An Interview with Diana Marie Delgado, Editor of “Like a Hammer: Poets on Mass Incarceration,” and Rey M. Rodríguez

Like a Hammer: Poets on Mass Incarceration (Haymarket Books, 2025), edited by Diana Marie Delgado, prompted me, as a lawyer and father, to reflect upon why we accept the disproportionate incarceration of Black and Brown people in this country. 

Mass incarceration perpetuates a crib-to-prison pipeline, depending mainly on one’s skin color and the zip code that one lives in. In some neighborhoods, like  Beverly Hills, a person will likely never experience the inside of a prison. Yet in other neighborhoods, it is the norm. A child in this latter neighborhood who misbehaves in school or acts out is quickly criminalized, sent to juvenile hall or a fire camp, as Delgado describes in this interview, and is set on a path to incarceration. Rather than investing in these children, we are locking them up. As a result, we all lose. Indeed, society is made worse. And yet, we continue to perpetuate this system.

Like a Hammer is a clarion call from an extraordinary group of poets who have been system-impacted and ask us to imagine a different world. A better world. One without prisons. My hope is that you will read this interview, purchase this anthology, and ask yourself, “What can I do to stop this madness?” Any action is not too small; anything will do, but something must be done. 

Contributors to this extraordinary book include: Hanif Abdurraqib, Rhionna Anderson, Brian Batchelor, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Marina Bueno, Cody Bruce, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, Natalie Diaz, Tongo Eisen-Martin, Nikky Finney, Kennedy A. Gisege, Gustavo Guerra, Jessica Hill, Vicki Hicks, Randall Horton, Sandra Jackson, Catherine LaFleur, Ada Limón, Sarah Lynn Maatsch, Christopher Malec, Eduardo Martinez, John Murillo, Angel Nafis, Kenneth Nadeau, Leeann Parker, James Pearl, Christina Pernini, Roque Raquel Salas Rivera, Patrick Rosal, Nicole Sealey, Evie Shockley, Patricia Smith, Sin á Tes Souhaits, Vanessa Angélica Villarreal, Erica "Ewok" Walker, Candace Williams, and SHE>i.

Delgado is a poet, strategist, and cultural worker with over two decades of experience in the literary arts. In addition to editing Like a Hammer, she is the author of Tracing the Horse (BOA Editions), a New York Times Noteworthy Pick. Her work resides at the intersection of language, justice, and long-term cultural change. She earned her B.A. in Poetry from the University of California, Riverside and her M.F.A. in Poetry from Columbia University.

As founder of No More Pyramids, Diana partners with creatives and organizations to shape visionary projects rooted in creative integrity. 

Earlier in her career, she worked in New York City to help reopen and revitalize community centers in collaboration with New York City Housing Authority and the Department of Youth and Community Development, developing therapeutic arts programming for urban, immigrant, and under-resourced communities.

Recent collaborations include the Poetry Foundation, Poets House, Haymarket Books, the University of Arizona Poetry Center, and the Adrian Brinkerhoff Foundation. She is currently working on a memoir exploring lineage, survival, and the act of self-making through language. 

Please enjoy my interview with Delgado, where we discuss her writer’s journey, how she constructed the anthology, its importance, and many other topics like the ideas of Lorna Dee Cervantes and Jacques Lacan.

Diana Marie Delgado, thank you so much for being part of Storyteller’s Corner of Chapter House, the literary journal for the Institute of American Indian Arts. We are so delighted that you agreed to be interviewed, and we thank you so much for your time. 

Thank you so much for having me. I'm honored to be here to talk about an important book for everyone. And so I'm excited to share the journey to have this book published. 

Wonderful. Tell us a little bit about yourself. 

I grew up in Southern California, in La Puente and West Covina—in the San Gabriel Valley. On my father’s side, I’m a third-generation Mexicana, Chicana. My mom was from San Juan de Abajo, Nayarit, Mexico. 

In my late twenties, I left California for New York, and that’s where I feel I truly became a writer. I lived there for over a decade before settling in Tucson, Arizona, where I’m based now. 

Over the years, I’ve published poetry, edited books, written plays, and held leadership roles in the arts and nonprofit sectors. 

Fantastic. Why did you get into writing? 

