 So good evening. I'm John Smalley, one of the librarians at the main library in my work in the general collections department. And I'm assisted this evening by my colleague Shauna Sherman. Thanks everyone for coming. So as I said, I'll just say a few words about upcoming events. I'm going to share my screen. And let's find that. So you are at the Poem Jam, which happens once a month, second Thursday of each month, and is curated by San Francisco's current poet, Lauret Kimschuk. And today is the special Afro Futurism edition. This month, San Francisco and the library are celebrating an award-winning memoir by Chanel Miller. She's in addition to being an author, she's also an artist. And you can see her work on exhibit now at the Asian Art Museum across the street from the main library. Downtown. She'll be giving an author's talk in March. So keep your eyes on the events. Also this month and next month, book clubs, we are at the library celebrating this relatively recent novel by Namoally Serpell, a sort of fantastical journey through Zambian history. This coming Sunday will be the resumption of a play reading series. And the play is called, these are all brand new plays. It happens every other month. The play is called Straight Nonsense. And it's by Lindsay Ford, the woman on the right in the black dress. And the other lady is the theater director, Kayla Minton Kuffman. So we're glad to resume that. Should be a lot of fun. Usually the playwright is Erin Person. You can chat with the actors afterwards. We have coming up on the 19th, a panel of black crime writers. They'll be discussing the history and also the future of the genre. On a poetry theme, there's a two-part poetry reading, poetry workshop and film screening by the poet and filmmaker Lynn Sacks, formerly of San Francisco. She now is a 20 film retrospective in New York at the Museum of the Moving Image. Anyway, she'll be reading from her book and leading a workshop in two parts. The second part is where people will present their own poems. Lastly, if you live or work in San Francisco, you know, stay safe. Just to let you know, you can get a COVID test for free. If you have any symptoms, just go to the website address that you see there, sf.gov slash city test SF. That concludes the announcements. I now would like to turn over the microphone to Kim Shuck. Thank you, John. We've been doing poem jam now for a little over three years. I think you and I together. It's one of the projects that I've done as a poet laureate. And I want to say for about the last four months, I've been booking maybe longer than that. I've been booking people and letting them put the show together. I would never presume to put together a show called After Futures and Myself, but Kim McMillan is an expert. And she has booked people that I have scheduled for readings before. This is going to be an incredible show. Kim McMillan and I have worked together on various events over the last, I'm not willing to call it much more than a decade, but it may have been longer. We've known each other for a while. We used to be known as San Francisco Kim and East Bay Kim. People would define us that way. I am thrilled to sit back and let Kim introduce you to the show that she has put together. And I'm really looking forward to it. Kim McMillan, Dr. Kim McMillan, right? Him to you. My friend. Oh, well, I thought it'd be nice. Most of us on the line know of QR Han and we're very saddened by his passing. And I just thought it'd be wonderful to basically say hello to him as he's an ancestor now and with the poem and just a hello for his spirit. Who will be willing to read? Will you be willing to read something of his Kim? Yeah, I'll do that. This is one stanza. It's the third stanza from his poem, Who's Really Blue. And it felt appropriate. This story accompanies his song in legend and anecdote, yet we don't know what's real here except for our response to the sound of the Hellhound on history. Thank you so much. Thank you. I know this might seem strange to everyone, but I have a feeling that QR, if he could make it, he's here. If he was not too busy jamming with everyone, all the other poets know that it passed. I would like you all to give a warm welcome to Sajabu. She is just amazing. And if you want to know more about Sajabu, you can go to the chat and you'll see a bit of her biography. And also you can see where you can go online to Amazon and get her book, Caledonia's Daughter, which is pretty much incredible. And so I'd like you all to give the way we give a warm welcome here. He raised her hands like this to give a warm welcome to Sajabu. Thank you. Greetings, everyone, and welcome to the Afrofuturistic Poem Jam. I want to start off by giving a shout out to my one of the baddest poets I know. My daughter, Dr. V.S. Jochesi, my partner and best friend, and straight out scribes, star ward, wouldn't be straight out scribes without her. Shout out to Mumi Abu Jamal, still a political prisoner and all the other political prisoners everywhere. All the Bay Area people still fighting for his freedom. I'd like to give a shout out to Wanda Sabir, Tarita, Avacha, who brought me into the Oakland Poetry Circle a long, long, long time ago, and who continue to support and encourage us today. Okay, we got 10 minutes. I got 10 minutes. Three poems. They are Less Limits, Tribute to Reggae and Peace. Less Limits. A falling star fell in my mouth as I gape that the moon one night. Ever since then, my eyes flash moonbeams, my hands drip stardust, and my speech is filled with rich silences, ooze and eyes. My friends call me Wild Woman because the winds from the east made my head dread all over my mind. I went into cyberspace as I raced around McKinley Park one night, and ever since then, I found I could see all that was and would ever be. Come closer, closer, closer. Let us see what all this self-proclaimed crazy medicine woman, wild, limitless, boundless can do. Come here and let me fix my gaze on you. Take a moonshine. Take a moonshine. Don't move. Moonshine. Thank you. And the next poem is A Tribute to Reggae. I wrote this when I turned 70. That was a long time ago. I've seen dreadlocks in moonlight, felt 96 degrees in the shade, found love, and knew just what to do with it. I've passed the duchy on the left-hand side, burned down Babylon, smoked two joints in the morning, took one draw, and was coming in from the coal when we chased them crazy ballads out of town. Had to get up, stand up, stand up for my rights and sang a redemption song, these songs of freedom. So no woman, no crime. Cause the harder they come, the harder they fall, and none but ourselves can free our mind. Found the people of the world we are one, that we can stir it up and legalize it cause I am that I am and Rastafari is a positive vibration. I've learned some lessons in this life. Seeing dreadlocks in moonlight, felt 96 degrees in the shade, found love, and knew just what to do with it. And the next poem is called Peace. And these are from Mudcloth Roots. That's backwards, but yeah, Mudcloth Roots was anthology, straight out scribes. And if people ever realized the true value of peace, we would want peace instead of diamonds, gold, or $100 bills. If people ever really understood how wonderful and rare peace is, it would be advertised in every medium and everybody would have to have some. If people ever came to the real world on earth as a right to live in peace, and how wonderful that life would be if everybody had it, there would be tennis shoes named after it, dances called by it and children named names like peace everlasting. And everyone would have to have some. If people ever connected with the idea of peace and the spirit of peace, there will be books, movies, TV programs, and conferences about it. And everyone will be trying to get some and the people with the most peace would be the most respected. If our so-called leaders ever came to know peace themselves and their homes