 and we are going live on YouTube. Hello and welcome everybody. Thank you all for coming to this month's edition of Poem Jam with Poet Kim Shuck. I'm John Smolley and I'm a librarian with the San Francisco Public Library. While we're waiting for everyone to join us, I want to take a moment to acknowledge our community and to tell you about a few of our upcoming literary programs. On behalf of the Public Library, we want to welcome you to the unceded land of the Ohlone Tribal people and to acknowledge the many Romitush Ohlone Tribal groups and families as the rightful stewards of the lands on which we reside and work. Our library is committed to uplifting the names of these families and community members and we encourage you to learn more about First Person Lines. Next Wednesday, October 20th, the Library's Formel Center in partnership with the Brooks Smith presents a panel discussion facilitated by author Matilda Bernstein-Sickermore. Sickermore will discuss her new anthology between certain death and a possible future. We are writing on growing up with the AIDS crisis with contributors Robert Birch, Keiko Lane, Aaron Nielsen and Andrew Spielding. On Thursday, October 21st, SFPL presents readings from Joaquin Legaspi's newly reprinted poetry collection. Legaspi was a poet, artist, community worker, organizer and important figure connected with San Francisco's Manila Town International Hotel Community from the 1920s to the 1970s. And on October 25th and 26th, New York author Carla Coneo Dia Vicencio will discuss the hidden lives of her fellow undocumented Americans from the volunteers recruited for the 9-Eleven Ground Zero Cleanup to the homeopathy botanicas in Miami that provide limited healthcare to nonceses. So this ends my introductory announcements. I'd now like to turn the microphone over to our program's host, Kim Shock. It can wake him. Thank you, John. I am so excited about tonight's reading and I can barely contain myself. We have the enormous pleasure in the San Francisco Bay Area of having a lot of different communities of poets and hopefully one overarching community, but all of our communities over the last couple of years have been going through it, whatever it is at the moment. And the pandemic did not end some of the problems which started before the pandemic, including some storms and some drama and some problems. And so I've been trying to touch on communities that, I don't know, I've been trying to touch on different communities just to remind ourselves that there are some things, but also that there's an enormous wealth of incredible poetry that's available to us. Anyway, I'm babbling a little bit. I am in awe of pretty much all of these, but in fact, all of these poets who are reading tonight and I'm only gonna talk for a little while. So our first poet is Tony Aldarondo and rather than doing, as people know that I do, rather than doing the overly formal introductions and saying all of the incredible things that Tony has done, Tony became really part of my family while QR Hand was ill. We knew each other before that, but he really kind of landed firmly in my family at that point, an incredible heart with one of my favorite voices of any poet in the area. So please welcome Tony Aldarondo. Thank you so much. Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. QR Hand would've loved this. Music is poetry. Poetry is music. Come on a journey with me. Poetry is the mission in San Francisco. Si tan unido, si tan gozando, y tan bailando, la hay payahoy, payahoy este pobe tatay, a la misión, cantal mi canción. Si ya tú sabes como yo soy, si hay pobe, si ya payahoy, si hay susanas, si hay mani, si hay abachas, si ya tú sabes como yo soy, si hay pobe, si ya payahoy, si ya tú sabes, si hay pobe, si ya payahoy, si ya tú sabes. This one's dedicated to my heroes. And there's a lot of you in the Zoom room tonight. I speak in lengua franca, local poets of my heroes. The art exhibition of the dead in my head of Picasso's Frida Kahlo's and Miro's. I've got the spirits of dead poets in my head when I close my eyes I see them. Like last night they sold out an open mic at the Oakland Coliseum. Miguel Pinheiro tocando lo cuero. Pidi Tomás reciting verses. Frida Kahlo pintando, Frida Kahlo on stage with her colores and love disperses. With her colores and love disperses. Yo tengo Walter Mercado living deep inside my head. Me dijo poetas nunca mueren porque dejamos libros to be read. As long as those words come alive, the poet is never dead. As long as those words come alive, they said the poet is never dead, is never dead. I want, I want, I want, I want. I want what I cannot have, I want what I cannot see. I want the world and eternity. I want to run wild, run wild and be free. I don't want no one, no one bothering me. I want a ticket on a jet-blue plane. I want to listen to break-up music without feeling pain. I want every man, woman and child suffering from a mental health illness to please stop being called insane. I want to know how homelessness could exist in a rich-ass city like this. Most people live every day like it's a second Christmas. I want back my old neighborhood. I want back my youth. I want to be angry. That's the truth. I want some justice. I want no lies. I want no funerals. I want no cries. I want all men to experience the blind. I want them to see that beauty's in the mind. I want back the memory the police beat out of me. August the 14th of 1993. I want back those memories. I want back that knowledge. They beat me so bad. I had to drop out of college. I want to know who, what, where, why and when. When the good life begins and