For Orange County Poets, National Poetry Month Doesn’t End in April

Lauren Harvey
17 hours ago
6 min read

Orange County poets, booksellers, librarians and students are celebrating National Poetry Month this month.

The 2026 poster for National Poetry Month.

Gustavo Hernandez’s poetry career took root in his own backyard.

The 34-year-old Santa Ana poet, who immigrated from Jalisco, Mexico, in 1985, assembled his early books himself. When he eventually connected with LibroMobile Bookstore owner Sarah Rafael García, she offered to start selling his chapbooks in the store.

“(García) was responsible for giving me that confidence boost,” Hernandez told Culture OC. “She said, ‘Your work is valid and people want it, and I’m going to help you get it out there.’”

Now, Hernandez is finishing up his three-year term as Orange County Poet Laureate, a program started by García and LibroMobile in 2021. Central to his role is connecting with and mentoring other local poets, empowering them to create their own art and develop their own voices.

This April, National Poetry Month, Hernandez is booked and busy with poetry readings and workshops. Across the county, poets are taking the opportunity to remind the community of the importance of poetry, while also stressing that it should be celebrated year-round.

“I think (poetry is) one of those art forms that people undervalue. They think it’s trite. People think that it is self-indulgent, and really poetry is quite the opposite,” Hernandez said. “Poetry is a tool for expressing ourselves, and poetry does a lot of good. It can do a lot of good for the individual. It can help us grieve. It can help us celebrate. It can help empower us. And I think people lose sight of that.

“National Poetry Month is a great way to just have another flare up in the air and let people know that poetry is still alive, and that there are people who are still practicing.”

Gustavo Hernandez has served as Orange County poet laureate since 2021 and is wrapping up his third and final year. Photo courtesy of Gustavo Hernandez

National Poetry Month was launched by the Academy of American Poets in 1996 as a way to celebrate the art form’s integral role in American culture.

“Thirty years later, the initiative has become a springtime tradition, reaching millions of Americans who may have rekindled their love for poems or may have even shown them poetry's life-changing power for the first time,” said Robert Casper, president and executive director of the Academy of American Poets. “While we at the Academy want poetry to be front-and-center for the other 11 months of the year, we know that National Poetry Month means a recharge of interest and exposure, and I can't imagine an April without it."

García founded the Orange County Poet Laureate program in 2021 as LibroMobile began to reopen after the pandemic. Unlike other laureateships, this position is not supported by the city or the county, though García says she has reached out to both. While there was initial programming support from the Orange County Public Library, it’s now run entirely by the Santa Ana bookstore.

“It started out as an opportunity to be able to have a poet laureate for the region, for Orange County, but also be intentional about it with the idea that it is more than just a literary position,” García said of the program. “It’s a position that also calls attention to building community and taking into account what our community needs, rather than just acquiring a title.”

Indeed, Hernandez has taken a community-centered approach to his laureateship. Every month, Hernandez hosts office hours at LibroMobile to connect with and mentor community members interested in poetry. And in his poems, which Hernandez describes as lyrical and confessional, Orange County plays a central role.

“My mentor, Diane Seuss, was quoted once saying, ‘There’s no escape from the place where I’m from,’ in regards to her writing,” Hernandez said. “And that’s sort of how I felt, not that we’re trying to escape, but Orange County is almost a second speaker in my poems.”

Hernandez’s local engagements for National Poetry Month include a writing workshop at the Bowers Museum Saturday, April 12 as part of the Viet Book Fest; a poetry reading at the Delhi Community Center in Santa Ana Thursday, April 23; and a poetry festival at Santa Ana College Wednesday, April 29 and Thursday, April 30, hosted by creative writing professor Donato Martinez.

Many students come to Santa Ana College without having interacted with poetry in a meaningful way, Martinez said. For him, the second annual poetry festival is about making students feel excited about and empowered in the art form. It’s about making them see that poetry extends beyond William Shakespeare, John Milton and Sylvia Plath.

PHOTO 1: Gustavo Hernandez participates in a poetry reading. Photo courtesy of Gustavo Hernandez. PHOTO 2: Students gather at Santa Ana College’s inaugural Poetry/Literary Festival. Photo courtesy of Brenda Vaca

“I want to try to expose our students to poets that speak their language, to poets that speak their experiences and their memories and their truths,” Martinez said. “And even their linguistic expressions, because some poets will dabble in and out with slang or street vernacular, or they’ll come in with Spanish and English expressions.

“I wanted our students to know that you can be as authentic as you are. You don’t have to change your style. Obviously, pay attention to craft and delivery and provide some figurative language, because all of these are important to poetry, but you can do it in your own authentic voice.”

The festival will feature 25 poets from around Southern California, including Maestro DeSean from the OC Poetry Slam Team, as well as local publishers.

“I want to expose my students to great writers that come from their own neighborhood, and also publishers that are seeking to publish potentially their own work as well,” Martinez said.

Poets, bookstore owners and librarians are celebrating in their own ways across the county. On Friday, April 24, Costa Mesa Poet Laureate and UC Irvine instructor Danielle Hanson will host a book launch for her new poetry collection, “The Night Is What It Eats,” at the Donald Dungan Library. Arvida Book Co. in Tustin, which hosts regular mic nights, will also welcome poet Robbi Nester for a reading and book signing Sunday, April 19.

Over at the Huntington Beach Public Library – which has been caught in a political battle over censorship and privatization since 2023 – visitors are encouraged to write a poem about a tree, which will then be added to a larger tree display made out of submitted “leaves.”

“Poetry really is accessible to everyone, no matter the age,” said Huntington Beach library and cultural services manager Marisa Rodriguez. “There’s a low barrier to entry, and then everyone can see what everybody else is putting up there. So it’s also building community, which is a huge goal of ours.”

LibroMobile doesn’t officially celebrate National Poetry Month, as the store nurtures that art form year-round, García said. Nevertheless, it hosts a poetry reading hosted by Reggie Peralta on the first Saturday of every month. Additionally, LibroMobile will be celebrating Independent Bookstore Day on Saturday, April 25 with a reading from local poet Anatalia Vallez, celebrating the sixth anniversary of her book “The Most Spectacular Mistake.”

“Poetry is something that is very close to me. I am not an established poet, but I write a lot of fiction and creative nonfiction, and all my inspiration comes from poetry,” García said. “Poetry is the pillar to what we do every day in the bookstore.”