and their lives, they would not be doing all the crazy things they are doing right now. And they would be trying to make sure that everybody has some. If people only knew the value and the rarity of peace, they would agree with each other with peace. They would offer each other peace and they would teach peace and show peace and everything they did. And even the children would ask for peace instead of candy. If everyone truly reached a peaceful state of existence, there would be peace dances, every Friday, peace rallies, every Saturday, peace sessions, every Sunday and every home with no peace, every office with no peace, every school with no peace, every song with no peace and every soul would have peace. We would say peace instead of thank you, peace instead of goodbye, peace instead of I love you. We'd be full of harmony and we'd be happy. And everyone would have to have some peace. If I've said anything of value or beauty, all praise is due to the most high creative energy in the universe. Thank you so much, please. Thank you so much, Sajavu. And I want to remind people if you'd like to read her beautiful poetry, you need only to go to this click, go to chat and you click Sajavu on Amazon. And her poetry is just divine. Thank you. Our next, our next author is Dr. Glenn Paris. He does cross genre. He does mystery. He does Afro Futurism, science fiction, fantasy and historical fiction. He also has a new book coming out where he was asked to, to contribute to Black Panther, Tales of Wakanda. It's has Nicky Giovanni in it, Sheree Renee Thomas, and some major Milton Davis, some major figures in the world of Afro Futurism. And you just click on, you'll see the link it says Black Panther, Tales of Wakanda. And it will be out on February 2nd as a, as an ebook in March 2nd as a hard book, but you can, you can already at least click on to get your book ahead of time. And so I'd like you all to give Dr. Glenn Paris a warm welcome. Oh, Mike. Unmute. Okay. Hello, everybody. Thank you for having me. I feel a little out of place here in this poetry jam. I'm more a prose writer than a poet, but derived from some of my science fiction, I think that, you know, maybe I may find a little kernel of poetry in here. And I hope you'll enjoy it. My novel, Dragon's Air, is science fiction, Afro Futurism. And it's about a people of civilization who left millions of years ago who come back and they encounter Earth, what they thought would be a barren world as a vibrant living world. And let me first introduce you to them. And some of the burdens of guilt that they carry unknowingly. And my first piece is called The Seat of Power. The Seat of Power. Teased, a world fashioned from gas giant, orbits as the seat of power of the effluent realm. It's polar cap crowned by the forest of feelings. A symbol of two teardrops eternally chasing round in a circle in perfect balance. The mirage swirls twin streams of fire and water, like strands of our very DNA. Cast skyward towards the future, yet rooted in our past. The Alom, the river of life and fate. For three hours of every seven years, the contrasting tears come to life as teased eclipses the distant red giant, the blood star. Unleashed by its fiery glow, the talage illusion dances for all to see. A spectral dragon in fetal position. The cool green upper arc, spread as an oversized wing. The lower arc issues a breath of crimson backward, rendering the far wing invisible. This world, an elaborate monument to efflux hubris, an apparition endowed with a mystique and worshipped as a God. And next is one that Kim really liked. And I'm going to read that for her. This is a little bit longer. And this is about their arrival on earth and their first encounter. They communicate telepathically. And humans have no telepathic ability. So they cannot hear. But there are those who do. And this is about them. This is this is called they who wait. The voyage has been long. The arrival unexpected. The old one returns and watches from on high. Greenery life. The garden revived. He speaks an intimate communion. The echo is lonely and unanswered. Man has no voice. Ship ablaze. Atmospheric drag. Losing its flight with gravity. Quantum energy gone. The old one looks away from man. Again, he speaks this time to the sea. Hoping for answers. Intimate voices. The old one who speaks the old one who speaks for the sea. The ski we whales, dolphins, seals, otters. Who calls us? I am the old one. A chorus of ski we voices return clear and strong. Where do you come from? The old one answers here and beyond. A wise dolphin speaks. Eons ago, we saw corpses of great ones in decay on the ocean floors. We know not from whence they came. Old one says they died after. Old one asks why so brief a collective memory. But the ski we do not understand. Or remember. Dolphin says man seldom communicates with the sea seal. Instead, they see ski we as food. They parade as apex life of both seas. Well, until they enter the sea below. Honor these humans lack intimate communication skills. They build cities, build walls, soil the oceans. Man has no concept of the equality of other. Dolphin explains. The humans poison the border between the seas. We parted ways with man. Ski we the sea below. They to the sea above. Dolphin accounts translates the land as the sea above, the smaller of earth's domains. The old one notes all other land creatures seem to fear them. Well, most of us avoid them. Well, saddened by man's ignorance clarifies rarely do humans reciprocate with food or valuable services when aided. They hunt us. Sea lion curls his nose and says, we are waiting. Waiting for what? Ask the old one. In a chorus from the deep. The final apocalypse that man will visit upon itself. We will reclaim the depths and then the shallows. The sea above and below and between. Then all was silence. The old one understood the inevitable. The last one is one I've read before. And this is actually a love poem. And I always have to explain that because it doesn't sound like a love poem. But the two individuals in this one is a very small aristocrat who is of a predatory background. The other one is a very large herpivore but extremely powerful. And they are connected emotionally. There's a term that I use in the book, senesprit, meaning of one spirit. And they don't have the kind of basic intimacy that we expect between man and woman. There's really of a higher nature. And he is caught by her and surprised that she was able to sneak up on him. And then this is a traditional tribute that the prey or the hunted give whenever one of their kind is caught and killed by the predators. This is called the hunted's tribute. And it's a love poem. The white rain. A flawless layer of presage uninterrupted as far as the eye can see. We, so Wari, have taken alone's gift for granted. Vittner of chemeth, this white rain. But leave it to our superhuptured clay to weaponize snow. I must remember I am the hunted. You, Vittner of chemeth, tread like a raptor shadow and stalked like a male keys dream across this white rain. I am disappointed in its failure. It's fragile silence sailed failed to announce your movement, this white rain. Its delicate purity failed to unveil your approach. So terribly close yet always out of reach. You skillfully navigate this white rain. Still, Vittner of chemeth, you came on like a lashing wind battering hail and biting storm all at once, leaving only this white rain. So the so Wari have become complacent. Thank you for extracting our weakness. When next you hunt, Comethy, you'll face a nemesis, not prey, will be stronger, victorious, and without mercy, leaving you broken and silent in this white rain. Thank you. Thank you, Glenn. And if you want to, you can look and you can see several Glenn's pieces, excuse me, of his novels, the Renaissance of aspirin, you can click on to that, as well as some of his other work. And I really appreciate whether you think you're a poet or not, or people think