When I enrolled in community college—while working full-time—I had a scheduling conflict and ended up in a course I hadn’t intended to take: Literature of the Mexican Americans. That’s where I first encountered Rudy Anaya, Dagoberto Gilb, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Gary Soto, Sandra Cisneros—all the Chicano greats I had never heard of before. I hadn’t been exposed to any of them. 

Something cracked open when I read Lorna Dee Cervantes’s poem The Poet is Served Her Papers. I remember being in that classroom, reading that poem, and feeling both the shame and the defiance inside it. It spoke directly to me. I remember thinking, I want to learn how to do that. 

I don’t know how else to describe it—I felt it in my body. Her experience mirrored so much of what I was carrying: the shame of coming from violence, of having brothers in prison, of growing up in a community where incarceration was everywhere. I was wrestling with all of it. And as a young woman, I didn’t know where the star was, but I knew I needed to follow it. 

That star was writing. And leaving home. Writing became my hero’s journey. It gave me permission to release certain cultural expectations—particularly around family and sacrifice—to become something I wasn’t necessarily supposed to be, culturally. But I became it anyway. 

It didn’t happen all at once, but that moment with Cervantes lit the fuse. 

I'm curious what would have happened if you hadn't taken that class? 

I was a deeply imaginative kid, mostly because of how much I read. But I didn’t come from a world where writing seemed like an option. I thought I was going to become a landscape architect. 

I was attending community college and doing all the scaffolding to transfer to a university. I’d started studying horticulture. I was enrolled in classes like plant identification, and I genuinely thought that would be my path. It felt creative in its own way, and I’ve always loved making things. That kind of work made intuitive sense to me. 

Then I couldn’t get into a class I needed, and I got funneled into creative writing. Completely by chance. 

I also remember being in a math class at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, and there was this young woman sitting next to me. Everyone around us was talking about transferring, and I asked her, “Where are you going?” I didn’t know anything! No one had ever talked to me about college like that. She said, “UC Riverside. It’s the only UC where you can get a bachelor’s degree in creative writing.” And I remember thinking, wait—you can study writing? And she said, “Yeah, you can.” 

Moments like that have always found me—almost like guides—redirecting me when I couldn’t quite see the map. I think that’s been essential, especially because I come from a nontraditional writing background. I had support, yes, but I also had a lot of early circumstances that made it hard to imagine what kind of role I could occupy in the world. 

I remember waiting in the welfare line with my mother. I remember what it felt like to survive on the fringe with my family. There was a deep focus on hard work, on obedience, on getting by. Not on what do you want to be when you grow up? And that wasn’t just about class—it was also cultural. 

Yes. 

My maternal grandparents were also from Mexico. Like many in their generation, their focus was on survival—on getting through. But I think that’s why imagination became so important to me. That’s also at the heart of Like a Hammer. The idea is that through the imagination, we begin to see ourselves differently, and that transformation starts there. Even when we don’t have the full set of instructions, even when the path isn’t clear, imagining a better world is the first step. 

Yes, that's great. And thank you so much for your story, because a lot of the readers of this journal can empathize with your past. Hearing your story is a reaffirmation that we're all on a good path and that there are angels out there who are going to help us. 

Why do you write? Do you write for yourself, or is it something that you must do? 

It’s something I must do. At this point, after years of practice, it feels integrated into my nervous system. I don’t think without also wondering how something might appear on the page. Who is speaking? Who’s listening? How would I lay it out? Writing is no longer separate from my way of being. It’s how I understand myself in the world.  

And I never imagined I’d become this kind of writer. There was a time when I felt completely overwhelmed by my feelings and my circumstances, and writing, especially poetry, offered relief. It let me translate what felt untranslatable. That, to me, is what art is for: to give form to confusion, to hold the unspeakable. It brings meaning to the mess. 

But it’s more than meaning, it’s also agency. Writing allows me to reimagine my own fate. It’s a way of possessing my story by rewriting it. Jacques Lacan describes something called extimité, or extimacy—the act of externalizing the internal, of putting what’s most intimate just outside of yourself while still remaining tethered to it. That’s what poetry does for me. Even when the voices in my poems are polyphonic and are drawn from other generations, other communities, other times, they’re still deeply connected to me. 

