Poetry Under the Sundial
As part of the celebration of the 271st birthday of Laredo, a spectacular laser show on the exterior walls of San Agustin Cathedral is on tap for the evening of May 16. The free community event is sponsored by the Laredo Cultural District in collaboration with Daphne Art Foundation, Laredo Center for the Arts, Laredo Film Society, and the Webb County Historical Commission.
This public event, which begins at 8 p.m., will also feature Ballet Folklórico performances and live music in San Agustín Plaza.
“As night falls the façade of San Agustín Cathedral will transform into a canvas of light. The laser show will unfold as a breathtaking spectacle of abstraction, celebrating the birth and spirit of Laredo. From the sacred ground where the remains of Don Tomás Sánchez rest, to the cathedral’s spire, beams of light will dance across the historic structure, creating an experience never before seen in downtown Laredo,” said Jorge Santana, Operations and Creative Director of the Laredo Cultural District.
According to Santana, the laser show will be brought to life by Tim Walsh of Laser Spectacles, a leader in immersive laser entertainment.
Walsh is a founding member of the International Laser Display Association (ILDA). He blends music with dance, film, and visual storytelling. He is also a co-founder of Brave Combo, the Grammy-winning polka band that continues to perform today.
Walsh has brought his work to audiences worldwide — from churches and corporate events to raves and large outdoor festivals. He has earned more than 28 awards for excellence along the way.
Santana recalled his first meeting with Walsh at La Posada. “I immediately sensed his work would be something special. His calm, almost hippie-like demeanor came alive as he described the show and talked about Brave Combo’s Grammy-winning journey in electronic polka. I felt his work would be the perfect fit for this celebration of Laredo’s 271st birthday — especially when he said he would incorporate Cielito Lindo from his 1970s album.”
Santana said he felt in that moment the perfect convergence of “a match made in laser heaven” as he recounted to Walsh the personal memory of how, in Nuevo Laredo, the marble clock at Plaza Hidalgo — about eight blocks from Bridge I — plays Cielito Lindo at 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. “It can be heard in downtown Laredo on quiet nights and early mornings. I can hear it from my home on Victoria Street. The clock was built in the 1920s by the Academia Verdi to bring a touch of European charm to the border,” he said.
Santana said he was left speechless when Walsh and a longtime collaborator staged a private test run in front of the cathedral.
National Poetry Month is a celebration of the literary arts that was founded by the Academy of American Poets in April 1996. Every year, teachers, students, readers, librarians, booksellers, and writers come together throughout the month of April, whether in person, online, or in spirit, to acknowledge the importance of poetry and the impact it has in our lives.
While the association of poetry for many stems from the less-than-desirable memories of being forced to read it during our high school English classes, it’s important to recognize the value of poetry so that we may be more willing to engage with it. I do not deny that reading poems is a challenge. The entire process of writing poetry begins with attempts to play with and reinvent our understanding of language. Reading it requires effort, but that is what makes the payoff so worthwhile.
Rather than simply skimming the page, moving on, and forgetting, poetry requires full commitment from its reader; when granted that commitment, it becomes a fully engrossing experience. Engaging with poetry at this level can feel like a practice in psychology, delving into the mind and intentions of the writer. Once we engage with the poem beyond a superficial reading, we begin to appreciate the work the poet put into selecting these specific words, images, and references. We can build connections between this poem and another, and, after building a habit of reading, we ultimately end with a more well-rounded and expanded worldview.
Good poetry is not meant to alienate its reader; it’s meant to present ideas that appeal to universal facets of humanity. In this way, being a reader of poetry immediately places you into a community that has been built by the writer. What better experience is there than seeing your deepest thoughts and feelings presented on the page, feeling seen by a writer, and realizing you have a community of readers that relate to you as well?
For the last two decades, the Laredo Public Library has been working diligently to provide a celebration of poetry to our community. Each year, the library accepts submissions from local poets of all ages and awards their top contributors with publication and a chance to share their poetry with the public. This year, the 23rd Annual Laredo Poetry Festival will be held on Saturday, May 2, from 1-3 p.m. at the Joe A. Guerra library branch. All are welcome to attend in support of the poetic art and the talent of our local writers.
He was well-greeted by old friends and many Laredoans eager to meet the writer of Laredo Stories – A Boyhood on the Río Grande
Writer Dan Clouse — Laredo born, Laredo educated — now from Lake Bay, WA, spoke to a full house at the Laredo Center for the Arts on Friday, March 27, about his book, Laredo Stories, A Boyhood on the Río Grande.
