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Encore: LA’s Former Poet Laureate on Storytelling and Survival

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Poet, author, activist Luis Rodriguez reads a poem from his book 'Poems Across the Pavement,' at 'Alivio,' an open mic night in the garage of Eric Contreras. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

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For New Year’s, we’re bringing you one of our favorite conversations from our series on resilience.

Luis Rodriguez credits reading and writing for keeping him resilient his whole life. He’s best known for his 1993 memoir Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A., which chronicles how he joined a gang at age 11, found himself homeless and using heroin, and wound up in the juvenile justice system. He went on to write 17 books of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, and he served as poet laureate of Los Angeles from 2014 to 2017.

In July, as part of our series on resilience, host Sasha Khokha sat down with Luis Rodriguez to talk about his life and work, and what advice he has for getting through tumultuous times. 

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