So yes, it’s everything. It’s how I make sense of being here. 

I remember going to a spoken word event back home. It was in Pomona, and I am reading a single poem I’d printed and wrapped in plastic because I was terrified. I was shaking. Not because of the crowd, but because of what I had inside of me.  

Hmm. 

I was so afraid of it. Everything in my culture told me not to talk about those things. And I return to that little girl often—because I think about how writing gave me the tools to survive, and not just to survive, but to thrive in a body that’s so often denied that possibility. 

That's so beautiful. And what do you consider poetry? Or how would you define poetry? 

Poetry is song. If we trace it back, it's rooted in the oral tradition—how we’ve carried memory, knowledge, and feeling across time. It can be a mourning song. A song of joy. A song of peace. Or a war song. 

Oh, I love that! Alright! Let's get into your book, Like a Hammer. Give me a sense of how you began this process of constructing an anthology.  

It began when I moved from New York City to Tucson, Arizona, to take a position as Literary Director at the Poetry Center. They had already initiated what I saw as a kind of creative intervention—working in partnership with the Art for Justice Fund and the poet Reginald Dwayne Betts to imagine a cohort of ambassadors: poets who were writing from direct or generational experience with mass incarceration. 

That definition had to be broad, because we believe—and I believe—that it takes everyone. Not just those who know the statistics or who have formal expertise, but people who have lived it, who carry it in their families, their communities. Even people who don’t necessarily see themselves as advocates. Like a Hammer is pushing on that boundary. It’s an intervention in who gets to speak, and how. 

I worked closely with every poet in the book—at least ten of them one-on-one. We’d sit down and say, “Okay, here’s your deadline—let’s work toward building a folio of poems.” Some were incarcerated. Some had family inside. Some knew people, some didn’t know people. Everyone came to the project differently, but each brought a vital lens. These folios were eventually shared in live readings at the Poetry Center. 

The long-term vision was always to build an anthology, especially once the volume of material became clear. Around that time, I also began working with Kathie Klarreich of Exchange for Change—a Florida-based prison writing program—and I asked if I could be in touch with some of her students. She sent me a stack of incredible poems. 

Then the challenge became: I had too much work. An abundance. So I approached the manuscript the way I tend to work—associatively, improvisationally—but always with a sense of curation. I wanted the book to hold together as a full experience, not just a collection of poems. I wanted readers to feel something coherent build as they moved from beginning to end—a sense of the emotional, political, and human landscape we’re in the middle of. And to feel the urgency of what’s at stake if we don’t act. 

How did you decide to divide it? You have seven different sections. How did you come up with those sections? 

As I moved through the poems, something began to emerge. Even when the writers weren’t in direct conversation with one another, I could feel a collective voice rising. What I saw across the work was this insistence—that beauty still belongs, even within and beyond incarceration. Again and again, there were references to flowers, birds, sunlight—things that lift, that move, that soar. 

That tension between confinement and flight showed up everywhere. And alongside it, this powerful collective “I”—a voice that wasn't singular, but communal. An “I” that was seeing, that was feeling. I started asking: what does that “I” look like? What shape does it take on the page? 

From there, I began organizing the work thematically—not rigidly, but associatively. I grouped the poems in ways that felt connected, almost intuitively. I’m someone who works in a piecemeal, circular way. I’m not interested in a strictly linear structure. I talk about that in the introduction—the book lies flat, yes, but when I imagine its shape, it’s more of a circle. Something continuous. Something that returns. 

The book ends on Nikky Finney’s poem, Black Boy with Cow: A Still Life, which remains one of the most difficult poems for me to read. It shakes me every time—in the way only a necessary poem can. 

Yes, it stunned me. I read the book from the beginning to the end. The last poem devastated me because I knew it was a 14-year-old boy. I have boys, and if that had happened to my boys, I can't even imagine any of it. You can't imagine the horror of it. And you get this sense that it's happening now, with the ICE raids and the mass deportations. The first time I saw people holding signs calling for “Mass Deportations” up at the Republican National Convention, I thought, “What world have we just entered?”  

There’s a level of depravity to it. It’s deeply inhumane. And if you have even a shred of humanity, you can feel that something is profoundly wrong. 

