Sacramento honors poet laureate Andru Defeye as he shares new poetry book
Sacramento poet Andru Defeye was honored for his long-standing work in the literary arts at a gathering hosted Monday by Sacramento’s office of arts and culture, showing the city’s gratitude for his influence on its poetry community.
In honor of National Poetry Month, Defeye recently released his poetry book, “Unlocked: The Laureate Years,” collecting his poetry throughout the years since being named Sacramento Poet Laureate. The book is made up of 40 poems written over the course of five years.
Defeye was appointed the city’s poet laureate in 2020, becoming the youngest to serve in that capacity. Since then, he’s explored ways to bring poetry and its literary expression to the forefront of conversation when planning events and allocating funds to artists.
“Being Sacramento Poet Laureate is the biggest honor in my life,” Defeye said in an interview. “The opportunity to advocate for the poets, for poetry, for the young generation, to help the youth of Sacramento find their voices through the curriculum that we brought in. That’s one of the things I’m the most proud of.”
Since claiming the Sacramento Poet Laureate title, Defeye has continued to ensure that poetry is recognized and honored throughout the region.
Defeye was awarded an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship in 2022. In turn, it helped fund several creative efforts in the city.
Additionally, he expanded Sacramento Poetry Day into Sacramento Poetry Week, which inspired thousands of spoken word and literary artists through collaborations and partnerships, and created innovative literary arts education courses.
Alongside Sacramento literary artist Coon the Poet and author Jeanette Rowe, Defeye also co-authored the Sacramento Poetry Center’s code of conduct, a document now used as a model to help ensure poetry spaces remain free from gatekeeping, discrimination and misuse of power.
“Andru really took the role of Sacramento Poet Laureate very seriously,” said Sacramento Cultural and Creative Economy Manager Jason Jong. “His contributions to arts, education and literacy, his contributions to supporting art workers and literary artists, his role in really amplifying Sacramento Poetry Week as an extension of Poetry Day, and he just uplifted and went above and beyond. And we can’t be more grateful for his sharing of his gifts in the city of Sacramento.”
‘Everyone is a poet’
Defeye said he first got into poetry when he was 13 years old.
“I was struggling with all kinds of medical trauma and just the traumas of growing up and my mental health was not good,” Defeye said. “So I wrote and I wrote all of that out of me, and I feel like with poetry, it’s a way to get those big feelings out of us and not have to live with them inside of us. So I wanted to give everybody that tool for wellness.”
Defeye believes that “everyone is a poet.”
“Everyone has poetry inside of them,” he said. “I always tell people that you can just look in your notes app and it’ll show you that you’re a poet. Those notes with the big feelings, that’s where poetry lives. The opportunity of poetry is to really free ourselves from some of the weight of the world and create our own worlds, the right to manifest ourselves in things that we want.”
Defeye’s work also includes connecting older adults with lifelong learning in the arts, advocating for mental health awareness and supporting equitable compensation for poets.
“He always rolls with so much clarity and passion and humility, and he inspires us to all be better folks,” Jong said to an intimate crowd celebrating Defeye’s achievements. “That’s the power of the arts. That’s the power of what Andru shares with us and inspires us to do every day. I’m grateful to be in a city and to work for a city that has folks like Andru, and it’s just a really inspiring opportunity to even call him a friend and to know that he is in our communities, working every day through his arts to uplift the community.”
