 Hooray! Hello everybody. Thanks for coming. I'm John Smolle, librarian with the San Francisco Public Library's General Collections and Humanities Department. While we're waiting for just a few more people to arrive, I have a few announcements to share about upcoming library events and also a pre-COVID test and vaccination information. After these few announcements, I will turn the microphone over to our beloved poet Kim Shuck, who has been leading these poem-jampo to readings with me since 2018. And as you all know, whose birthday we are celebrating. So I'm going to share my screen with you. This month, San Francisco and our library celebrate Chanel Miller's bestselling memoir on transcending sexual trauma, Know My Name. Chanel Miller is an artist as well as an author, and she currently has an exhibit up at the Asian Art Museum across the street from the main library. She'll also be giving an author's talk next month at SFPL, so stay tuned. On February 21st, San Francisco Creative Writing Institute authors read aloud their responses to the coronavirus pandemic. Featured readers include Paul Corman Roberts, Holly Hardy, Alexander Costulus, as well as San Francisco's seventh and eighth poet, Lawrence, Kim Shuck, and Tongo Eisen Martin. The following day, February 22nd, SFPL's On The Same Page Book Club will discuss Namwally Surpell's acclaimed novel, Old Drift, which is a fantastic reimagining of Zambian history, past and future. You've probably heard about SFPL's To Go program, so you can reserve and pick up books, DVDs, CDs, magazines, you can make your reservations online, or you can just telephone us and we'll put them on hold for you. The main libraries open seven days a week, and about 10 of the branch libraries are also part of this curbside service program. As you know, we're still in the midst of a raging pandemic, so please remember to wear your mask when you're out in public. If you live or work in San Francisco, you are eligible for free COVID tests. You can go to the website sf.gov slash city test SF. I'll put this address in the chat. If you live in San Francisco, you can sign up to get notified when you're eligible for a vaccination. You can also find out where vaccinations are taking place in your neighborhood, and I will put both of these website addresses in the chat. So that ends my announcements. I'd like to turn the microphone over now to Kim Shuck. Please give a warm welcome to Kim. This is definitely party hat. My son is making thumbs up because my kids got me this hat. You know, poetry's in the eyes of the holder after all. Here we are. I'm going to start by asking Deborah Miranda to share a poem. We're sort of going from from east to west so that, you know, people can be released at appropriate time for their time zone. Deborah Miranda, what's to say about Deborah Miranda, apart from just absolutely supportive wonderful friend somebody I was incredibly disappointed to find out had released a book on one of my favorite books with line adults and release, which meant I was winning nothing like that here. Question on a lonely poet. Really powerful lady and just has an incredible book of poetry out recently so please welcome Deborah. Kim. Happy birthday and thank you everybody for welcoming me here. This is so good to see so many friends and so many familiar faces. I'm coming to you from Monican land in Virginia and I'm happy to read a poem for Kim. This is called how to love the burning world. It has a little epigraph from Barry Lopez. Is it still possible to face the gathering darkness and say to the physical earth and to all its creatures including ourselves fiercely and without embarrassment. I love you and to embrace fearlessly the burning world. Tell yourself it's like sitting at the bedside of your mother, scorched with cancer, her hand already almost ash in yours. Her words already smoke so thick it obscures your vision of a future without her. You want to look away. You want to find a cave, drink yourself into oblivion, sleep while ugliness smolders. Admit it. You want someone to tend the death watch, someone else. Instead moisten her tongue with a sponge, bathe dry skin with lavender cream, braid her hair with tender trembling fingers. Take care not to pull the knots. Stay in the room. Let the last thing she hears be your voice, thanking her for every single time she didn't kill you. For the eons she waited before you realized her brilliance, her wisdom. All the days she bit her tongue, let you think you had the last bloody word. You aren't required to love the flames, but love the burning world. You owe her that. Fear is no dishonor. Her fever's so hot even metaphors melt at a touch. Memorize her. Praise each scar on her body. Beauty ablaze. Pray for a clean ending, a phoenix purification. Pray for mercy. Pray for the only thing that can save us now. Every lesson she ever taught us about the sweet bitter grace of transformation. Yeah, I'm an expert. There I am talking while muted. Thank you so much Deborah. My pleasure. There's a trick about listening and hosting at the same time that sort of relevant to playing guitar and singing at the same time. It's a bit of a trick that you know with practice. Apparently I might get better at it. So, Malaya, do you have