they're a poet, the enjoyability of hearing people's words is, it just, it's, it opens the heart. Our next poet is Avacha. And Avacha has been published in English and Spanish, in the US, Mexico and Europe. She's an award-winning poet and multi-instrumentalist. Her book, with every step I take, I use it in my classrooms. I just think she is absolutely brilliant. So I'd love you to give a warm welcome to Avacha. So glad to see all you out here this afternoon, this evening. Wow. Thank you, Glenn. And, you know, thank you, everybody. It's Sajabu, who's one of my dearest friends over there in Saskatchewan, aka Sosnabina Sacramento. All my dear friends, devour every single one of Ishmael. I'm so honored to be on this build with all of you. So, like Sajabu, I'd like to dedicate this reading to all those ancestors who paid such a heavy price for us to be here. All those folks on the bottom of the ocean floor, you know, whether they happen to be in the Americas, there is more than one America. There's a whole bunch of Americas, thanks to these thieves. But all of them from one end of it to the other, you know, in the Indian Ocean, in Asia and what have you, I thank you all for the gifts that you've given us. So this is for them. This is called the rhythm in us. As Kim has said, I'm a musician and I work with a lot of dance groups. This was written for the amount of quarter dance companies called the rhythm in us. In the beginning, there was only the voice of rhythm, the metrical vibrations of the wind caressing a cocoa palma, slow, never ending predictable pulse, ear candy, the reliable heartbeat of the cosmos, it was God's dance, the medicine in every mother's lullaby, the healing, the rhythm, the deliberate inexplicable beauty of nature's hand, mysterious, unnameable, something the hidden but ever present cadence of a desert storm forever singing to us. It has always been the rhythm keeping us alive from the beat of our hearts to the cool of the drum. The jambay and the Junjun dictated the sway of our sister's hips and the sensual swag of our youngsters walk our children strutting their stuff like peacocks, flashing rhythmic wings of gongongkui and ra ra arrogance. We were wealthy with the joy of creativity and had no need for superficial supplements. It was all about the rhythm, the rhythm, the rhythm, the unifying power of sound that flowed through us, our organic music had guts to be fun. I say that guts enough to be fun was nutritional therapeutic and shamelessly proud. In the beginning, I said in the beginning, before the concrete clogged our ears before the foul scent of plastic suffocated the perfume of flowers, even the insects in the trees saying to us, and all the rhythms of the universe called us by name, way back before hungry city lights gobbled up the stars we move with the grace of masters on the balafone kept time in a hundred different languages and kept our egos kept in check. I say our egos were kept in check by the bed and bar by the drummers and the agogo it was the rhythm that looked after us. Even when the going got rough and they took away the drum, our fathers went into labor and gave birth to steel drums, put us to bed fortified by the spiritual intensity of the ambita wrapped us up in the storytelling prowess of the core and in Goma told us what it's about a dream with our eyes wide open and never forget it was the rhythm. It was the rhythm. It's always the rhythm is always going to be the rhythm or heartbeat, the master key, the symmetrical healing tonic, a mystical rhythmic power that clears a healthy path to total unity sings non top to the non stop to the core of our soul. This drum call is taking us home and we are born in dance. Thanks to the rhythm rhythm rhythm. This next one. My, my father Papi is always told this one line as he was one of these guys who always there's one I used to get there. You know, then my kids started accusing me of the same thing. And this is when I wrote for my oldest daughter. It's called time is the hardest babysitter after being told how I was doing the same thing Papi used to do to me. Once upon a time, in a not too far away land land I used to know, there was still a few weird adults around who weren't afraid to dream a land where every child believed the world was full of miracles and magical world where fairies ruled and wishes came true and good guys would always win and enchanting place, a love filled place where a music didn't cause the center world full of fun and games that most parents didn't allow themselves to remember. It wasn't too long ago that John Henry and Dancing Dragons and La Giorona were everywhere in El Cucco and mermaids hit under the boardwalk at every beach. Brad Robin, Jab Jab Wicked John and the unicorns were as common as the name of Stanley and the Game of Marbles. Those were the good days. Days when our families lived in a world where the moon followed us home and spent the night right outside our window and telephones laid eggs. Then comes the day when time steals a child and our children erases the playful innocence of their imagination and returns them unidentifiable. Our kids come home devoid of any hint of enchantment so unbelievably tainted and I say tented and unsophisticatedly streetwise they rise above the memory of the good old days when mystery lived under every rock and we come home spitting nails exhausted and feeling evil from days working like dogs for unappreciated divorces. We walk through those doors so tired and half crazy from working at jobs we can proudly no longer stand that we forget to tell the tales about the many sweet kitchen angels who used to sneak around sprinkling all kinds of good tasting stuff in mermaids pots. Time is a heartless babysitter and gone are the days when a little tiny hug or some fantastic tall story would turn on the fire and our children's smiles. Gone is the inexpensive mysterious piece of nights when our children felt safe because they knew the stars were the protective eyes of the sky and the sun only got up in the morning to let the moon get some sleep and give the night sky a little time to rest way back in the days before life lost its magic and our faith in the strength of our love was the only real thing keeping us alive once upon a time I say once upon a time and not too far away land a land I used to know there was still a few weird adults and children around who actually liked each other and weren't afraid to have fun and dream not so long ago for time had the time to steal the magic and life took the fast road and spent a lot of time running around corrupting minds and eating souls before the call of the street sounded sweeter than the legacy of our lullabies god with the poor families chewed them up and spit out something unrecognizable it was not so long ago before we allowed time to steal our minds and forgot about all those good times those happy times times before a good old wily coyote got out slicked by some smooth talking microwave mama lost track of who he was and misplaced all his tricks days long before we stopped looking at each other and we stopped talking to each other and the moon followed us all the way home and telephones laid eggs um anyway I convinced my children that the telephone was they couldn't touch it because the telephone was pregnant and laying eggs and they believed it for a minute didn't last too long but anyway this uh this next one how much time do I have left I need to know where I'm at here five minutes okay okay okay okay okay so here we go max roach is a gentleman who I loved from the time was a child I met him was a child I went to elementary school with his cousin and uh so I wrote this for him because max roach unlike a lot of drummers he played drums melodically and unbelievably so he was amazing so this is called max roach the wizard lizard and I'm so grateful I had a chance to read it to him before he died one very special day a long long long time ago a lonely