David Perez

David Perez

dperezer@live.com

Website: http://www.thedavidperez.com/

   San Jose, CA

Poet Laureate, Santa Clara County / Author of the Write Bloody poetry collection, “Love in a Time of Robot Apocalypse” / Recipient of the Arts Council Silicon Valley Fellowship for Literary Art / Regular guest on NPR’s Snap Judgment / Voted 2012’s “Best Author in the Bay” by SF Bay Guardian.

MORE ABOUT THE ARTIST

What did the Fellowship or Laureate mean to you at the time you received it?

It meant that I could do more than just survive as an artist. It helped me utter art and prosperity in the same sentence.

What do you do now? Has your art evolved or changed?

I write and teach. My art has changed in that I have explored new voices and forms. I think more about language these days and less about my agenda. A lot of my earlier poems reached outward into places and experiences outside of my own, but with an essential similarity. Lately I've been challenging myself to be where I am. If I'm in traffic or on the porch, I try to look deeply into those things. I let myself believe there is a story everywhere and go from there.

What is one piece of advice you would give to an emerging artist?

No matter how much serious business your work involves, there should be in it an element of play, a part of you that lives outside the world of merit badges.

Briefly, how would you describe the state of the arts locally, as well as national and beyond?

Resistance creating opportunities.