In 2026, Antonio De Jesús López was named an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow. In partnership with San Mateo County Sheriff's Office, Antonio De Jesús López’s “One County Under Bars” will bring poetry into the places where it is likely kept out—the jails of San Mateo County. As poet laureate, De Jesús López leads trauma-informed writing workshops inside Maple Street Correctional Center. The workshops offer a space for participants to write, to be heard, and to reclaim authorship over their own stories. The project culminates in a published anthology with Paloma Press, entering participants’ voices into the county’s permanent cultural record. Through the fellowship, De Jesús López will support participants’ writing as they move to reenter society and bring the anthology to print. Its publication will be accompanied by public readings that will seek to return these voices to the community.