drunk spirit fell in love fell hopelessly hopefully in love with a yet to be born black baby man child she whispered irresistible rhythms in the ears of his soul she whispered in the ears of his soul in the warm night light darkness of the room she shared her ageless secrets bathed him in the healing waters of the musical truth promised him unbelievable but achievable powers teased him daily with dreams of greatness and there is magic in me there's happiness in me magic melodies in me freedom medicine in me you'll find yourself in me she said I am the gift and the burden I am your joy and your weapon I am the internal funder that will make you strong and keep you keeping on I am your inescapable destiny your soul your lover your very big I am your one and only reason to be born some folks choose to play drums but max surrendered to an ancient calling and let those drums play him sway him hypnotize and praise and fight him protect him guide him scold and hold him that jealous drum spirit loved him so much he damn near worked into death declared herself an uncontrollable obsession and had him on his drums morning noon and night forever depended on it max roach doesn't play at playing drums at playing rhythms max roach is rhythm all rhythm incarnated rhythm the universal rhythm wizard african rhythms his biological alarm clock afro american rhythms the bounce in his work afro brazilian rhythms the strength in his laughter afro caribbean rhythms the power of his anger afro latino rhythms his lullaby even his teardrops his teardrops are syncopated some people i say some people choose to play drums max never had that choice max was introduced to his soulmate and the drug became his voice when the drum said max i want to dance with you max danced still dances always danced on his drums when the drum said max i want to sing with you through you in you max found the melody like he danced on those drums so they sang like a saxophone like a flute like a bird like a lover one very special day i say one very very special day a long time ago a lonely black baby man child fell in love so i sang a hope to die gonna live forever love song to an ancient lovesick drum spirit i say max roach was born into a musical marriage prearranged by fate and the universe will never be the same love you brother man and this last one talking about those ancestors that paid such a heavy duty price for us to do what we do a lot of us forget that price and and it really blows my mind every time i hear one of the two cool the sweat youngsters talking about they don't they don't need to learn anything they don't need to read they could you know yesterday is gone and what have you and this is called still paying the price it's come to my attention more times in a few that there are folks still out there embarrassed by me waiting for me to act my age to wise up and grow forget about feeding my soul in a diet of music and poetry instead of stuffing my psyche with envy and gold said that waiting for me praying for me to wake up and drop all that artsy fartsy stuff stuff they have the audacity to cool immature nonsense one half drunk intellectual phony even told me my lifestyle could dishonor our mission of uplifting tradition demanding i surrender to the blandness of their reality get up off my big artistic behind and find a little good old fashioned upwardly mobile pride pull my head in out of fantasy land and get myself a real job join the morning oops morning army of the nondescript bliss out in some nameless cubicle and lose myself among the lost hordes of the respectively bored and boring but the gods chose to smile on me dropped the gift of soul on me and when the spirits speak to me it always comes out poetry and every wind that blows my way talks to me begs me to keep one asking the same old question how many ancestors had to lose their hands for me to be able to write this poem has the ambition to rise blinded some of our eyes and the quest for acceptability large like stones in our ears leaving us deaf making us forget it was the unconquered power in our music and song that kept us keeping on kept us strong through the lynchings and the burnings and the stonings it was our creative fire creative torch that lit our desire to inspire it was the blue rhythm in our gift the gruesome dues behind the spiritual power in our songs all along the road to an always elusive goal called freedom this is the gift that some would like to sit on the back burner a blessing that some others would just love to ignore forgetting those times when we were there all and there was nowhere else to go they don't even know they are what they're running from i say how many hands were lost for us to earn the unasked for a right to become the backdrop for their unending pompous torqueathons nothing more than court gestures relegated to ambiance new age clowns on some modern-day technologically hip plantation mindless entertainment for the literati who obviously forgotten that the gift of intellect in the hands of an insecure fool can become a curse that clouds the mind that itself destructs and gets swallowed up and lost in the shallow hell of an inevitable but cruel retribution held on a self-hate a bitter unhealthy dose of disrespect turned in on itself and even though we're still ignored by some of our own and i know i say i know we're never ever ever going to get anywhere near 40 acres in a mule we still got this gift it's a gift that it's a gift written all over every single one of the billions of cells in our body this gift a stubborn old hard-headed ancestors wish this gift a unforgeted undefeated undefeated dream paid for by hundreds of amputated hands and broken gifts this gift broken necks i say broken necks and amputated hands because our decorations left hanging from too many trees this gift and our nippeted patient wishlist that refuses to die in this poet's eyes and because of some of us so-called artist types still continuing to refuse somewhere to stick our heads in the convenient sands of selective amnesia somewhere this evening the ancestors are dancing i say they're dancing and laughing and dancing and stirring it up even in a store too cool to groove halls academia laughing course not even fear could stop us from writing dancing because i'm still asking i say i'm still asking what can anybody tell me what what was the cost what was the cost can anybody out there tell me how many hands were lost in order for me to write this poem thank you for your thank you oh i'm putting my poetry series in the chat and my website is on there please stay in touch and and stay stay stay supportive of the arts because without you we don't exist and without us neither do you anyway enough of me thank you so much thank you ovacha our next poet is and i just want to say i've worked with almost all of these poets today for years and it's just it's a delight in an honor our next poet is terita mckill um she's a story medicine woman a poet instructor is she gong engineer energy therapist an award-winning poet and she's also wrote written a wonderful collection titled synchronicity the oracle of sun medicine and i'm going to put it up here so that for anyone who would like to check it out on amazon please do i'd like you to give a warm welcome to terita hi terita hi thank you so much and ovacha as always stajabu dr glenn um everyone just uh i know i'm just thankful to be a poet this life a poet a prose writer i'm just i'm very thankful and thank you uh kim and kim for uh allowing this to happen yes um so this is an honor of the uh most high wide surrounding holy ghost and uh we're going to give a praise to the fact that this is the 11th hour that's approaching truth humanity is seeded from the stars and we have a profound genetic kinship with humanity's stellar brethren star talk warm summer night star dust memory birth kin to kitchen like puppet hand ascends to door knob turns clockwise opens new dimension feet step on