New Poet Laureate of New Mexico, Manuel González, believes in the healing power of poetry

On Wednesday, the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs named Manuel González the 2025 New Mexico State Poet Laureate.

According to a statement by the Department of Cultural Affairs, González was selected for the honor not only because of his verbal artistry but for “his unwavering commitment to community and justice.”

“The most important thing — and what I really want to make sure is known — is that this is not about me. It’s in no way about me, my name or this title. It’s about poetry. It’s about New Mexico. It’s about the Brown kids and the Black kids. It’s about our queer kids and the quiet kids. It’s about all of us,” González said. “We have these divisions in our society … and the only way that we can fix these problems is when we can see each other as the human beings that we actually are. Once we can come in through the heart, through emotion, through feeling, a lot of that other stuff melts away.”

For more than two decades, González has brought poetry to classrooms, libraries, detention centers and community spaces across New Mexico. He co-founded the intergenerational workshop Low Writing at El Chante: Casa de Cultura, and he currently teaches poetry to Indigenous and Chicano youth at the Native American Community Academy.

“Manuel González is not only a poet of great skill; he is a steward of New Mexico’s living culture,” Cultural Affairs Secretary Debra Garcia y Griego said. “His work reveals the soul of our communities, and his leadership as poet laureate will inspire New Mexicans of all ages to find their voice and share their stories.”

González believes that poetry holds the power to heal both individuals and communities.

“I create safe places for young people, and people of all ages, to authentically and sincerely express themselves. And through that, I’ve been using poetry to do real heart work, to talk about how we feel and what in the world makes us feel that way,” he said. “Sometimes it’s the anger at the state of our society, or it’s trying to heal from generational curses and ancestral trauma.”

González has witnessed such healing firsthand.

“In the classrooms we enter, I’ve seen students stand up and even cry — a cathartic and beautiful cry, because it comes from sharing something private, personal and authentic — and the other students, instead of making fun of that student, or making them feel any certain way, we support each other,” González said.

Sometimes, those students who are most willing to be open and vulnerable end up being seen as popular and cool.

“I’ve seen poetry change the whole dynamic of a school,” González said. “I’ve gone into schools in rural towns, where the pretty kids are the popular kids — the jocks and the athletes — but I’ll go in there, and we’ll present to the whole school. The whole school gets to see the kids that can stand up and express themselves artistically, and that’s a different demographic of student. And it totally changes who the popular kids are. Everybody sees these kids as holding this magical power of being able to speak, which not everybody can do.”

A former Albuquerque Poet Laureate from 2016 to 2018, González hopes his new appointment will help him bring poetry to even more people.

“It’s about showcasing the beauty and the healing that needs to be done in our society, in our communities, in our families,” he said. “These are the things that I want to do through writing workshops and poetry readings and publishing anthologies.”

González said New Mexico has “an embarrassment of riches when it comes to amazing poets,” citing the current U.S. Poet Laureate Arthur Sze and former U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, among many others. And he does not think it’s an accident that New Mexico produces so many poets.

“I think we (New Mexicans) understand there’s certain things that are sacred. Some of the things that we hold to be sacred are connected to this land, and they’re connected to the people and the culture that only exists here in New Mexico,” González said.

“Not only is it connected to our history, it’s connected to the stories that we hold within our hearts, the stories that we were told from our families and the stories that are passed down from those that came before us. That’s why we have so much poetry, so much beauty, so much art, coming from this specific place. It’s because the magic here doesn’t exist anywhere else like it exists here.”

Logan Royce Beitmen is an arts writer for the Albuquerque Journal. He covers music, visual arts, books and more. You can reach him at lbeitmen@abqjournal.com.