the hood life ends. Want to know. Who, who are you? Do I know me? Do you know you? Do any of us really even want to know the truth? Or are we just afraid, afraid of the truth? You know some say the truth can really hurt. Others say the truth will set you free. Whatever that means. My father who walked out on his wife gave up on life. Looked his little girl in the eye and said goodbye. Am I the bastard delinquent child my mama couldn't handle? The good boy gone bad. The bad man gone mad. A strung out dope fiend in a rush to reach the pearly gate. Am I Catholic Baptist gay or am I straight? Who am I while I find out too late? Am I a santero? Convito? A daíno? Or just some Puerto Rican spic? Some spic filled with grief. Am I high? Am I low? Or just some guy you call bro? Yo, yo! As if I was John Doe. I have a name too, you know. Where am I to go? Play a part of the new status quo with a new revelation. And what shall be my occupation? Who am I? Can anyone save me? Or if I reach out my hands for help? Will you just enslave me? Latinos are the colors of the rainbow. I said the rainbow, yo. Latinos are Blanquito, Negrito, Triganguito and Afro. Afro-listic, realistic, simplistic, always mystic, always real. Really real, sometimes too real. Always told we love to steal. So some Latinos become violent. So violent we grow violent. And almost everyone we know is violent. Others become angered. So angry and angered, some have become ch-ch-dangered. Or misinformed, uninformed and uniformed into the penitentiary. Right into the next century. Others misinformed, uninformed and uniformed into the war. Turned into Uncle Sam's whore. Latinos, I can't take it no more. I said the U.S. military. What were first on the front lines, first to die than we have to bury? Have you seen how many Latino soldiers are in your national cemetery? Were used in the U.S., abused in the U.S., confused in the U.S. And told, we are last in the U.S. Come on system, confess. We've been infected, rejected, corrected and almost never, almost never elected. Yet always selected to clean, clean, clean, clean, clean. Those pissed on urinals and shitty stalls. We are the Latina nannies that wipe the mielda out of el presidente's grandchildren's drawers. Then kisses ass to cut his grass for a measly visa pass. Latinos, Latinos are runaway slaves, immigrant slaves, modern day slaves with eyes open wide. And no place to hide. Latinos risk their lives to reach the U.S. And can't come inside. Latinos fought in every war and served this country with pride. Were here, there and everywhere, tall, short, balding, even Indian looking with long hair. We rock Ben Davis' pants, love music and dance and were born to romance. Latinos can become what we dream. Latinos can become what we dream. If given a chance. Latinos are stars, sports stars, movie stars and superstars like Celia Cruz. Latinos influence people around the world like Orquesta de la Luz. Latinos are united farm workers, teachers, preachers, activists, poets, Borinquen, Puerto Rican, New Yorken, poets like Willy Perdomo, Pedro Pietri, Avacha, Pirito Mas, Miguel Algherini, Miguel Piñero And we were born strong until death like macheteros. We are doctors and teachers of colors. And engineers, people like Clemente, of the best pilots. We are hívaro de la montaña and we were born all to zero. There is my slave Borinquen, how I love you. Te llama puerto rico, pero no hay mucho dinero. Te amo, te amo, te amo y me encanta. Y en el nombre de Dios si poesía, Latino se levanta. We are poets. We're in your neighborhood. We're not that hard to find. We'll massage your temples, touch your hearts and educate your mind. We are poets. We can take pretty words, put them in a poem and plant a mental seed. Or we can take unpretty words when we're filled with rage, put them on a page and make it bleed. We are poets. We can put words together describing an aroma and make you think that page was scented. We are poets. The reason the exclamation point was invented. We write, recite and perform. We never, ever conform. It's the way we poets know. Damn well we were born, pushed out performing and crying since birth our hearts already broken and torn. But we as poets, we can take pieces of broken words and turn them into spoken words and give a broken heart a fresh new start. Take a young child's broken dreams and mend them with spoken seams. We are poets. Blessed and filled with words, we create with words, relate with words, transform and relocate hearts and minds with words. We are poets. We say things like five times five divided by pi equal the number of rainbow stars in the sky and have you ask, why? We are poets. It's simple mathematics times dramatics factored into a poetical third eye. And the answer in the back of your mind's book is even simpler. We are poets. Ay, ay, ay. Love making keyboard breaking erotic poets. We can make a pen, make love to paper and make it hum. Make words intoxicate your mind like a strong Puerto Rican rum. We are poets. Filled with laughter, tears, joy, imagination and patience, we speak at the open mic at presidential inaugurations. From our hearts the words flow, through our tongues, mouths and lips, those words magically know where to go. In our heads the poets of the dead are awoken. We speak from our hearts with the voices of the broken. We are poets this much we know. We give birth to words, touch mother earth through words and that open mics open our mouths and pour out our hearts through words. We write then rewrite then double check the last rewrite because we know the last rewrite is the one that has to be right. We are poets. We