“The late Andrés Montoya was my first influence, and the largest…He believed that poetry fueled personal, societal and cultural liberation. He wrote about the downtrodden, the poor, the factory workers and the drug-addicted. He beautified what some deemed ugly and taught me that poetry is for all the people around you. I saw what language could do. We talked for hours about poetry, politics and race. I had found my first brother in poetry…”