Yesterday was the third anniversary of the 2019 shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas that left 23 dead and 23 injured. The shooter was a far-right extremist and white nationalist who told police he was targeting Mexicans.

For today’s show, Thursday host Allen Ruff reflects on this sobering moment in our history with poet Martín Espada, who also shares several poems, including “The Faces We Envision in the Scrapbook of the Dead,” published yesterday in the North American Review.

Martín Espada is professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He has published more than twenty books as a poet, essayist, and translator. His most recent collection is Floaters, which won the 2021 National Book Award for Poetry.

Cover photo: El Paso shooting memorial by Ruperto Miller, shared under public domain

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