share our breath with words and we will write and recite till our death with words. We are poets. Thank you so much. You always make me so happy. Thank you so much. Our next reader has Manny Martinez. And it is the first time I have the great pleasure of having Manny at one of my microphones but I have heard him before and you guys have something coming. And you know there was a little bit of mention before we started and it is happening in the room to other people that this is family. Manny I need you to know every single other reader in this group recommended you. Manny Martinez. Oh, I'm hella nervous. Thank you so much, Kim. And I've got to, you know, I've got a shout out of Acha for nurturing me, and never giving up on me. I love you. All right, I'm going to start with a new piece and then take it from there. It's called Poor Reakin. Poor Reakin. Quick to love, quick to judge with a verb. Shooting stars envy for how it moves mountains and crushes internal organs. Your little lies carry ancestral messages of sacred things long dead but not yet buried like the zombie like bride to be your beloved island has become perpetually betrothed to Uncle Sam's monster born and celebrated. She breathes and breathes knowing her needs or your needs. When you bleed, she bleeds and vice versa a hemophiliac mother patria surrounded by a sanguine sea centuries old like stories told of bodies black and brown tossed and drowned on and off beaches. Some white too, but history teaches us not enough. The truth seldom reaches us. So your desarroyo sometimes screeches to a halt and it isn't your fault. It is not your fault. No es tu culpa, no es tu culpa. Punieta no es culpa tuya. The blame rests on the shoulders of men believing they were giants above it all close to Christ with loaded brains and loaded guns and small hearts and tiny souls tricked into thinking they were doing God's work. And maybe they were. I mean, look at you, you're fucking beautiful. Tender and hard when you have to be rebellious survivor by nature. You tame your God given demons through rhythm, religion and other myths. And who among us truly knows the master plan? The master's plan is that you never forget who has claimed the title, who is signing the titles, who is at the root of all evil, who is most masterful at manipulating hate and hierarchy, the apparatus and the status quo. Perhaps there's something to this as above so below. What do you know? It doesn't feel right. That's what you know. In the center of your humongous spirit, you know we've been wronged. You know it hurts. You stay strong and proud and brush off bendito comments because you've learned that bendito el mano joelete. Besides, what are you going to do? The revolution isn't for you. Right? This one is called. Wow. This one's called fragmented. It's a combination of a short story and a poem. The call for lights out bounces off marble floors and pale walls. Darkness comes in intervals, in a padded room, a wiry dark-skinned man with a gray and goatee lies awake, memorializing his fallen comrades. They were from the diaspora, gringos with blood ties to Caribbean towns bearing Taíno names, Yabucoa, Calle, Macau, Arecibo, Guayama, colonizer cursed. Their true names were placed with the names of their ancestors oppressors, Sanchez, Torres, Garcia, Kolondres, a lost tribe of glorious brothers and sisters called to take back what was stolen from them. They believed they were chosen. In his youth, an American white man in uniform once asked him his full name and he told him proudly it was Mario Jesus Cora. The white man asked him what kind of a name was that for a nigger. Stung, he told the man he was Puerto Rican. Same difference, the white man said. As he aged and read and listened, he learned the meaning of that phrase, the acknowledgement of that what is said, thought or believed isn't necessarily true or altogether accurate but that ultimately what makes it untrue or inaccurate doesn't really matter in the big scheme of things because nobody really cares. He understood it is America. Before I know it, the rock is leaving my hand and landing forcefully on the left side of the policeman's head. The impact brings him to his knees and he drops the gun. Run for your life, I yell. And that's exactly what my boy Eugene does. Word on the street is that justice is defined by impartiality and objectivity and a rigged system of definitions. So I sprint toward the other officer and kick his gun as hard as I can and watch it disappear into a storm during opening. I bellow a great big laugh and then I run, I run down 19, make a right on Brian and keep on going until my lungs burn. Once safe I text Eugene to make sure he's okay and I can't stop grinning. I see it all like a spectral projection of past and future and death assured and I think, not today you evil motherfucker. And then it dawns on me that he didn't see my face and I'm bent over consumed and giddiness. I'm an anonymous Avenger. I want my cape to be purple. Earth, wind and fires, fantasies blaring through the clouds. Eugene is dead. Whatever the headlines, another unarmed, unwhited man is dead. And damn it, if he doesn't look like me. Again, he's shown in a picture taken for his yearbook, toothless smile, eyes already suspicious of it all, gleaming with the fire and promise within, collared shirt, bought at Ross, his steals, tie in a maroon velvet jacket his mom found on the sales rack at Urban Outfitters. After asking Omar at the corner grocery to please wait until next month for what she owed. His name is Eugene, born of a certain you broke and betrayed, marked before being America's