a poem with you? I don't remember if I'd ask. Yeah, I don't. I'm sorry. That's fine. I probably failed to ask because that has been my brain of late. I'm going to, Jenny Davis, do you have a poem to share? Thank you. All right. This is my niece and a really high end linguist and an incredible professor. And I get to brag on her a little bit because of that, but also just a real support and emotional and spiritual and all other ways. I love you to get this poem. So this poem is called How to Read a Book of Poems. It's an occasional poem on reading a book of poetry for my birthday. And it goes to a view of things. Reading a new book of poems means throwing out those etiquette lessons they give to rural native kids. So we won't be an embarrassment if we never make it out of there. Keep your napkin on your lap. Don't tuck it into your shirt. This isn't a barbecue. You can compliment the meal, but do it quietly. Don't be loud at all and never lick your finger. Loom the soup away from yourself. Don't shovel it into your face. You don't want to get something on your clothes. It's important to look like you aren't hungry. Definitely not like you need it to live. A book of poetry should be savored appreciating each course on its own merit. The slow tasting of each line, words held lingering on the tongue, trying to identify each ingredient, flagging which sections to go back and try again. But I can never stop myself from devouring the whole thing at once, gobbling page after page with both hands. I have never been able to hide when I was hungry. There we go. My computer runs on hamster power. So if occasionally things take a moment, I have failed to give the hamster enough kibble, which is all my fault, but there we are. For a moment there, I knew exactly who I was going to next. Kim, do you want to read next? Kim and I have decided we are absolutely cousins of some sort. We haven't quite tracked down what the connection is, but it's very likely anyway. Because if you are a Cherokee of any kind, you're probably cousins with every other Cherokee we just don't know. I think I'm unmuted. I'm going to read one poem out of everything. I'm going to read my poem that I wrote for you, because it's your birthday, or at least your belated birthday. So we're going to celebrate you. So if because I am a mutt, I mispronounce something, I apologize ahead of time, but I think I have this. The name of the poem is Iguodal, and it's from this book, but I just took a note off of Ginny Davis. It's much smarter to look at your screen when you read. So thank you for teaching me that. I have to read them over and over your songs, chant them till they fill empty torn corners inside my belly. And rib cage like cotton batting and your beaded creatures till they whip stitch my frayed edges tight safely sister Mender word render me whole tattoo my real visage and sparkling check glass with your singing. The difference between the downside of diaspora, and the upside of the clan system is that you my sister would be here, drawing your stitches sinew tight, or rather we both be back there, where we belong, not just to each other, but to a circle of seven mountains and a mound, unleveled by a farmer's plow. Thank you. I spent a couple of years denying compliments to that. But what I'm going to say about poetry, I think this about poetry, I think we use other people's phone words to like a crowbar to crack things open in ourselves. But I think it's particularly pointed, I feel it particularly pointed with certain people, because, because we rhyme in our heads, you know that our thoughts rhyme without ever having, you know, with not necessarily having grown up together and without necessarily having spent as much time as we would like together. I really thank you for that. I reserve the right to be a little catty today. And I'm probably going to get fairly emotional. Because that is the thing. Okay, Kim to the okay, I know you just kind of got in, but I'd love to do the phone. So, Kim, is the current poet laureate of Alameda. Thank you. Among other things. Yeah, happy birthday. Congratulations on conclusions here. Current poet laureate ship, whatever you call it. Wonderful. So, I have, I have one short thing that I'm reading as sort of a preface to another thing. And the, the first thing is what I is inspired by you, I couldn't actually write about you but it was I was inspired by you. See inspiring. A far cry from the song the deer size. When the arrow flies as the crow cries, we gather around the poem, the word, and the silence becomes flame becomes heart becomes the ordained rhythm of sky and see salt that sings and spills the blues in a harmonic convergence, where Otis Redding and Otis Spann still croon the wolves to sleep. Something tragic something true something broken something grew. What do we become when we become what we become year leaping over year after year, straying from the dance, surrendering wind, summoning ashes of the past. What cauterizes one moment to the next to the next flickering wing, unchast flame, waking and sleeping waking and sleeping a synergy of compulsions of solutions contusions. The machines of morning hamper the machines of night, a waking dream, a dream of waking some puzzle portent. Lift