the balcony under big mama papa canopy eyes wide upon star-jeweled sight i need not die to own heaven's delight night blooming jasmine singles signals olfactory head bows reverently looks up again left hand rests over heart right hand points inside grandeur of azure luminance within milliseconds a top fingertip starlight blazes across sky head bows again why what am i to know who forced me out the door how did i know starlight's time of arrival to clothe in midnight star's dna string sees my body cool's heads like a marionette to sky teapot beings gaze back can they do that i can feel them should i know them seems they know me the great grandmother father said we are all relatives in this living room what do they want of me why can't i remember the church men's worship blast stars purpose from memory shh an elder whispers listen but first tell me why they haunt me what agency demands i not read the deed of trust which arc by whose covenant double crossed my sensory who am i this in me that stares at twinkling what i pose their slow sown to bone does heart see why did copper carbon iron nitrate burst pairs in me breathe breath in me clothe a holy ghost name in me earth living waters is my home why have i forgotten lessons of this throne why do tides rise in mysteries i cannot hide church fathers say star knowledge is sin devil's work fortune telling in secret we learn sin means to miss the mark we watch church fathers miss mark often they have no ledge footing or balance they overlook heaven's fortune star's covenant with earth we are made of stars they watch over us their celestial rhythm is our rhythm stellar instruction feed us food soil grow richer water cleaner church father tell us pray the our father why you you provide no integrity in this prayer's word on earth as it is in heaven church prayer speaks without deed their god spell has no trust churchmen tell us you're not to know how the heavens go you're to know how to go to heaven their christ is their crisis heaven on earth is our living word churchmen talk out their head like they want us dead oh five churchmen's word breaks solar light forces sun star moon from eyes make heaven fall from sky churchmen tell us to pray to their father in paradise this guesswork gambles with lives that won't survive churchmen tell us fall on your knees let go of legs that see god the father his son and ghost is all the history you will need church takes land language culture gold minerals in spells they call doctrine of discovery by law of a holy sea make our covenant with heaven and earth wrong and judgment we cannot believe tell us the rise of sun's daily light cannot compare to god's sun who died for our sins and rose from the dead and will return do they not understand our sun returns every day walks on water feeds multitudes by seasons moon every day church will burn hearts delight threatens if you do not wait for their god's sun to return you will commit a sin against church father and will be saved will not be saved for heaven when you die will not be saved for heaven when we die we question the lack of honor on earth in heaven while alive if our mother father sun's light dies there will be no life church warrants again if you do not have faith in our father's son and ghost you will burn in hell for eternity and be among the antichrist we listen to churchman's god spells and submit if we convert to his worship we become anti-life my son i will speak for you those scriptures master testimony from i once knew watched you walk upon waters over seafloor found a mammal animal bird and sea creature obey your seasons will my son your god and legacy did you master alchemist chef cook sorcerer of elements you feed multitudes flavoring nature seed womb my son why falsify your records hide your light cut circuitry from innocent eyesight masquerading one vow well with idle sacrifice my son unclean spells stray from holy wellness creates hell the pathologic wealth degenerates generations my son an icon reads think not i come to bring peace on earth i come not to bring peace but a sword why destroy peace in your wheel done you are reason life on earth rolls through heaven instead greed eats away trees disconnects energy deviates gravity habitats for humanity erodes truth integrity destitute disputing life routes they brainwash memory branding you secondary awaiting a messiah as though your soul our lifelight is not required my son too many religious saviors too many competitive death plans too many eyes look away from your radiance to revere but wrote man my son i need not wait for your return your morning light never ceases for what i yearn you are my testimony my soldier in my life my son you not born of man no woman you true light of this world you my son our holy read our spark of light that never sleeps in heart and lung as we breathe my son eyes will always rise to acknowledge you in a holy ghost where heaven's bank on earth shorelines mothers where tides rise and break by sun moon and stars thank you that was beautiful thank you very much terita thank you our next poet is devour a major and i have to say before devour comes on this is really an honor to hear all of you it's such an honor devour major was san francisco's third poet loria she has an incredible book out now called caliphia's daughter by willow by willow book excuse me i'd like you all to give a warm welcome to devour and you can also click on and chat in the chat area if you'd like to purchase her book hi hi devour oh yourself ah that i'm not muted okay hi everybody this is just so wonderful and and incredible i mean stajabu with the perfect start and um dr paris really giving depths to different ideas and avacha bringing music and genealogy and then uh to read it that was really magnificent so quite an honor and looking forward to hearing mr read i'm always looking at both the universe and how it reaches down to earth black holes black holes sing in the key of b flat hot and swirling forming and swallowing stars as they breathe the universe in and from those stars those stars are i found out at the last reading from an article that michael the last afree futurism reading that i was a part of in many of the people here that uh an article is covered with stardust that has fallen in the last five years so stardust out of clay they caution dust to dust they in tone from earth you came and to earth you will return they admonish they remind us we are human and subject to death yet insist on their eternals demons and angels paradise or purgatory merely human with a finite measure of days but we have exploded as novus burned through galaxies explored far reaches of the milky way written on the tale of comrits danced on the edge of asteroids until in a dizzying frenzy of passion we fell through the viscous ozone past cooling clouds to settle in the ooze that feeds the oceans floor it was there that we decided to grow limbs and tongue all the while holding inside the truth of our origin magnesium calcium iron copper we are the stuff that stars are made of it's a scientific fact a cosmic trust in ignorance and in knowing we hold grains of the divine inside ourselves and we always have and i wonder what those first people what memories became a part of us as human forever and these are some of the ones i thought would immediately become a part of what we know to be true water heat color everywhere wings fur flesh roots gossamer and rope seed sea loam and sand an infinite ability to birth to heal to kill to die the shape of wind and it's sound and uh it it means in so far as we are from stardust that we are all aliens in a way uh but but according to many people's theories some of us have been reintroduced to species from other places and because i myself when i lived in a co-op uh and was on the board of that cooperative uh and the other women on the board called me sister from another planet and found me to be an alien so um i saw this picture by uh african