like heaven except when you're being shot, caged, beaten, berated, belittled, blamed, bullied, some cops really do enjoy hurting black and brown folk. But if you ask who could possibly enjoy doing something like that, you're asking the wrong question. I think of myself an idealistic pragmatist, a patriot, except when grandma asks whether I'm Puerto Rican or American that of course I say Boricua a la muerte, abuela. She doesn't quite get the concept that Puerto Ricans are American citizens. Isn't it about power? Eugene was always better than me at standing up to races. He said the U.S. is an unmovable object being slammed by the unstoppable forces of change, evolution, and good old cosmic karma. And I am a law abiding minority except for in my soul right in the center of my essence is a bit of reckoning, recklessness of a patient knowing another bullet off his shoulder another in his chest then he's drifting away his life draining out before him as he disappears forsaken another day in America the dream, the experiment, the melting part of humanity simmering under the violent flames of isms it burns the touch to taste high emerge from my hiding place swish go my nikes on the puddle pavement I shout hate is a bullet in my belly okay I think I got thank you this one is I'm trying to pull them out as I sueño contigo this one's gonna go in Spanish first and then English Borinquen sueño contigo aunque irme de ti fue lo más que yo quise sueño con tu palo de mango cual la fruta yo subía a buscar o recogía del piso o tenía a pedra Borinquen sueño contigo porque tu rayo de sol y sal de tu mal jamás me han dejado han colonizado mi pier de ti yo nunca hablo mal pero que no me hablen de tu de tu política entonces si que no Borinquen sueño con tu pasado, tu futuro y tu presente sueño con tu gente humilde y guillou ansiosa y tranquila feliz y infeliz toh a la misma vez gente que no tiene que conocerte para darte todo lo que pueda darte gente que te falta en el alma por machete, bate, pistola, chancleta música y letra o lo que encuentran nadie usa los reculchos disponibles como el Borinquen mirada al capugia Borinquen sueño contigo por las lecciones que me enseñaste por ti se cuando da un break a alguien y cuando decir mira chico no jodas más como tener orgullo en mi trabajo y como mandar a alguien a la venta del carajo como pararme firme en mi orgullo y mi identidad como seguir palante para atrás ni para coger impulso Borinquen sueño contigo porque algo en mi sabe que lo nuestro no se ha terminado me llama, me llamara me ha llamado, me ha arruinado para cualquier otra patria y en mi momento más sublime o más en necesidad de esperanza contigo es que sueño Borinquen Borinquen a dream of you though loving you was all I desired I dream of your mango trees whose fruit I climbed for picked up from the ground or stoned Borinquen I dream of you because your rays of sunlight and the salt of your sea have never left me they've colonized my skin and my soul I never speak badly of you but please don't mention your politics or your health system because then it's on Borinquen I dream of your past your future and your present humble and proud, anxious and calm, happy and miserable simultaneously people who don't need to know you to give you everything they got people who will break your soul with a machete a bat, a pistol, flip-flops music and lyrics or whatever they can find because nobody uses their available resources like a borinquen check the al capuria Borinquen I dream of you for the lessons you've taught me because of you I know when to appease someone and when to say yo get the fuck out of my face how to have pride in my work and how to stand up for myself and stand firm in my pride and my identity how to keep going forward because there's no going back not even to gain momentum Borinquen I dream of you because something in me knows that what we share isn't over you call me, you've called me you will call me you will ruin me for any other country and in my most sublime moments or in desperate need of hope I dream of you Borinquen thank you I think that's all I have thank you so very much thank you so very much and I want you to know something this has never happened to me before I've had several texts about your reading while you were reading that has never happened before that was awesome thank you so much for being here oh wow our next poet is Susanna Preve-Perez who I feel like we know each other we haven't spent a whole lot of time in the same rooms together but I feel like we do know each other we've performed together sometimes it always really rings for me so welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome Susanna thank you Kim, thank you for putting this together and you're right this is Familia it's beautiful to be here tonight and I'm going to start out with some family poems this first poem I wrote to my son and it's called Sancocho my son full hand of fingers long when the DMV made him fan all of his names on a table like a gin rummy flush he asked what were you in part thinking what we were thinking was to paint the map of your being in such bright letters you would never lose yourself never lose us nor your grandparents, tus abuelos your great grandparents, tus mis abuelos as you walk in a world where accent marks are seen as rubble to stumble on and the role of an R in aberration we stamped you with the world of my ancestors or what we knew of it after a genocidal war destroyed the stettos of Europe and yanked those roots from the soil we gave you my paternal name which may not really be my father's name or my father's father's name but