The University of Arizona Press
April 16, 2025
Reyes Ramirez, author of The Book of Wanderers, has been appointed Houston Poet Laureate for 2025-2027. The appointment was announced by the City of Houston at the Houston Public Library celebration of National Poetry Month and National Library Week. Library Director Sandy Gaw praised Ramirez as “the future of Houston’s literary landscape.”
The City of Houston press release described the appointment: “The Poet Laureate plays an important role in stimulating creative expression, fostering a deeper appreciation for poetry in all its forms, and using words to connect residents and visitors with Houston’s cultural fabric.”
Ramirez accepted the appointment and said, “As the next Poet Laureate, I want to show how amazing the city of Houston is for art, because Houston itself is a juncture of all sorts of diasporas, of cultures, of peoples that are talking to each other just so casually. I want to highlight how Houston incorporates histories of the South, of the borderlands, of the Southwest, of the West, of the urban, of the rural, of farms, of city skyscrapers. All these things are in conversation with each other. I want to show how Houston not only is a major point of literature for Texas and the United States but the world.”
Congratulations, Reyes!
Reyes Ramirez is a Houstonian of Mexican and Salvadoran descent. Ramirez’s dynamic short story collection, The Book of Wanderers, follows new lineages of Mexican and Salvadoran diasporas traversing life in Houston, across borders, and even on Mars. Themes of wandering weave throughout each story, bringing feelings of unease and liberation as characters navigate cultural, physical, and psychological separation and loss from one generation to the next in a tumultuous nation.
