The world lost an influential bilingual, bicultural poet and children's book author this month. Francisco Alarcón died of stomach cancer. He was 61.

Alarcón was born in LA, grew up in Mexico and came back to California. He used his fluency in two languages and two cultures to create poetry that defied categories. And his importance was captured in a conversation that fill in host Shereen Marisol Meraji had with his friend and collaborator Francisco Aragón.

The two met in the 1980s, were friends for years, and Aragon translated three books worth of the poet's work from Spanish to English and he took time to describe the impact Alarcón had on his own life.

To hear the entire conversation click on the audio link embedded at the top of this post.