artist ruby oniichi amanzi called the spaceship on being an alien in outer space ancient alien theorists say my blood reveals my true origins that i began in outer space perhaps i came from those who speak of ancient kin who looked from african peaks eons ago to a sky that held no moon before the visitors round ship arrived and left their seeds among us there are many clues to my origins my feelings have almost always been an outsider not quite fitting in anywhere despite my excellent human form camouflage my resistance to the idea of borders my refusal from early childhood to pledging allegiance to one small earth plot when the universe is so incredibly vast my carrying a passport but being without one true homeland my missing the innate human impulse towards war and dominion my fascination with stars and my conviction that i am a space traveler all point to my existence as alien i have in fact circumnavigated the sun more than 60 times during my life always keeping about 33 million miles 93 million miles away which still doesn't eliminate all sunburns sunwall often spoke of being a venusian so i'm hardly the first or the only alien indeed this planet is full of aliens but not all of us know it or care to and this last piece is uh for we who are now in human form to really understand who will inherit the earth uh and let me say that there is no contradiction between gentle and strong we who shall inherit the earth in a mark i once heard the correct translation was not the meek broken crushed humiliated low who would inherit the earth but the gentle and we are inheriting these streets even as we sleep on them and are swept up only to return sharp the edges of so many of our lives fierce with hunger and pain so much disillusionment and so very few triumphs even as the rulers squeeze tighter cutting short our breath hobbling our steps harnessed together we will inherit the earth such as it is sad with violence and pestilence the air clotted and gray islands covered with an ever rising sea turning turning still it is becoming ours even as they wage their gruesome wars killing and selling buying and exporting death advertising the price for each kill factored into the decision to research develop manufacture and buy the newest weapon to kill more quickly more anonymously even in this face of this hegemony of arms every side buys from every side every side sells to every side even the pawns choose their weapons aim and fire and die still we gentle are joining together more and more tightly inheriting the earth from those others who want only to have to own to own to control as if they were hurricane and sun arrogant in their perceived power not understanding that all of it will explode or else disintegrate and they will be left with misshapen impotent stories of the times that used to be while we will remain remembering our many losses along the way still wounded and reeling we gentle will inherit the earth and pull out our seedstock and begin to plant anew thank you all that was beautiful thank you so much devour our our last poet is ishmael reed ishmael reed i i remember shows how far we've i've known ishmael since my 20s um and i'm a long time from my 20s and one of his first plays i read was um was it called raw the cowboy in the um and now i can't remember the poem but it was just it just floored me someone writing a poem that beautiful and i i just he's macArthur fellow fellowship genius he's won the award for the macArthur fellowship genius award his latest book out now is why the black hole sings the blues and he's just an incredible author writer of playwright he is renaissance man i'd like you to give a warm welcome to ishmael reed thank you can you hear me um i want to thank uh the sam sisco library which always comes through for us especially shana we've hosted a lot of ceremonies there very convenient place to arrive at and we have the oakland kim and the sam sisco kim who put this together and shana big shout out to shana who's always there to uh accommodate our programs and a lot of people out here say no or you know like the woman who ran act she said well my subscriber's not interested in no black plays yeah anyway i want to get into that um this is the first time i've uh enjoyed a pork for eating while eating dinner so you ought to have a dinner portrait readings and uh what else let's see we have two books here my daughter tennessee reed has her book calphea burning which is based on the uh gaelic and spanish legends that uh calphea was named for black amazon queen okay and she's the chair oh yeah the cover is by leslie sar vetty sar's daughter remarkable sar family i think they're born with dna in their surreal surrealism in their dna we gave uh q r hand a lifetime achievement award in 2012 which is long overdue i'm gonna read from my book by the black hole sings the blues and i think uh davora read the same article in science magazine that um i want to start off with uh hmm pluto and uh luca walk into a bar and uh luca is this uh microorganism from which everything was supposed to derive from pluto over here's luca say why aren't i given credit for all life they exist is it because i am a single cell bacterium like organism i who am the ancestor of trees birds fish and just about everything that you can think of instead of looking to the sky for god they should look to the bottom of the ocean where i live oh you don't think that you get respect pluto said first they give me that dreadful name after the greek haze and then miss me as just a big snowball in space and now they find i'm more complicated that underneath my surface like oceans is possibly life i'm booted from the new cycle by the discovery of a ninth planet turning to the bartender a pigeon pluto said at least we're not a pigeon the pigeon was unruffled he said calmly wiping some glasses well pluto it must be scary to be on a collision course with neptune whom do you think will prevail from such an encounter and luca you have to be jack castel juniors one of jack castel juniors submersibles to even notice you down there cold dark and lonely you will never see a rainbow while my neck is one this is uh based upon a true story that was told by lc good rock and robinson who died in oakland california penniless i have an article in the latest issue of alter magazine about the oakland blues which is becoming extinct because of kids like hip hop it but they're getting ready to build a 70 million dollar jazz center in oakland while the blues is on the way out so read the articles the thrill is gone is the title of it this is called just rolling along it was 34 oklahoma and lc was doing a gig people were doing the texas two step and greed isn't on the pig there are mounds upon mounds of ice cream the pies were crusty and fine the felon story is true and i lie good rock and robinson was packing the men but the noise of a porch the dead disrupted the den a woman and a man the man had a grin they were just rolling along just rolling along her lap held a thompson the barrel was long i'll give you 12 civil dollars she said if you play a song sitting on top of the world i'm sitting on top of the world they were just rolling along just rolling along they paid good rockin and were on their way very few in the crowd will forget that day the policeman pulled up he was all out of breath did you see a couple of four come this way she was dapper he said he wore a news boy cap and a pistol on his side good rockin asked who was in that ride the policeman said it was body and cry the policeman said it was body and cry they were just rolling along just rolling along okay i got a couple more this is called the milky way is a hothead the milky way is named for spilled breast milk but is no milk toast like a schoolyard bully who left the smaller kids seeing stars the milky way crashed into a dwarf galaxy 10 million 10 billion years ago which is why the milky way has an expanded waistline astronomers called