a name a clerk at Ellis Island approximated a name that in Russian may have been pravda meaning truth the truth is hidden in an uprooted name we hold on tight to our names always seeking the truth itu papa stamped his name and his roots on you and on me too in Boston ever present on birth certificates marriage licenses and as you well know me driver's licenses Perez is like Smith in the Spanish speaking world but here instead of the beautiful cascade of syllables it is Perez is parade into Perez in English speaking mouths never let them tell you how to say your own name it is yours it is yours and puppies and now mine it belonged to a vuelo mateo who lived in a wooden house with no hot water and mocha itu visa vuelo who walked those fertile hills barefoot cracked souls caked with red soil itus tatara vuelos whose names were scrawled on the front page of a bible with a pencil sharpened by a machete your roots spread deep and far in a land whose sweetness was sucked by canya veralis and colonizers roots spreading like woody lianas and flowering vines in a yunque roots that spread to the halls of our home shape glistening socai in our brains thickly seasoned braid of blood meeting like bomba drums strumming like a balalaika spreading like verbs in our veins this next piece that first piece is from my book hurricane's love affairs and other disasters this next piece is not in that book it is an essential piece so shizue's book anthology this is a poem of remembrance from my late husband jose perez and it's called a mi querido negrito en su día december 11th arrived enrobed in fog in the warm cocoon of a cantaloupe room you painted before you became one with the wind your ashes dancing above aguadilla born in that place of little waters though some say aguadilla is not spanish but tayino for garden hijo de palmas orchidias y olas de mar crashing on ivory sand your song ran along stone rivers, río piedras where you grew sweet mangoes bursting as they rained upon your flat cement roof I place a slice of that fruit like a heart upon your altar and a flag of your beloved borinquin unfurled black and white in a sky like leche de coco that once fed your vibin' flesh in el cielo in caranublado your soul still bright veins the gift of you like rivulets of molten gold so continuing with the theme of family I'm going to read a poem to my titi-sara called od to titi titi-sara could squeeze juice from a dime and when she ran out of dimes titi could suck sap from a centavo they say oil and water don't mix but titi knew how to water aceite vegetal make it last to her next paycheck titi opened her triple locked door embraced me in her freckled arms aquí tienes tu casa siempre as soon as I settled I skipped to the market café y queso, piña y parcha slipped fine spanish olive oil into my cart succulent frill for her cupboard por qué comprarse tanto she quizzed as I hauled in the shopping her voice the tone of her short copper hair you gonna eat all that she asked we're gonna eat all that I replied storing the rice with a wink of my eye titi cooked arroz con candules plato no frito pechugo de pollo steeped in sofrito no sooner than plates were laid on the table we heard tuk tuk tuk at the door buen día sarita Olga from down the hall in house dress and shawl to borrow some olive oil se me haces el favor cierto césara jumped like an athlete poured half her flask of oil in a jar toma she said with the grace of a dancer as si fue titi if titi had two dollars she'd give one to atacato trembling on the corner spend days and nights aiding the ill but where was the aid when titi got ill after Maria knocked out electric left her seen agua eating canned tuna to learn testines jammed where was the aid stuck in her building car soaked to chassis and hurricane surge pallets of water left on a runway while titi and thousands withered with thirst titi died in a hospital del maestro surgery soiled by darkness and heat dancing barefoot with angels al campo santo as si fue titi the shoes she left too huge to fill stand empty frente al capitolio and the white house lawn silent witness to what went so wrong of many of the hurricane poems I have in my book and if the hurricane was not enough a year and a half later Puerto Rico was hit by a year long series of earthquakes hit the south and this poem is about that as well as accumulated trauma it's called cartography of the Caribbean once during the discovery map makers placed Borinquen at the center of the new world North America not fully explored was mapped like a snake dangling above the island renamed Puerto Rico for riches the Spaniards found the snake grew voracious teeth gold was devoured ore became sugarcane then petrol pharmaceuticals at tax haven a post hurricane clearance sale Sevende signs seen everywhere so it sounds like old news when geologists explain shake after shake of earthquake swarms the North American plate is pushing hard against the Caribbean apretando till fault lines jolt rocks explode and Borrecos with frayed singe nerves feel they're about to implode houses built on pillar legs fall to their knees schools collapse like tents of cards thousands of people sleep under the stars afraid they'll be crushed by their homes in every blackout chafes half healed wounds remembering a year without light months without water weeks of waking to tell your daughter eat your rice, mi amor no hay nada mas cascades of disasters reshape inner landscapes like swarms of quakes reshape Puerto Rico's topography in just 15 days the city of Ponce sunk 15 feet slid westward towards the setting sun and via the rosaries Guayania woke to find