"I believe that I became a poet, a writer, when I was transcribing my grandma's songs in Mexico. I was about 15 years old. And my grandma used to sing with the mandolin a beautiful song that she used to play, and I thought at that point that she was basically singing from the old tradition of Mexico. But then I became aware that those were her own songs, but she had never written down the songs herself. So I decided to then transcribe the songs, and I would listen to her, and then write down the songs. They were very beautiful songs, in the Hispanic tradition of Guatecos and the ballads and so forth."
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On what inspired him to become a poet in “Transcript from an interview with Francisco X. Alarcon” (Reading Rockets)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Francisco_X._Alarc%C3%B3n
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Francisco X. Alarcón
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