Poet Laureate Invites Arts Fairgoers a Chance for Poetry-on-the-Spot

Attendees at the Prairie Village Arts Fair this weekend will have the chance to inspire and take home a poem written on the spot by a former Poet Laureate of Kansas, Huascar Medina.

Huascar Medina served as the Poet Laureate of Kansas from 2019 to 2022 and became an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow, in 2022. Huascar Medina has authored three books of poetry: Protest As Love Poem (Meadowlark Press, 2026) Un Mango Grows in Kansas (Spartan Press, 2020) and How to Hang the Moon (Spartan Press, 2019). He'll be accepting prompts from anyone who visits him at the Prairie Village Arts Council's booth at the Fair. Show up with your ideas, go home with a poem straight from Huascar's typewriter.

photo by Nick Krug

PVAC: I understand you plan to write poems on the spot, inspired by about five keywords or phrases. Is this like jazz, in written form--improvisation?

Huascar: One can only hope for a poem to resonate like a well-placed jazz solo. I love jazz and poetry so I'm sure there is overlap in my creative process. What we do with our time is how we are influenced. I wouldn't say jazz improvisation is the same as poetry-on-the-spot. My poems will have a clearly defined written starting point from participants.

Most people are capable of doing what I'm doing to a certain degree. It would be vastly harder for a non-musician who's never picked up an instrument to go straight into jazz. You could pick up a pencil today and begin to learn what I'm doing. 

PVAC: What do you think it says/means when the inspiration for a work of art comes from outside of the artist's mind?

Huascar: Outside influence is a part of creating. As artists we are not insular beings. We're in constant dialogue with the world around us as we observe and process our lived experiences. It means the artist is connected to the world outside themself. 

PVAC: Does this kind of collaboration suggest the universality of certain human thoughts and feelings?

Huascar: My goal in collaborative artistic endeavors begins with listening. The more I hear, the more I can begin to feel, and the better I can understand. I don't suggest anything at all. I enter into these situations a humble conduit. I just deeply believe in the power of shared experiences and the transformative force of empathy. The fact that we are connecting to share thoughts and feelings is enough for me and deeply human.

PVAC: I assume this is not the first time you have done this. Have any specific experiences along these lines really stood out as memorable or particularly enjoyable for you?

Huascar: I've done poetry-on-the-spot events in multiple places. Each one was a bit different. One thing remains the same, how happy I get when someone asks me to write a love or like poem for their favorite person. I feel like Cyrano de Bergerac. 

PVAC: Are these kinds of experiences and the poems they produce meant to be ephemeral, or can/do these pieces work as part of a collection of poems?

Huascar: Everything is ephemeral in the end whether we want it to be, or not. All poems like flowers are collectible. I don't see a need to collect these blooms. They aren't mine to keep. Every collaborator can take these flowers home with them after they blossom.

PVAC: Do the prompts--or what you do with them--result in vivid imagery, or more abstract concepts?

Huascar: The poem decides what it wants to be. My role is to listen and transcribe as clearly as possible along the way. It can be both, it doesn't have to be one or the other. Vivid imagery can symbolize abstract concepts. A well-developed metaphor balances the abstract and physical. 

PVAC: This seems like a conscious effort to get poetry out into society. What role do you think poetry can or should have in communities?

Huascar: Poetry is a lens one can apply to any situation and a way to observe the world. For me a poet's job is to pay attention. If we created/shared more poetry together we would pay more attention to each other. Shared poetic experiences build community, strengthening communal bonds, foster a sense of collective identity and belonging, while also maintaining social cohesion. Poetry is accessible to everyone. Poetry has a low entry point and the reward is high. 

PVAC: It's notable that you are doing this at a public arts fair that is almost 100% visual art. How do you think poetry relates and interacts with other art forms?

Huascar: Poetry can often be found in conversation with visual art through ekphrasis. I hope some artists bring their work up to me and request an ekphrastic poem.