Punta Ventana shattered porthole in the stony cliff now jagged row of teeth in Inguanica point of entry when the U.S. invaded in 1898 the ocean trembles on the shore a woman watches a meteor streak across the sky her house is a mound of rubble but she's still standing listening to the cookies singing in the mangroves I have two more pieces these are not from the book this one there's all four of us our bilingual poets were also all from New York and I see a lot of New York in the house so this is for this is for y'all it's called Cucifrito at Midnight we were leaving Luisaida not the town of Luisaida and Puerto Rico's northern shore where Simarón has escaped slavery's chains there was no sea of surging water in front of us just an ocean of concrete still radiating heat despite the midnight hour we were leaving Luisaida not la calle Luisa that runs through Santurce were sent of sofrito drifzan sea breezes that same smell was in the air but the breeze that carried it was thick with car exhaust despite the midnight hour we were leaving Luisaida New York's alphabet city where Avenue C is sometimes called Avenida or Luisaida by Boricua's living in Puerto Rico's other capital Avenue A could be for Alviso Avenue B for Betances and Avenue C for Coño Que car están las rentas so Boricua's took that bloody neighborhood turned abandoned buildings into homes where familiars could live and grow we were leaving Luisaida to catch the train to Long Island la ultra isla the 1 a.m. from Penn we should make it, no problem city blocks speed by walking in Manhattan on a warm summer night but then we saw it blinking neon signs sounds of salsaluras in patitas chicharón or rejas rabo de cerdo all glistened in a flashing red light mira payar cuchifrito food from home steeped in larga tradición scraps cast off by los ricos made delicious by los bobres made whole again Puerto Rican soul food in the middle of Nueva York in the middle of the night with a train to catch the train we were leaving Luisaida the Luisaida in a city that never sleeps where one can eat cuchifrito at midnight and make time and distance disappear we were leaving Luisaida and the pleasure of finding el sabor de sus raíces in the city of steel made the two hour wait for the next train worth it and I'm going to close with a short poem, a love poem from the island of Puerto Rico it's called no small love and it's after Sonia Sanchez's poem this is not a small voice this is no small isla you see this 33 by 100 miles splash of green this island is large, long a syncopated song sizzling crimson flamboyan this is no emerald speck you see floating between two twirling seas africa and spain twirled daíno dna and new migrations grew this is not a flash of light drifting in a jet black night this is lonely cordillera canya plantain cascade of calloused hands this is no small love you see this land of myelo el topo y don rafael parcha flavored verse, plumeria scented breeze this love is a porous arc of palm trees pours itself on bami's skin like waterfalls on obsidian this love figure eights its hips unlocks rusted gates drips warapo from its lips this love is where I am hermana negrita mami mi amor you see this is no small love gracias wow Suzana's work is one of some of the poetry I recognize who wrote it even if it comes to me without a name on it it's one of those things that's like I can't judge a contest with you in it because I absolutely know it's your work there's no mistaking it thank you so much lady I've been thinking how to introduce Soacha since we started and we're a whole different kind of family this lady and I I answer the phone when she calls me when I am not answering and I actually have a true story about that somebody there we are let's get this thing going here I headed back to the bay I'll head back to the bay okay I did please mute Bill okay anyway so when my daughter passed Soacha called me and talked to me and said some comforting things and some difficult things and some heavy things and I was like I'm not going to blame the phone when she called me but I answered the phone for her we've known each other a long time I believe that we started really getting to know one another when we were both involved with he reading in benefit of the people in the ninth ward after the after the that caused that and we started working together then pretty regularly and ended up with a lot of readings together and I love this lady she knew my adopted mom and she's a legend and that's the end of your introduction Soacha she said this is familiar this is a real deal and folks know the story and we don't have any more children so I adopted a couple and both these young men Manny and Tony are my babies and it's always wonderful when you can get the babies and some other woman has to deal with the labor pains and the stretch marks so these are both my babies I'm very proud of and Soacha is my sister and I'm grateful all of you came out to support us because somebody else did something about the mission I used to live in the mission and the mission is not the place I used to live in I cannot believe when I go down the streets in the mission what it is now what it isn't I should say so this is the tears of a crazy old lady Akithoy another old lady dishing out healing doses of age poetic tears and laughter from Picante handing out mega-servings of delicious ambiente dulce spiced with muralista I'm here a relic still a wreck laughing at our new age naval-staring neighbors who live trying to intellectually digest El Salvador del Pueblo while pricing us out of what's ours at the cost of losing their souls and all their