I agree. 

There’s a line in Nikki Finney’s poem—the one we just spoke about—where she writes, “and my purple pen is moving like a hammer against the page.” 

Like a hammer against the page. That line stayed with me through the entire process of putting the book together. It captured something essential: the idea of writing as intervention. The act of feeling as you write. The movement through experience—not around it, but through it—by way of language. And that was the moment I knew: this was going to be the title of the book. 

Ending the anthology with that poem was intentional. I wanted to shake the reader one last time. 

Because, as I’ve said, I believe we are living in depraved times. And we shouldn’t be. We’ve been here before—less than a hundred years ago—and we swore it would never happen again. Yet here we are, repeating it. That’s what makes this book urgent. Not just relevant—urgent. 

Yes, and the poem by Vanessa Angélica Villarreal is such an important poem, because it lays the historical foundation for prisons and incarcerations, and it talks about the importance of how much we must talk about race. There's no way of getting around it. And if we don't, then we can’t understand the prison history, and we can't understand the history of the United States. 

So I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about her and maybe her process, because it seems like it's almost a historical yet lyrical way of teaching. 

One of the things that she did was go back to the history of the carceral system, and she exposed that it was based on a system of torture. The way that it was conceived was a system of punishment, of torture, and also of stripping one's humanity. It used seclusion to punish through materials that were conceived to inflict pain, like the ball gag. 

Yes. 

One of the things Vanessa did so powerfully in her work was return to the history of the carceral system—exposing that its very foundation was built on torture. From its inception, it was designed not for rehabilitation, but for punishment, dehumanization, and pain. Solitary confinement, forced seclusion, materials used to inflict harm—things like the ball gag—these were not accidental developments. They were part of the architecture. 

There was nothing restorative about it. That was never the intent. 

Vanessa turned in much more than the poem alone—she submitted pages of research tracing that legacy. And I felt strongly that the anthology needed to include work that brought readers back to the origin story: How did this begin? What were we thinking? What systems and beliefs allowed this framework to take root? 

Because now we’re living in its consequences. We have over 11 million incarcerated people globally. Detention centers have spun off the same broken system—one we know violates human rights; one we know isn’t working. And yet we remain paralyzed. We’re afraid of the word abolition. We’re afraid to ask, “What would we do instead?” And that fear keeps us stuck. 

My hope for this book is that it offers a kind of creative intervention to that stuckness. That it opens the door to cumulative action—a collective imagining across different perspectives, backgrounds, and lived experiences. Because when people challenge the prison system, the conversation so often stops at the question of alternatives. We don’t always need a single plan. We need many imaginations working at once. 

I see, and can you elaborate more? I love what you write in your introduction, where you say, “While the legal system may appear established and unchangeable, art has the power to question dominant narratives, reveal injustices, and organize communities in support of reform.” Is poetry a powerful vehicle for that type of change? 

Yes. Absolutely. And I keep returning to this question—why art, and why poetry? I think, in part, it’s because poetry helps us make meaning out of what feels senseless. It helps us navigate confusion, grief, even rage—and in doing so, it gives us the possibility of imagining something different. 

That’s what I brought into this project. Why would I believe that a book of poems could change someone’s night in prison? Why would I even go through that? Because poetry allows us to break out of the mold we’ve been fed—that the system is fixed, that there’s only one way to be, that once you’re labeled a criminal, that’s the role you must play forever. 

Like a Hammer is one level of intervention. I don’t pretend it can undo the suffering of people who are currently or formerly incarcerated—especially in the face of what’s being actively intended by our current administration. But I approached the work with both resolve and humility: knowing what poetry can do, and knowing its limits. 

Still, even within those limits, it matters. Art can question the dominant narrative. It can shift perspective. It can create the conditions for solidarity. And sometimes that’s the beginning of change. 

Well, tell me a little bit more about Reginald Dwayne Betts. How did you make that connection? You mentioned him earlier. 

Yes, thank you for letting me return to him. Reginald Dwayne Betts was working with the Art for Justice Fund for several intersecting reasons—including his development of the Million Book Project, which was an effort to bring curated libraries of literature into prisons across the country. That vision deeply shaped the foundation of Like a Hammer. 