the wing found the flame wheeled the clock becoming becoming becoming. Thank you, Kim. You inspire me as well lady. You've got a pretty good cohort. Really good. There are some, there are some other indigenous poets I would love to produce out to San Francisco as the, I guess the rented making a little bit. But what's true is that they really only ever hire one of us for every university ever. There's never more than one of us. People live miles and miles away from one another, and are only really able to communicate. For a long time it was really great getting up very early and living my, my cup of tea with a couple of friends who were teaching in Michigan and Oklahoma and various other places. I just noticed my brother is here. Hey, Dave. That's my baby brother, y'all. Paul, Carmen Robert. Share me a poem, my dog. That's right because like you, you mean, keep me and I are neighbors so if you're keeping to the geographic thing when that's, I'm absolutely the perfect person to be next. For thousands of years, a fire desert wash 50 miles downwind from Nellis area ones primary flight line houses highways intersections etched in red rock time pulsing with the home of the cosmos beneath which lie exposed all the forever places where they spit in their hands and shake like ancient star crossed cowboys, making their way beyond a horizon with each passing eon. How is it we have come to this place without permission. Does the base commander know his flight path is observed every night by shades of rates and centuries of the wind. Enough this fire desert crossroads staffed by forms of life science has no explanation for. Here's the distant rhythmic Russell of the cactus and sage brush, a rustle growing closer, increasing in volume and frequency until the first fingers of the dental breeze flutters across your cheek becomes a swaying invisible fan as pitch swells to the rattling and ringing of dust dry branches nettles and long failed seashells. Deep within Doppler's fat base bottom builds a din like Congress piped through a hollow aluminum amplifier and straddled like slim pickings on a free range improvised nuclear device. Could it be an f 16 and f 15 and a 10 oh no far more insidious than those killers. It is the pounding low and war of key air and its gaggles of little Ikemen's under their e g and g banner on their way to groom lake on their way to perform strange dark miracles of magnetism and sound and light. The outline of a passenger jet reserved for pale skin terrorists hurtling over the horizon of your valley of fire now kicks up a cacophony amongst a commune of the dead who have chosen to rest beneath the pale eye of a half moon. 100 years ago a cavalryman lost his way off the Colorado Basin with less than a week's worth of water and a buckboard with his sand show of a burrow. They never left the floor of this wash. The state funded memorial marker indicates the exact spot the cavalryman was found beneath his buckboard, hiding in vain from the relentless Mojave son, next to the corpse of the burrow. I make it out to where the cavalryman cavalryman is buried like every person brainwashed with entitlement I failed to ask permission. By night, gusting tubulars of wind sprint from sagebrush to sagebrush outpacing my trek from the highway memorial marker across a treacherous desert marine to a good Christians grave marker, standing half a football field away. The endless mass of dark blots out the bone white beacon of crucifix and cuts loose with a howl that is the very sound of the wind, which traverses the void between this world and the abyss. On swarms of tiny bats congest the airspace above my head, yet I resolved to trench forward to the sacred site, a king sized hell bats or as high above all the other tiny flying mice, running a kamikaze route directly toward my head, each time I was turned away, because I failed to ask permission. This world has been colonized by Vegas neon flinging itself 200 miles in every direction through the desert and up into the universe. Soon enough in one peak moment the key jet reaches a point directly overhead and the phenomenon reverses an inevitable shift, the pitch of the jet engines drop, the wind falls away. The plain lights now grow smaller and smaller till they blink out over the near mountains, which all resemble medicine been sleeping eternally beneath the humming singing galaxies and sons of God, the roar of Congress fades north and before it is completely gone. The last thing you notice is the rustling of the sagebrush and cactus and other foliage, as it is already settling down, not finishing until all the other traces of the flight line have passed. And soon enough all that is left are the watchers and the wraiths and the guardians, whom some may call shape shifter or vampire or ghost of a burrow ensconced in the red rock highway, wash of starlight and the watched for thousands of years. Wow. So for those who don't know, Paul Corman Roberts has been my good right arm for this adventure of being the poet laureate of San Francisco. My first right arm was the a Matthews who has now gone on to do a degree in New York. So, when people say that I've done a great job, they need to keep in mind that a lot of the jobs that I've done is due to