Poet and attorney Rey M. Rodríguez releases his debut Todos Somos Sagrados/All Are Sacred, a tribute to the women of Proyecto Pastoral in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. Readings followed by Q&A with professor Obed Silva.

“A treatise in poetry about one of the most important stories of our time-the formation and work of Proyecto Pastoral in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. Violence, drugs, and death plagued these streets, which in the 1990s and into the 2000s were the most gang-inflicted in the country. But mothers stood up for healing, peace, for saving the children. Projects arose to help youth but also the unhoused and migrants. People in need. God’s work. Powerful figures like Father Greg Boyle met the call. Here Rey M. Rodríguez uses poems to carry their voices, stories, pains, and joys. In Spanish and English, in any language, it’s a work of art, a work of action.”

-Luis J. Rodríguez, former Los Angeles Poet Laureate, author of Always Running, La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. and It Calls You Back: An Odyssey through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing

Rey M. Rodríguez is a writer, advocate, and attorney. He lives in Pasadena, California. He is working on a novel set in Mexico City. He attended the Yale Writers’ Workshop and Palabras de Pueblo workshop. He participated in Story Studio’s Novel in a Year Program. He received his MFA in fiction from the Institute of American Indian Arts in May 2026. His poetry is published in Huizache, Anger is a Gift, and Altadena Poetry Review. His interviews and book reviews can be found at La Bloga, Chapter House’s Storyteller’s Corner, Full Stop, Pleiades Magazine, and the Los Angeles Review. He is a graduate of Cornell, Princeton, and U.C. Berkeley Law School. His debut poetry collection, Todos Somos Sagrados/All Are Sacred, a tribute to the women of Proyecto Pastoral, was published by El Martillo Press in May 2026.

Obed Silva was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, and immigrated to the United States as a toddler. After years in the gang lifestyle—which left him paralyzed from the waist down, the result of a gunshot wound—he discovered the power of book learning, earned a master’s degree in medieval literature, and is now a respected English professor at East Los Angeles College. The Death of My Father the Pope (MCD/FSG) debuted in 2021, and his follow-up memoir In the Hands of My Mother: A Tale of Love and Redemption (MCD/FSG) is slated for release in 2027.