He was also advising the University of Arizona Poetry Center, where I had just come on as Literary Director. Dwayne was in conversation with Tyler Meier, the Executive Director, helping shape how the Art for Justice funds might be used—not just to support poetry, but to create something truly impactful, something rooted in authenticity rather than performance. 

Dwayne supported the early curation of the project. He offered guidance to ensure we weren’t building a symbolic or extractive initiative, but a real creative intervention—one that would include voices often left out of these conversations entirely. 

We held regular meetings—me, Dwayne, Kima Jones (who served as the book’s agent and also advised as a publicist and consultant at that time), and Tyler Meier. These sessions focused on the curation: how to center writers who were currently incarcerated, how to elevate system-impacted voices, and how to ensure that the collection wouldn’t replicate hierarchies of access or prestige. 

Yes, we included incredible poets like Ada Limón and Natalie Diaz—but the point wasn’t to build around celebrity. The point was to level the field. Everyone deserved to be in the book. Every voice mattered. 

Yes. You were very successful there.  

Yes. I was fearful of that challenge, because it’s easier to say, “We have all these great, distinguished poets.” But I said, “No—we’re not going to do that.” Everyone would have their place. If you read the book closely, you’ll see that—from Ada Limón to the writers from Exchange for Change—their poems stand out. I shaped the cosmology of the book to ensure everyone had their place. 

Yes, there's no doubt about accomplishing that goal. I checked some of the names of incarcerated or formerly incarcerated poets that I wanted to talk to you about, but for those who don't know Dwayne, tell me a little bit about his story. 

While I can't speak to all of Dwayne’s projects, I can share what I’ve witnessed of his work and its impact. The Million Book Project, founded by him, aims to establish 500-book Freedom Libraries in prisons and juvenile detention centers across the United States. It’s a powerful initiative—developed in collaboration with Yale Law School and other partners—to bring literature directly to incarcerated individuals. 

Dwayne has continued to expand that vision, and Like a Hammer is now part of those Freedom Libraries, alongside other essential texts. His goal is to ensure that literacy continues inside prisons. That people have access to books.  

He’s been incredibly effective in using his platform to share that message, drawing from his own experiences with incarceration. His memoir, A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in Prison, was deeply influential—for me and many others. 

What moves me most is that he didn’t stop with telling his story—he decided to do something about it. And that’s part of the spirit behind Like a Hammer, too. After reading it, I hope people ask themselves: What’s one thing I can do? However small.  

Yes, it's also the power of a book. You see yourself. There's this empathy that you talk about in your introduction. That's probably what's needed right now. And the very act of reading is an act of empathy because you have to put yourself in the shoes of the writer to try to get a sense of what they are trying to tell you. 

Yes. 

And of all of the different arts, it's such a beautiful process to try to empathize with someone else in such an intimate way. Interestingly, you started your writing process as a reader. And many people think that reading is writing as well because you must actively think about what you are reading. And you're getting in the process of organizing thoughts and trying to get them into you, as you say, in terms of a form, and so forth. 

I'm so excited that the book will get into prisons through the work that he's doing and the creation of this book. 

Haymarket Books, the publisher, has been deliberate about getting Like a Hammer into the hands of incarcerated readers through their Books Not Bars program. We’ve already sent copies to detention centers both here in Arizona and in other parts of the country. The Poetry Center has also been part of that effort. 

Incredible. Can you tell me a little about Rhionna (Rhea) Anderson? 

One of the reasons I was drawn to her poem is because it feels like reading a page from someone’s diary, an intimate reflection on what it means to live in close proximity to the structures of incarceration. I felt it was important for readers to encounter work that, in some way, reminds us of our vulnerabilities—and also our wrongs. There are so many instances where we assume someone deserves to be in prison, when in fact, many of us have made choices that, under different circumstances, could have landed us there, too. That kind of empathy is essential. It opens the door to a deeper understanding of the disproportionate number of people of color who are incarcerated and how that’s part of a much larger systemic issue. 

Yes, talk a little bit about the systemic issue, because people don't understand this institutional component, since they don't have a clear understanding of history. They think it's the person that's broken, not the system. 