community, which is the way we do everything in my world. So, I do have to thank my wife Doug failings for every cup of tea that got packed and put in the van for after the meeting. Every zany trip across the city to North Beach from near city college in order to get to a reading being stuck on the bridge heading over to the East Bay for other reading. And then, really, most of the other people in this room for all the help that I've gotten from everybody for a voucher for years of years of free poetry lessons that at readings listening to you and my kids as represented by one of them that I know the other one somewhere off. For all of the patients that you've exercised with me not being there for you and just, I could thank everyone I see on my screen right now for the incredible things they've done in which they and I'm going to ask for this figure to read right now. You reminded me early on. What was really powerful for me about poetry by watching it be powerful. Lorda. Hello. Well, the host has probably before we would you like to. Yes, myself. Oh, sorry. Hello, good evening and Feliz Compleños cam. Thank you for inviting me and yes I'm going to go and read the poem. Very grateful for you for your friendship. But what you continue to do with the poem. True shepherd of the word, the community and those all around around us and you know I got to me all kinds of people because of you but I know I'm quiet and I'm very grateful that you just always pulled me out. Here's here's the true love. So I'm. I'll be reading some new work. And it's part of a long. I've been hearing numerous about you. Under the moon. Could this cheese mess be true about the sweaty angel we both ran into who was collecting all the flowers that bloom upon the summer's departure. And autumn's arrival, right by a ballpark, a small town's ballpark, the kind of town that has one stoplight one main street. And the smell of mode as alpha, and we took them home and we both slept with the angels body. Like the sweat, sweet bubbles of their wings off their nose off their back off their middle. Right there in between their breasts we both flicked and suck their nipples and then nipples were brown and supple and it felt good on our tongues. We were walking lips upwards towards the light of a moon or a star that is a sun somewhere further than Jupiter. As near as Mercury or tongue salty with each other's flesh, or what flesh, or what woman flesh. The echo between our buildings was the echo of a human chest and I don't know drunk on the church of a hummingbird and the wetness of a hotspot flower, a flower that blooms at the end of the night, a flower that is impossible here. Like the impossible roses on Diego gathered up on the mountain of the Bayak Otonan scene. I lift my eyes to the wisp of clouds. Can you tell how alike we are, how honey drips in the same amount of time as your time. Can you feel how tenderly fragile a flower's petals are, their skin so soft. What were we trying to shout. If not warmth and skin, if not my face on the curve of your neck and between your legs my face felt so warm. You felt so wet and true, and the song of La Llorona bounce, my curves bounce, your skin bounce. We were like two whole bodies. The tribe of roses, hot sauce and marigolds, all of us, all of you, all of me. Thank you. Yes, taking me longer than normal to find my unmute button, but there we are today. So I saw out of the corner of my time. Okay. There you are. I was looking for your name written down again. Okay. Oh, gosh, I think we, I mean, I have a lot of friends I've made through policy. Today is better organized than me and she's also cooler. And does really noble work and that she works with high school students who would drive me back crazy really quick. I only had a couple of them in my house at the time, and didn't have to deal with them 20. But, and they still on occasion rattled my cage a bit. I am in awe of the work that's using my lady and use another person. Here's the thing, if I am ever desperately in need of a leader at really last minute. He will come out for me. It's a valuable, valuable thing. Thank you, my darling share of home, please. Also, this is another person who first thing needs to be celebrated because we're, and Kimmy to right there are a whole bunch of us aquariums right here in this room. Yeah. Yeah, so not just my birthday but a bunch of them, but also okay. Here now. Hey everybody. I was a little late I've been working from home and I was still working and then I looked down at the clock and I was like, oh no. So, you know, I don't have a poem about it yet, but I have been noticing a lot of writing that's coming through the internet that's vilifying teachers. And kind of describing us as monstrous people who are lazy and don't care about children and it's been really fascinating to me, particularly since 10 months ago we were heroes. I don't have a poem about it yet. But I thought it was worth it to mention that I have three pieces that I've picked out for you today. And this first one is called lies that pass as history lies that passes history are the worst kinds of lies, because they linger like flies on rotten meat. Magity thoughts eating into the brains of young people who grow up and don't know that they