El Poeta

In 2011, beloved Mexican poet Javier Sicilia's son Juan Francisco was murdered by members of a drug gang. With sonorous voice and palpable despair, Sicilia turned his grief into action, leading marches and gathering crowds against drugs. He worked to raise awareness of the collective anguish of the loved ones of as many as 100,000 murdered or disappeared in the corrupt, militarized crackdown on the drug trade. He took the cause to then President Felipe Calderon. Sicilia recounts his impassioned and somewhat frustrating efforts to get through to the man, not the politician. With growing recognition of the role of the United States in drug policy and the war that takes many innocent victims, Sicilia assembled a caravan of activists for a multistate tour. Eventually, he met with civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis and got support and sympathy but little movement toward policy change here or in Mexico.