When I consider the systemic issues surrounding incarceration and community impact, I believe it’s crucial to highlight the institutional nature of these problems—something that often gets lost. Many people view these challenges as individual failings, but the reality is that they stem from a deeply flawed system shaped by history and economics. 

My perspective comes from firsthand experience. Growing up, I watched my brothers’ behaviors be criminalized at a very young age. They were sent to what were called “fire camps” for misbehaving youth—juvenile detention centers that essentially funneled kids to harsher prisons. I saw my brothers cycle in and out of prison for years, facing immense difficulties reentering society. There was no welcoming space after release; if anything, the barriers only increased. 

I have two brothers who endured this, and another who remains incarcerated. As a young girl, I remember how many boys in my community seemed destined for prison as if it were a rite of passage. My mother was imprisoned at Sybil Brand, my father was jailed, and I was often the one who had to communicate with him. These experiences shaped my understanding deeply. 

These questions—Are we bad? Why is this happening? Why is our entire community disproportionately affected?—has lingered with me. I explore these themes in my first book, Tracing the Horse (BOA Editions), particularly through the lens of my brother’s imprisonment and the complex, sometimes confusing experience of prison itself. 

Later, working in Bushwick, Brooklyn, where I opened four community centers within New York City Housing Authority developments, I saw how youth behaviors were criminalized on a systemic level. Children from wealthier or more stable families often received support, while those from fractured households, sometimes raised by grandparents, were funneled toward the justice system. This cycle is not reflective of community character but of a broken system. 

My involvement with this issue comes from lived experience rather than academic research or advocacy alone. While I deeply respect those who work with data and statistics, I never needed numbers to know something was profoundly wrong. 

The system is flawed, often by design. Prisons and detention centers have become profit centers where bodies are monetized, perpetuating harm and reinforcing cycles of incarceration. 

Despite the complexity and without having all the answers, I firmly believe in the power of imagination and community engagement. Good work can happen simply by being present with each other, asking difficult questions, and imagining alternatives to systems that fail us. This belief underpins my work—recognizing systemic injustice while fostering spaces where healing and transformation begin. 

Yes, it is being privatized. I read in the next proposed Federal budget that they are asking for $45 billion to build detention centers. Your book is probably more important at this moment, because how could it be that we would spend $45 billion on detention centers and take away from Medicaid or Medicare, or anything that is going to establish a safety net for our communities? 

There are so many other positive interventions that can be provided to a city or a community that do not have anything to do with policing. I say this as someone who has led community centers and after-school programming that addresses the socio-emotional health not only of youth but also of families—and I have seen the change it can bring. I ran the Hope Gardens Community Center in Bushwick, Brooklyn, for nearly five years. We were open from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., seven days a week. There were kids and families in that space every single day, coming because it was a safe place. 

Yes. And imagine if that $45 billion were invested in communities. So the answer can't be that they're trying to make it safe. It's it has to be a racist system. 

Absolutely. I think there is this long-held fear of people from other places, which is an ignorant rendering—a reflection of a lack of understanding about where we came from and how borders were historically placed. 

It’s audacious and historically incorrect to hold that perspective. Yet, there’s also this rhetoric claiming it’s not racialized. For me, I don’t need anyone to say otherwise—I know it is, because it’s a system. 

Systems are threatened when there’s a risk they might be dismantled or fundamentally challenged. So, instead of transformation, what we often witness is a consolidation of power—efforts to reinforce and protect these structures, even when doing so harms communities. Maintaining control becomes the priority over justice or equity. 

Yes, it's systemic. I read your book at the same time as I was reading Cherished Belongings by Gregory Boyle. I've known him for at least 30 years, doing a lot of work in Boyle Heights with the Proyecto Pastoral at Dolores Mission and also with Homeboy Industries. So I felt like there was a kinship between the two books. And I'm wondering if you feel that as well? I sure did. In any event, what have I missed in terms of asking you during this interview that you would like to say? 

I definitely feel a strong kinship with Gregory Boyle’s work. I am a huge fan of Homeboy Industries and hope to meet him one day. His focus on healing and community closely aligns with my own approach as a writer and editor. 

