Working: Poet Javier Zamora Wants Readers to Know What It’s Like to Be Undocumented

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4.2 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 8 November 2020

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week host Rumaan Alam talks to Javier Zamora about the truth-telling power of poetry. When Javier was 9 years old, he traveled to the U.S. from El Salvador without his parents. In his book of poems, Unaccompanied, Javier tries to make sense of his own experience and the experiences of his parents, who left El Salvador before him. In the interview, Javier describes the personal and political goals of his poetry and explains what it took for him to turn poetry into a career. After the interview, Rumaan and co-host Isaac Butler discuss whether they think all art is political. In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, Javier recommends some poets to check out and explains why he thinks so many people are intimidated by poetry. Send your questions about creativity and any other feedback to working@slate.com or give us a call at (304) 933-WORK. That’s (304) 933-9675. Podcast production by Cameron Drews. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on Working. It’s only $35 for the first year, and you can get a free two-week trial. Sign up now to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everybody it's Tim Heidecker you know me Tim and Eric Bridesmaids and
0:03.4	Fantastic Four I'd like to personally invite you to listen to office hours live with me and my
0:08.7	co-host DJ Doug Pound hello and Vic Berger.
0:12.6	Howdy.
0:13.6	Every week we bring you laughs, fun, games, and lots of other surprises.
0:16.4	It's live, we take your Zoom calls.
0:18.3	We love having fun.
0:19.3	Music.
0:20.3	Music.
0:21.3	Music.
0:22.3	I like having fun. I like to... songs. subscribe no. For the longest time and to this day I think being
0:37.0	and to this day I think being undocumented in the trauma that I experienced in which I was told to hide and to lie constantly, even in this country, I never felt comfortable being myself, my complete self. And so I think the personal
0:58.5	goal is just to be seen.
1:00.0	Welcome back to Working. I'm your host Isaac Butler. And I'm your other host, Raman
1:07.0	Alam.
1:08.0	Ruman, it has been quite a week and I know your book is coming out in the UK next week so how you doing?
1:16.4	It has been quite a week you and I are speaking a couple of days after the presidential
1:21.3	election or I suppose we're actually still amid the presidential
1:24.6	election because the votes have not all been counted.
1:27.4	And all of this doesn't feel that great.
1:29.8	There's a kind of fatigue that sets in very quickly. So I think I feel as everyone does, which is a little crazy.
1:37.6	Right, it's like we're in purgatory and we're not sure if we're going to get sent down to hell or like what's going to happen.
	...

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