profits trying to cure their too hot to swallow jalapeno induced indigestion y bingo Naticando now an old lady serving out huge portions of sensitive mysticas the real soul food and heaps of poesina que me quema y ganas en fin my will fortified by la lagrimas of an army of ancestors inspired unbending and fully aware our new age naval-staring neighbors may have priced some of us out of the neighborhood but we keep coming back Naticando knowing that we shall never never ever colonize our spirit out of la misión this next one is called listen to the rain for junque and I cry just thinking about it because Maria 8 I mean it just chewed it up and I still see what it was and I guess our great-grandchildren will see it be that again because mother nature doesn't stop so and I apologize and who I think are listening from they were saying they were listening for my I can't play it and this will make it a mess so anyway this is listen to the rain for junque and where they he always listens I say always listens but never hears the music for junque too busy always rushing running taking always taking but never taking time enough to listen to the rain to hear her sacred song to feel the magic for junque I say they came suffering a cute gringo they will never know more than just another rain forest more than a beautiful tourist trap more than just one more romantic now with more great potential for the cultural expansion of McDonald's bulletproof hamburgers have you ever really listened to the rain the magic the the the the listen listen listen to the rain is a fertility dance try to make you hear the music is strong enough to live for a tree and maybe even die to be free did you hear the magic sombra de anelas listen listen listen to the rain that whispering in your ears that a shower with your pride let her lead you to the magic of junque that the rhythm of the rain burn like fire in your blood. Have you ever stopped and listened? Listen to the rain. Listen, born equal. Listen, listen to the rain stop. Listen, listen to the rain born equal. Listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen. This is called talking about La Musica. I'm a music nut for all those that know me, though that already so. But listen, this is talking about La Musica. I'm talking about La Musica. My music, La Musica corriendo por mi seso, escuchando la music de mi sueño. Ay, music, una comida de la vez. I said I'm talking about music. La Musica sagrada, sweet music, precious music, Musica caliente y la cachao en puente. Like patato y totico en caco, talking about sea cruise. Ay, bendita luz, el fuego de tito, rurrigues, cortijo, migalito, valdez. Can't leave out papina, lube, Johnny Ventura, Machito Graciela, Hector Rivera, Garcia O'Mara on my brain, talking about flying, flying high on music, crying, dancing, laughing music, freedom music, living for more, more music, my music, I mean, Musica preciosa. La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, ha! When along comes senor planchao, pelado, pouring buckets of rain on my son chanisiendo. Let me turn off that mess, chewed into the mud and the stuff died with the last supper. Tu tu cupla, cupla, tu tu cupla, cupla. La Musica, mi Musica y compa, pienso que tiene cacahuate en la cabeza, en vez de cesos cacahuates, sino cuates, cala loco con su temen, another brother bites the dust. I gotta have it. I said, can't live without it. Talking about while on course on muntuno la plena, while here in La Bomba for days and days and days, don't take your rainy lack of pride elsewhere, papi triste. La gente me dice la merengona, toe a blando de la Musica, sweet, sweet, sweet precious music, music, Musica de la, la Musica sagrada, got beautiful bed, I've come to run wild inside my brain, got a grana, senor racing como loco through my veins, just ain't got no time for no pelado, so drain your dig. A toe a blando de la Musica, talking about great music, soulful music, pulsating, pulmering music. Mi Musica, Musica de la gente, street music, a blando de la Musica, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet behind shaken music, magic music, always music, a blando de la Musica, la Musica, la Musica para siempre jamás. I'm a musician, I've been a musician since I was a little kid and I come home real late and this is written for the street kids. And it's in my book which is in the chat if you feel like it, go to get yourself a copy of the book, it's called street children of the night Chiquitito de la noche en aquel lugar. Black and brown children of the night que ya no saben nada que garras ni dito de la caixa. Que Dios morinnitos, whose ideas have got, whose ideas of having fun got swallowed by the darkness. If I could I would wrap you in sunshine, would hold you close and fold you in these arms and crests whatever's left to the child in you with lullabies. I would like to cover every inch of you with home cooked surface theme and that they sell by contest. I want to fill the hole that hurt Doug. Take my hand and I assume defining through the fires of health for you and with you through the mugre of disrespect. I'm a hard-headed kind of lady and I just can't see myself giving up on you. Solo lo que solo you and I para nosotros, solo todo lo que I refuse together by history por lo bonito, los sueños, arrobados, like spiritually in the maze of our destiny origin. Mis negritos, mis pequeños, carajeros los necesito. The truth is I know I need you y yo sin ti, soy nada. And if I had a chance, I refuse to turn you loose to you with so in love with yourself and self-destruction with disintegrate under the pressure of your presence