are lying to children who grow up and don't know that they lie to children who grow up and don't know what's true or how to even recognize an honest face. But I'm learning truth by reading history that doesn't tell only one side of the story. I can't think I can't help but think of genocide forced labor slavery, people expendable thrown away casually is wiping up water with a paper towel, a waste. It's confusing. See me now. The look on my face mouth open like a fish swimming the murky waters of history and the lies that pass. Tell me something real. Tell me something true. I don't want your history, unless I'm part of it too. This next piece is entitled money comes and goes, unless you're a billionaire in tech, of course, and the money never goes, it just comes. But I'm not a billionaire and I'm not in tech. I'm more like a lab rat, something for the AI to play with. It's unlikely that the billionaires who created our problems will solve them as that would interfere with the money that comes so easily through their attention extraction business model. It's brain fracking data trafficking, efficient advertising, and that's how our money goes. And then I'm going to close with this one last piece. Anti racism is a state of mental health. We can't see ourselves any more than we can see each other. It's like sometimes on a rough day, an ugly person looks back at me from the mirror on the bathroom wall, and I think, damn, where did that pretty woman go? Is she hiding back there somewhere in mirror land? I have my suspicions about the ability of science to describe how a mirror really works. What if it's not the mirror, but the eye, and how we see collectively is racism, a societal dysmorphia that results in self hatred and self harm. What would it be like to be the light particle wave, something not quite yet described to be the light in the mirror reflected deflected redirected. Does a light particle see its own intensity and flinch? And if I can barely see myself and you can barely see yourself, what does that mean when we look at each other? We change how we change who we see. Use the mirror, get the hate out of the eyes. Thanks everybody for listening. Thanks for being here today. I'm reminded once again how many truly great poets I know. Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone. My name is Lauren Cedric Lee Kim. EK is probably another one of our cousins. Oh, gosh. The view just changed again, and now I'm having to stare at myself, which is awkward, but I know that Lauren is here somewhere, you know, I cannot see right now. You're looking at my own. So if Lauren. I'm looking at Lauren Etoe as a reading at the Mechanics Institute that Tonga Heisen Martin and I were doing. And she actually, I think, come to here at Tonga. And really the rest is in this history, we've become really close and I committed the violence on her of making her do her first open light reading without warning and just sticking her on stage. It's going rather well, I feel. Sure, you follow my darling. Wow, isn't so wild that that was what like maybe two years ago. It's a lot a lot has changed and it has been a gift and it is such an honor to celebrate you on your birthday. And I think just the folks on this call are all lovely humans and incredible poets and it is such a gift to share space in honor of the one and only Kim Chuck. This is my home today called arrival as we, especially given what's happening violence perpetuated against the Asian community in this moment I wanted to channel this as a love letter, both to Kim, and also to folks who may need a reminder in this moment. Arrival as we are women hum in my blood, forced to play God cradled their knives with a gentle hand lifted gazes to the horizon and summoned air tucked it into laugh lines a tea cup a birthmark a prayer for generations yet to unfurl knowing breath is never promised always, these days, always, always. Remember this inhaling sunrise and bird song, we never arrive alone. Thank you so much. Just notice somebody asking somebody else. For about books. And I think I'm not mistaken. Everybody who's read so far either has a published book, or is about to have a published book. So it's totally worth knowing that. I just had a really incredible chapter. I don't know. Anyway, they've all been published and many of them have been part of the poem of the day project as well. So, that wasn't a requirement. It's just kind of happening. I was going to ask Denise Louisa, she had a poem to share. She's looking at real life. Thank you for asking, and I do have one short one and happy birthday. Planetarium experiment. So if the heavens in half at vortex of the Milky Way, the zodiac meets at equinoxes, Aries the Ram tips, Libra's balance. At solstice points. Devil goat Capricorn chases the scuttering crab. Comet shoot across planets orbs and stars fall into creases. Peruvian creatures mixed with Mayan jungle animals, a golden ray Peruvian sun wanders Norway. Pray to gods of gravity to untangle chaos to smooth stars back into place curve to refit. Thank you. Thank you. Denise Louisa was the poet laureate of Kansas. She was a publisher and published a chapter of Clink's poem of mine called Peacewater, the publishing house with men and publications. