The Poetry of Social Justice: Martín Espada and Ideas That Change the World

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Ideas that change the world. This phrase is the core of the Commonwealth Honors College curriculum for first-year students. It is a required class that challenges students “to think critically about the world, explore some of the profound ideas that have shaped it, and expand your own creative potential.” By teaching these big ideas, the Honors College hopes to foster thinkers, change-makers, and explorers.

On October 15th, a room full of these thinkers, change-makers, and explorers sat in the Campus Center Auditorium and listened while Professor Martín Espada lectured on his own idea that changed the world: the poetry of social justice.

And change the world it has. His collection of poems, Floaters, was recently announced as a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award for Poetry. Espada was inspired to write the title poem “Floaters” in 2019 after the photo of the washed up bodies of Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his daughter Angie Valeria Martínez Ávalos circulated on the web. The father and daughter had attempted to cross the Rio Grande from Matamoros, Mexico to Brownsville, Texas. The following post in a Border Patrol Facebook group in reaction to the photo inspired the name of the poem and the book:

“Ok, I’m gonna go ahead and ask ... have y'all ever seen floaters this clean. I’m not trying to be an a$$ but I HAVE NEVER SEEN FLOATERS LIKE THIS, could this be another edited photo. We’ve all seen the dems and liberal parties do some pretty sick things.”

In response to this, Professor Espada turned his anger into a poem, and a collection. His poetry of social justice has incited conversation and awareness about the U.S. immigration and border patrol, among other subjects, for decades. It has changed the world. 

As an agent of change himself, Espada turned to the room full of thinkers, change-makers, and explorers and gave them four lessons on how they too could change the world:

1. "To change the world we must all build bridges and walk across them."
2. "To change the world we need creative protests from all corners."
3. "To change the world we need visions. And we need visionaries." 
4. "To change the world we need more people who channel their anger into art and translate their art into service for their community."

With these four lessons, an auditorium full of thinkers, change-makers, and explorers left the lecture inspired to go change the world.