and you were so secure, my love for you and so sure to splendor you had become that even the sun would lay aside its arrogance just to get a chance to reflect with brilliance of your essence and bask in the bold truth of your integrity. En ti, y voy a verar real y yo sin ti no existen ni un sendero de la esperanza, I will say, can they see you? My beautiful wild lotus flowers, if I could, I bathe you in a sea of rose water, I convert your ways of pain into an ocean of pride and faith, y yo te piro dame, y yo chan si, please, please, please let me in. I promise you the very best I can, even if I have to wake the dead and conjure up our ancestors' breath. I'm not too proud to act a fool, get down on my knees and holler and scream and beg all the spirits of goodness to intervene to blow away the fog of this man distressed by something that caught through loglimas and dissipate the rage burning behind your eyes. So together we can wash away the centuries of emasculating doubt and defeminizing lies and have a little fun and learn to play a brand new game called demolishing walls of self-hate. Children of the nightmares, milito de la cajia, I want the stubbornness of my love to help you turn all the lights inside your soul, cui, cui, cui, cui de mi sangre. I will not allow the streets of any city to steal you. You, like a lotus blossoming in the nightmares, kere yutas, alma de mi existencia, I will not let the cesspool linger, make a fast food, happy meal of your dreams. Chiquito de la esquina, you are our only wealth, you are the most beautiful part of me and I'm not about to let you go. I will not permit the hungry stupidity of greed to feed you to the streets without putting up a fight. Aduo sitho, per dito de la noche, if I could I would pave your path with starters and massage your mind with a steady dye, just how important you are. Make sure you know you're too damn important to let the world just throw you away. It's my job to remind you on a daily basis, this crazy old lady is here to stay, I'm still here. I say I'm here, staying and praying and praying and staying and staying and praying and praying and praying and praying and praying mi sialito negri dito de la noche, I'm talking to you. Can you even hear me? It's all tomorrow that you're thrown away. Can you just ni ni dito de la caja? I'm still waiting a stubborn old lady with a heart full of love standing in the shadows and waiting on who you could be, waiting for you to finally see me waiting to wrap you in a blanket of sunshine. How much time do I have? I'm lost, how much time do I have? You can read another poem. Okay, this one is called Daughters of the Drum. Every year there was, and hopefully it'll happen again before the pandemic, the International Women's Drum Festival, and I did a workshop there every year called When Ancestors Speak for Rhythm and this is for all the women that came to born the drum, it's called Daughters of the Drum. We were born the drum. Somos hijas rítmicas, we were conceived in rhythm whether we knew it or not or wanted it or not, it was and has always been about upholding la clave en la alma. The beauty and sanctity of the rhythm that created us, the rhythm that is us. Somos el latido de la naturaleza, the rhythm of our mother's labor pains announced our coming and it's always the rhythm of our breathing that lets the world know we're alive, me don't know. Vellias fuers amíticas pero picosa spíli. We walk and sing, pray, dance and cry in every single word that flows out of our mouths is a rhythmic declaration of our presence. Somos la censia de la rumba and even our sacred mother nature dances rhythmically through the seasons every single year, keeping the rhythm of our lives in balance. Our universe is an inescapable symphony, rítmicas sagrados held together by vibration by the sound of the sum of us. The always right one time magical, rhythmical timelessness of us. Somos la fiebre y apasionada de la rumba, the heart of bebop and cubop was born in us. It's created creation's gift to us. Somos el corazón del tambor, born in the womb of creativity and undeniable rhythm personified. Wake up world, wake up, wake up, me don't know, listen, listen. We are your children and we were born to drum. Please check out my thing there, get the books of everybody you've heard this evening, come and support here in the name of Manny Martinez, Susana Prevapérez, Tony Agarondo, please come and support us because that's the only way we can exist and we'll give you a dose of vitamin B flat if you come and check us out. Thanks for listening to my words. Thank you so much, Avacha. And thank you to all of the readers who Avacha just named. Thank you also to the San Francisco Public Library that indulges me and lets me do this sort of thing with very little oversight. Thank you, John, for being the conduit for this and thank you for all of the people in the audience. If people missed it, it's been recorded. I imagine it's going up at some point and you can catch it again. And even if you didn't miss it and just want to see it again, it's going up. So thank you all. Next month we've got, we're not at our usual date. It'll be the 18th, if I'm not mistaken, November 18th. And it's going to be an array of Native American women, including Linda Noel, Georgina Marie and Denise Loeso. And everybody's either a former laureate or a current laureate somewhere. So that's going to be a great reading too. Thank you all for coming. And we are done for the evening. Really. Thank you everyone. Going back to November 18th. Woo hoo. Thank you folks in Zoomland and YouTube land. All right, see you soon.