the victim the gaia sausage the milky way thinks like you and me shooting stars like a child shoots marbles it knew what it was doing when he's away from home he cheats instead of the daily oatmeal sausage lies on a tray next to plates of whole wheat toast jam and a pot of coffee he can't imagine what a sausage like galaxy looks like a sausage dwarf was a shape like a quarter moon around like a full moon did it look like the sausage they serve in chet nigger along with a side of grits would it resemble the sausage laying on his plate derived not from hogs but from a turkey a Yankee version of sausage when the milky way nightly invites her eyes eyes to dine on her wonders who cares about how the sausage is made so why does the milky way have nightmares because it will never erase the traces of the crime and this is uh i'll read a couple more the ultimate security what would happen if i had a couple of dragons to back me up like sophie turner in game of thrones i only need one when i'm standing in line that stretches into last week my dragons show up and i'm next when i'm having a lot of argument relatives who've overstayed their visit my dragon's head will enter the front door and they pack their bags you know the fella across the street who parks his middle age crisis red corvette in front of my house where there's plenty of room in front of his he would be running and screaming and shaking his fist at the sky as my dragon was delivering his car to the junkyard the three pit bull the three pit bulls that menace my neighborhood no problem car break-ins no problems the guy whose cars base rattles the street covered the money that i spent on alarms could be spent on grubhub how would i solve the oakland drug crisis my dragons were shut down the port of oakland how would i feed my dragon i'd give him the names and addresses of all of my critics and this is the last one the black hole sings the blues black hole i can understand why your song is in b-flat the root note of your typical piano blues here you are munching away at anything that comes near you like an extraterrestrial shark your favorite dish is light left alone you had the worlds on your plate just a theory in a professor's head you had a good that didn't last here they come the paparazzi with giant lenses only they call themselves ehtt they made you a star but even though you can swallow a pile of suns it's all about them these ants under the front porch the little meme in the song by mary wells what would happen if we fall in they want to know earthworm the black hole hold up the nezzier 87 53 million light years from earth ain't studying you they gave you that black dog the technical name they should call you bessie thanks ish mill we had um didi said this is the first time i've laughed seriously in weeks thank you okay this is funny thank you ish mill it's been just a pleasure working with everyone here um i wanted once again say thank you to kim shuck john smalley and the entire crew um at the san francisco public library and i want to give the floor now to kim shucks who's just the deer thank you kim thank you darlin you're wonderful as well um i just wanted to end up saying that it's always a privilege to host an event on ramatish territory this is where we are the next two poem jams the february poem jam we always do the second thursday of the month the february poem jam i am throwing myself a party oh and i've got poets coming from uh everywhere across turtle island including canada so that should be pretty fun lots of indigenous readers lots of readers from lots of different community and then um in keeping with the one city one book theme in uh march we're going to be dealing with violence against women and i have a lot of really great local poets coming through for that as well so you are always welcome please come join us this was spectacular thank you kim mcmillan thank you to all of our readers one more time feel free to unmute yourself to applaud properly well that's so kind of you but we usually do when we do these afrofuturism programs or black speck of arse we let if that if that's okay we let the entire audience talk because i think it's very important that people speak to writers and they get and they're able to dialogue about their work and so i wonder if that's possible kim uh john we have a few minutes yeah yeah we can certainly go to seven thirty okay well um anyone feel free talking um for some people this might be the first time you've actually um listened to afrofuturism on um poetry i'm not sure it may not be but uh we'd love the feedback please please open open up to us we'd love that you know i i'm i'm a fiction writer i write prose not poetry but god i i you know listening to these poets tonight you know i understand that poetry must be spoken as music must be sung and this this was a concert and a beautiful one of that i really really enjoyed this and learned from this i think this is going to impact my writing um i i i have something to aspire to this was beautiful kim and all of you all of you artists thank you thank you thank you for the lesson thank you for the lesson avacha um terry all of you yeah thank you thank you thank you deora thank you uh territo thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you and you need an audio you need an audio for your books i'll talk to my editor uh territo i'd like to ask you a question your poem was so deep and used so much use of christianity used and but changing changing how we often see how we speak about it where did you where did that come from did you just sit down one day and think i've got to tell this story um it's okay well it's there there are many many stories um in the book synchronicity and uh and i think it's because of uh my family history of definitely the the native americans and africans in my family that came together running from the same predator that said you know the earth is evil your body is evil you're born broken all those things that were repeated constantly that affects many of us um and then having been a nurse certain things just you know the body um the the earth the the spirit of children everything is so mystical and magical to us and even what devour was hitting upon you know just yeah we we're all aliens basically kids you know we're just here you know reviewing these new bodies uh that we have but that's pretty much it and i was a graduate from a seminary that uh went into studying the bible in a different way and we had to do a different you know we had to study different uh uh religions and so um yeah that that's just part of it but it just it comes out and i try to fight it but it comes out it comes out and it you know things things happen that force you to write and every poet here can attest to that you go where you have to go in your writing and that's where i go uh and and that's where it's taking me just like avacha was talking about you know wrote and the drums you know the drums take you the word and whatever that is takes me and it's oh you're going to talk about this oh but what i know you're going to talk about tell it you and deal with this that's okay okay and so then i share what's given and yeah yeah i'm a witness and i yeah everyone you know you write from where that's that's the beauty of the writings you know all of us come with our peace you know we come with our gift we come with you know yeah yeah giving thanks giving thanks thank you do any of the audience members would anyone in the audience like to say anything i've seen your wonderful writings from wanda severe to just um isaac to so many of you but any of you like to say anything jackie why are you so quiet i know you can talk of a blue streak so don't even try it tell us the child will tell us i have been writing and writing and writing for so long and i've just engulfed in what i've heard tonight i've been writing for 60 years i have published 17 books i've written six in the during the pandemic