(Photo by Arlene Mejorado)

That T.S. Eliot bit about April being the cruelest month? Forget it. Even though it’s one rare line of poetry that millions recognize, for American poets, at least, it’s their lucky spin on the calendar -- National Poetry Month. Leading Los Angeles’ celebrations: Luis J. Rodriguez. He’s the city’s second poet laureate, and his was hardly a cushy artist’s life of tea and sonnets. But this up-from-the-streets guy has made the medium and his voice one and the same.

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