his critically acclaimed Frequency album followed shortly after by his crowning as the youngest Poet Laureate in California capitol history.

From Sacramento to Staten Island and SXSW, Andru Defeye served as the Director of Communications for Sol Collective from 2009-2020.

In 2014 Defeye founded Zero Forbidden Goals, a support system for creatives dedicated to innovating arts equity, experiences, and education. ZFG’s guerrilla art activations including National Guerrilla Poetry Month, Chainlink Poetry, and The Intersection have been covered and recreated around the globe.

open_in_full

Poem #333

Does a storm make the sun stop shining?

I will be scared when the sun is

Don’t forget we are miracles please

Don’t forget we are

creation’s favorite color of chaos

carried away with ourselves

at 67,000 miles an hour

And we

have gotten pretty good at it.

We decipher our location on this big rock

by looking at flaming balls of gas

Through lenses we make

by smashing little rocks

and applying fire to them

Which we also make

It’s wild y’all.

There’s too much

of what we are

to be defined

by what we’re not

And in our purest moments wont we get that

We are the poems they wrote

We are the fires they danced around

They passed us down

from generation to generation

And we’re here now

Isn’t it wild?

How we try and tame it.

Obey your heartbeat

Because the other way around doesn’t work

Forage the darkness for light

Because that’s the easiest place to find it

Pilfer all the joy you can

Stash it in every crevice of this life

Alan Kaufman told me

“Do not let the killers or haters win.”

Jose Montoya told me

“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

The sun is not scared.

So neither am I.

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