and i i started with poetry years ago and and then started to write short stories because my family my parents like torita just said it comes out of you was in you and my parents were married for 60 years and i never heard them raise their voice in anger they giggled and smooched my entire life so i'm known in sacramento as the giggle and smooch poet because that's what comes out of me i i just think you have a hell of a lot more fun if you just giggle and smooch and and not dare anybody to be angry while they're giggling or angry while they're smooching so i write about that and and then i started to become a ghost writer because our stories our black stories aren't in the history books they're aren't in the story books i wanted to be able to tell other people's stories so i i started to write for other people and that's what i've been doing lately and then during the pandemic i got the opportunity to take a publishing class and i learned how to publish so i've just written my first autobiography and published it under my own company name so i'm i'm just i sit here with all of you um and i can tell you my dad told me a story that your life is like an artist's canvas and he went through the story of how beautiful the canvas is and i thought i was in trouble and he was telling me all about this canvas and at the end just when i thought i was going to get my punishment he said i need to thank you for being a part of my canvas that's the way i feel about all of you god put me here at this moment so i could hear all of you and you're part of my canvas now and it is really rich so i thank you wow thank you so beautiful there's anyone else because we only have a couple minutes left oh i want to say um hi to my fellow sacramel person from sacramel do you know about the poetry center there um we're doing a lot of virtual events well they are anyway yeah featured at the poetry center quite a few times even with that rule and straight out scars yeah yeah hello fellow poet hi i was wondering do you um because i it's been a while since i've actually heard a definition of future and do you think it's the term is involved whether it's a visual meaning or is it we didn't hear you quite could you say what you said again please yeah i was wondering um it's been a while since i've heard a definition of tourism yeah and um do you think has it evolved or is it pretty much mean the same thing it used to when it originally came out i think it's more because it originally came out by a european american gentleman who was looking just at science fiction writing by black people and it's really more about black people visioning the future and visioning us in the future and i also think and i've forgotten the woman's name uh kim uh east bay kim he might remember but that we were told writes about african futurists oh neti aquafool of core four um i'm not sure about their last name but their first name is neti yeah but but that that just becoming nuanced that those of us that are working in a western west through western idioms putting on uh drawing from african rhythms that's afro futurism and then those that are african or african diaspora and yet drawing on african idioms that's african futurism so yeah i think that there's much more to the definition because uh we kind of stepped into it and said okay and took it over and i think that's important you make something your own oh vulture you were going to say something yeah i'm going to say that they can decide what they want to call this but i don't think there's anything new about us being african people or dealing with the past i do believe that the folks the other folks europeans then the the thing that matter is you cannot destroy it can only alter you can only alter its form we are written all over our genes every single one of the the cells in our body is everything we have ever been is there the good the bad the ugly so when the ancestors speak to me i write when those things i write about that i have never experienced in my life and i'm sure charita and the other folks star javu and ishmael i know he's writing from some ancestor somewhere from another planet you know these things are written on us i do not any need any european or even any african-american to define what it is i am doing it's defined by all these people who have lived and died so that i that each one of us can write what we what we see what we feel a lot of us are afraid when those things happen we all have felt things instead that we don't know where it came what did the idea come from i do believe that came from one of those cells in our body that's talking to us i have never been lynched i have never been branded thank god i have never been raped and i've written about them and people believe it because it has happened somewhere in my legacy it's happened and so that's what's happening uh tarita said it very well we start writing something and then it takes over and it goes where it wants to go because there are things in us that want to speak we have a whole history that wants us to speak for them because they weren't allowed to do it and it's written on us we do it because we have to do it i don't need anybody else to give a title to it we have been what they want to call afrofuturism i've been writing this stuff since i was four years old so i don't need them to define what it is i'm doing so i hate to read the bad girl but that's the way i feel about it you know uh i hate labels i mean i i and claim afrofuturism but you can write speculative fiction uh from a reference point if you are from gana or nigeria if you are europea if you are ebo uh if you are shanti you know you have that history that reference point if you have come here by other means it's a reset but it is the same thought pattern it is the same genetic memory that that pulls in afrofuturism or speculative fiction it's seen through the lens of what we carry and that that carries through the diaspora and i believe that i was going to ask um shana you have a lot of um information uh on afrofuturism and things that people might like to check out in the chat room is there any way we could get um what's listed in the chat for people who want to study more on this subject matter so we can make that happen thank you thank you and uh if you're on a computer at the bottom there where it says file there's three little dots if you click on the dots it says more and if you click on that it says save chat so you can save it and it saves it to your system thank you thank you i just see it right now yeah shana what you've put down is very important and i'm just very grateful for all the things that you have put in here thank you very much and kim and and john and everyone involved thank you for the for just hosting something that i i will remember for a very long time is something quite beautiful thank you very much so we're done and thank you kim and kim the kim the kim kim is something magical about this name something something spectacular has happened to this name so if i have another great grandchild i'm going to tell one of my grandsons to name them kim because there's something magical about the same i want to thank both of you thank the library for having us and thank all you wonderful writers as i said before we started getting the mayor and kiss yourself you sure are looking good this evening thank you thank you all what an honor and stajabu i learned so much i what i love i watch all of you and i see how you'll pause how you'll say something in an unusual way and i'm just caught in the magic of it and so i appreciate that from every single one of you did something of that of nature and i appreciate that thank you thank you thank you so much thank you everybody thank you kim's thank you writers and thank you audience for coming we hope you'll come again thank you and definitely definitely take care everyone take care folks who helped me grow another day good night avacha good night love you