He was in his hometown to share his work in response to an invitation from three non-profit art organizations — Daphne Art Foundation, the Laredo Center for the Arts, and the Laredo Cultural District.
The standing room only plática and book signing was sponsored by Hank Sames, Sonia and Memo Benavides, L & F Distributors, Killam Development Ltd., stx media, Texas Community Bank, and Caffe Dolce.
The evening event began with a rousing Laredo bienvenido by Mariachi Los Caporales, followed by words of welcome from Meliss Amici-Haynes of the Laredo Center for the Arts. Hank Sames introduced Clouse with sincere admiration for capturing and memorializing Laredo of the 1950s and 60s.
Mayor Victor Treviño (NHS Class of 1966) and his wife Rosa took front row seats, and at the podium the Mayor lauded Clouse’s stories and his work to preserve the City’s culture and history.
The author spoke to his audience in English and impeccable Spanish, at times with anecdotes that evoked laughter, but also with eloquent narratives about the experiences of having been raised in the small town of Laredo.
Some of Clouse’s stories call up longstanding friendships that began in elementary school, on the streets near his childhood home on Garfield Street, on the Little League field near Three Points in South Laredo, and at Nixon High School. In the audience that evening — in addition to the many who did not know him but attended to hear a good writer speaking about a more simple, less complicated Laredo — were teammates from the Yankees baseball team and many NHS classmates.
Most of the stories appeared one at a time as Clouse wrote them in the online version of LareDOS from 2017 to 2025. I recall editing those stories, editing them only minimally because they were good, really good. As I read them more recently as a volume of stories, I have understood what he may have known as he composed them — that they were an homage to Laredo, to the landscape of ranchlands and big blue skies, to good parents, to the brilliant science teacher at Lamar, Humberto Segovia, who opened our minds with curiosity about the world around us, and to the good friends, fellow travelers, with whom we navigated through a lifetime to sooner or later become adults.
In addition to bringing an excellent writer like Dan back to Laredo, having him here represented the unprecedented collaborative work of volunteers of three of the City’s arts non-profit organizations. That and a full house at the Center for the Arts on March 27 speaks volumes about the value to Laredoans of the art of the written word.
(Photos by Michael Amici)
In a city shaped by the crossing of language, history, and identity, Jorge Santana has long understood art as a bridge rather than a finite destination. As the newly appointed Operations and Creative Director of the Laredo Cultural District, Santana progresses into a role that formalizes what many in the local arts community already recognize: his consistent, decades-long commitment to cultivating cultural life along the border.
From his office at Casa Ortiz, a historic downtown space that has transformed over the years into one of Laredo’s most active cultural centers, Santana oversees programming that blends the various mediums of art — music, literature, dance, and visual art — in order to strengthen the artistic exchange between Laredo and its sister city, Nuevo Laredo. Under his leadership, the venue has hosted concerts, workshops, poetry gatherings, and routine community events that invite residents to rediscover downtown as both a site of history and a living creative space.
“Art is not a necessity — it’s everywhere,” Santana said. “From the music that transforms our parties and our solitudes to the designs that shape our daily choices, art is already part of who we are.”
Santana’s path to cultural leadership did not follow the conventional artistic trajectory. He has worked as a self-employed programmer in Laredo since 2009. Yet, alongside his tech-oriented work, he also ran an equally serious formation of his literary craft. Over the years, he pursued postgraduate studies in classical poetry at the Universidad de Albacete in Spain, crime fiction at Mexico City’s Society of Mexican Writers (SOGEM), and literature through Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes.
“I was born in Laredo but raised on a ranch outside Nuevo Laredo,” Santana said. “The solitude of the ranch was a privilege I understood early on. I had a tree house overlooking the church of the ejido — it felt like something out of a fairy tale.” This identity, equal parts analytically grounded and artistically urgent, allows Santana’s approach to cultural work to be well informed, resulting in projects that feel carefully constructed and emotionally expansive. Prior to stepping into his new role, Santana helped shape the border region’s artistic infrastructure in multiple capacities: directing the Taller de Arte Renacimiento in Nuevo Laredo, founding the Cachivache Poetry Club, leading Sala Bravo — the border’s first independent art gallery — and serving as director and commissioner of the Webb County Historical Commission. He is also a mayoral appointee for the City of Laredo’s Fine Arts and Culture Commission and Historic Landmark Board, further reinforcing his dedication to the goals of preservation and innovation within the border cities.
