Lalo Delgado Poetry Festival returns

A poetry festival honoring Chicano poet Abelardo “Lalo” Barrientos Delgado will be held Saturday at 800 Kalamath St.

The festival marks a comeback for the festival, which launched in 2006 and occurred every year until 2019. Covid created a vacancy that the Colorado Alliance of Latino Mentors and Authors is filling again, thanks to a grant from the Colorado Humanities. The free event is a collaboration among CALMA, Metropolitan State University of Denver’s Journey Through Our Heritage Program and the Denver Woman’s Press Club.

The festival honors the legacy of Delgado, furthering his mission to promote poetry, literature and social justice within diverse communities. Delgado, a prominent Chicano poet and leader, is considered the grandfather of the Chicano literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s. He moved to Colorado in 1974 and was an affiliate faculty member at MSU Denver for 17 years.

“I knew him for all that time and had the honor and privilege of being mentored by him,” said Ramón Del Castillo, Ph.D., who chaired the MSU Denver Chicana/o Studies Department for 12 years. “Lalo was a mentor to a whole generation of poets that came out of the ’70s and continued to be a mentor up until the day that he passed.”

Delgado was posthumously named Denver’s first poet laureate in 2004 by Mayor John Hickenlooper and was a 2023 inductee into the Colorado Authors Hall of Fame. Delgado was known as a poet of the people. Demonstrating the power of the pen and how anyone can advocate for social justice, he was as determined as he was prolific.

“Chicano poetry is very well-known now, but when I started, there were very few books by Chicanos in poetry,” Del Castillo said.

At one time, publishers did not accept Chicano literature as a legitimate literary art form. Yet Delgado made poetry available to his community by photocopying his poems and selling them for 10 cents each. He wrote in Spanish, English and a combination of both, legitimizing “Spanglish.” During his lifetime, he published 14 volumes of poetry. Perhaps his most famous poem, “stupid america,” was published in 1969 and expressed his frustrations over the inequities facing Chicanos and other socially disenfranchised groups.

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Delgado’s work has influenced many contemporary Chicana and Chicano poets, authors and artists such as Irene Blea, Ph.D., who is credited with defining the curriculum in Chicana and Chicano Studies; Chicana novelist and poet Ana Castillo; and Bobby LeFebre, former poet laureate for Colorado and a MSU Denver alumnus.

“We want to continue the development of literature because literature is a key in any society,” Del Castillo said. “All cultures can contribute to history.”

The Lalo Delgado Poetry Festival’s events will feature multiple community speakers, including Poet Laureate of Lafayette ZBassSpeaks (also known as Z) and Unknown Poets Contest winners, as well as PoeJazz featuring Del Castillo, Donnie Lucero and Freddy Rodriguez Jr. There also will be special tributes from Renee Fajardo, J.D., Christina Sigala, Ph.D., and the Delgado family.

Additionally, there will be poetry workshops with Ricardo Bogaert-Alvarez, Ph.D., titled “Teaching Tanka: You Can Write Poetry Too!” and Evolution of Chicano Poetry with Ricardo LaFore and poets Margie Domingo, Elena Guerrero-Townsend, ZBassSpeaks and Kenny Perez.

“This (event) is a true legacy for not only the state of Colorado but for MSU Denver and the Chicana and Chicano Studies Department,” said Fajardo, coordinator for the Journey Through Our Heritage Program, which places University students of color into local high schools and middle schools as mentors. “What’s more fitting than to have us there and to be back on campus again?”

The event is free and open to the public and will take place at MSU Denver’s Kalamath Building (800 Kalamath St.). For more information, contact [email protected] or LaFore at 720-351-8119 or [email protected]. RSVP here.