Like a Hammer includes a study guide inside the book and online through Haymarket. I also partnered with the Adrian Brinkerhoff Foundation to create films of poets reading their work from the anthology. This project is important now because it reveals a system that profits from the bodies of Black and Brown people. 

This anthology is my intervention. I chose to take it on because I believe everyone can contribute in their own way. You do not need permission or complete knowledge to act. Start small. Like a Hammer invites readers to begin a conversation with themselves about how to respond authentically to this urgent crisis. 

Incarceration is escalating as the system invents new ways to institutionalize, racialize, and monetize Black and Brown men and women. Immigrants are criminalized as “illegal.” My work aims to expose these realities while pointing toward hope and change. 

Yes. It's so true that no one is illegal. We're human beings. We may make mistakes. We're not defined by our worst act, and we should live in a society of second chances. With the power of the poetry in Like a Hammer, we see what we are losing by not acknowledging the humanity of the people that we're incarcerating. We should instead try to make people whole and assist in a journey of healing. 

When speaking about the detention centers, I see the border as a giant open wound. 

It's actual line is imaginary. And it's something that we need to heal from the pain that has emerged from it. We are not to look at our divinity. Instead, we are taught us to see each other as different. When in fact we are brothers and sisters. 

Absolutely. I love that you said all of those things. If we look at the number of over 11 million people currently incarcerated or detained, we are erasing their contributions to our society. What are we afraid of? 

The last thing I think about is the backlash against diversity efforts. Some individuals feel compelled to push the pendulum way back because things have become uncomfortable for them. What is being lost is the true meaning of diversity—coming together around differences of opinion. Diversity is about embracing differences, not about making everyone the same. 

Dismantling DEI initiatives sets us back because it undermines our ability to evolve. Scientifically, we know that differences are essential to growth. Without embracing diversity, we cripple our collective evolution. Many of these initiatives started as long-term community-driven projects. But once they were labeled as DEI or formed into task forces, they became vulnerable—subject to attack or dismissed before they had a fair chance. The system has a way of co-opting these names and turning them into something negative, stripping them of their original power. 

I’m cautious and even suspicious of such labels. What matters most is the work itself—doing it authentically, knowing what it truly means in practice. Don’t wait for anyone to name or legitimize your efforts. These concepts can be hijacked, so stay grounded in your purpose rather than the terminology. 

We all have our individual stories. That's why I'm curious about how you put this anthology all together, because we have all these individual stories. But I loved what you were saying when you were putting the anthology that an overall voice started to emerge. It's a perfect reflection of what we're talking about when we talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion is really how you've constructed it. This anthology is a perfect reflection and argument for what we're what we want the world to be. One in which we don't lose ourselves in it, but we get to express our best selves. And that's just a beautiful part of this book, and why it's so important. 

The book itself is an example of the better world that we could live in. 

Rey, thank you. That’s truly beautiful. I deeply appreciate your words. Everything you’ve said is poignant and captures the heart of Like a Hammer. The book is an effort to rediscover our shared humanity by listening closely to others and recognizing how many of the emotions and experiences in these poems resonate with our own. 

I encourage everyone to pick up a copy and reflect on the small, authentic interventions they can make in their communities. Change begins with each of us responding in ways that feel real and meaningful. 

That's great. Thank you so much for all of your work in this area and for this powerful anthology that will certainly make an important impact on all who read it. We so appreciate your time and kindness in agreeing to be interviewed by the Storyteller’s Corner. 

Rey M. Rodríguez is a writer, advocate, and attorney. He lives in Pasadena, California. He is working on a novel set in Mexico City and a poetry book inspired by a prominent nonprofit in East LA. He has attended the Yale Writers' Workshop multiple times and Palabras de Pueblo workshop once. He participated in Story Studio's Novel in a Year Program. He is a second-year fiction writing MFA student at the Institute of American Indian Arts. His poetry is published in Huizache. His other interviews and book reviews can be found at La Bloga, Chapter House's Storyteller’s Corner, Full Stop, Pleiades Magazine, and the Los Angeles Review. He is a graduate of Cornell, Princeton, and U.C. Berkeley Law School. 

Photo by Roberto (Bear) Guerra.

https://www.brinkerhoffpoetry.org/poems/10-toes-down