At the heart of Santana’s public work, writing remains a focal passion. As a poet for more than two decades, he has published extensively in Mexico, Spain, and the United States, earning national recognition for collections such as Pornosonetos and Reparaciones. Locally, his weekly column, Del Otro Lado, offers reflections on the shared realities of border life, providing readers with a literary lens in which to understand the everyday cultural exchanges happening across border lines.
His newest poetry collection, Cóncavo y Convexo (2026), offers his most socially engaged work to date. The book explores the lives of Mexico’s ‘madres buscadoras’ who are searching for missing loved ones. His poems confront the lived experiences of grief, resilience, and the concept of a collective memory with an intensity that gained national recognition in Mexico, further establishing Santana’s voice as one that is as attentive to the regional shaping of human realities as it is to aesthetic interpretation.
“Every city in Mexico has mothers searching for their lost sons and daughters,” Santana said. “They dig into hard ground looking for fragments of what they believe is theirs. I wanted to give visibility to voices that are often lost in the search.”
That sensibility directly lends to his vision for the Laredo Cultural District. Santana’s approach to art programming, not as isolated performances but as acts of community formation, functions as a bridge for artists from both sides of the border. By creating accessible cultural events, he positions art as a shared civic experience, regardless of the form it takes. “Our goal is to promote all the arts and give new artists a space for their first exhibit,” Santana said. “Nothing makes me happier than seeing this old house come alive.”
As a colleague, Santana has often been described as relentless, an energy that is conscientious and deeply felt through every commitment and artistic discipline he takes on. It is precisely that intensity that creates possibility and potential in defining this new chapter for the Cultural District. Santana’s leadership suggests a future in which Laredo’s artistic identity grows through embracing its own binational character, one in which Santana is thoroughly familiar.
In Santana’s hands, the role within the Cultural District expands beyond one of a purely administrative nature; as Operations and Creative Director, Santana continues to build on his lifelong belief of art as an essential infrastructure within border communities, allowing for Laredoans to explore the way we understand our community, ourselves, our history, and allowing us the space to imagine and create what comes next.
“When I see Casa Ortiz filled with laughter, music, and artists excited to share their work, everything makes sense,” Santana said. “It’s a privilege to serve the art community — the honor of my life.”
In cities like ours, artistic infrastructure is often held together by sheer willpower rather than institutional abundance, usually coming only from within the community itself. These artist-made spaces are more than just venues centered around creative output; they are a declaration that art need not wait for any ‘higher’ permissions.
Built by artists for artists, Tu Casa Gráfica deviates from the sterility of traditional gallery culture, instead focusing on the importance of process within creation. Through their hands-on workshops, with ink-stained hands, carved linoleum blocks, and the rhythmic cranking of a press, art is something to be engaged in rather than simply framed and observed from a distance.
With emphasis on community building, creation is democratized within this space. Tu Casa Gráfica dissolves the unspoken velvet rope between “established” and “emerging,” providing mentorship, organic knowledge exchange, and the overall lack of intimidation or hierarchies. Here, artistic experimentation is welcomed and expected, turning Tu Casa Gráfica into an equal part workshop and sanctuary.
Similarly, the Laredo Center for the Arts’ Third Space initiative operates with intentional liminality, neither fully institutional nor entirely underground. As a functioning art gallery, curated exhibits are on display within the Center’s walls, yet Third Space allows entry for a less-defined type of creative. By inviting performance, installation, and discussion, conceptual expansion is made for art forms that may not always fit neatly within the conventional exhibition model; thus, allowing artists the confidence they need to risk something unfinished, rather than to simply display work that has already been completed. This freedom to experiment, one which encourages both the potential to fail and succeed, are what has solidified Third Space as a vital part of Laredo’s artistic infrastructure.
The urgent necessity for artist-centered spaces, particularly within border cities, lies in their responsiveness to the needs of the local community rather than programming initiatives for an abstract, external audience. The focus on neighbors, collaborators, and friends provides these spaces with the context required to appeal and provide for the regional and cultural circumstances that are unique to border communities: bilingualism, hybridity, tension, the in-between. In providing these artistic refuges to the Laredo people, Tu Casa Gráfica and Third Space are promoting and archiving a cultural reality that is often overlooked within mainstream establishments.
Thus, the foundational importance of these artist-made spaces is the reminder that art is not a luxury that needs to be imported from elsewhere. Our homegrown art and experimentation, produced within the Laredo community, is deserving of the same validity and permanence that is granted to the works spread throughout various major institutions.
Perhaps, in addition to providing safety in our processes of creation, Tu Casa Gráfica and Third Space are allowing for the possibility that we may, too, believe in our own works in the same way.
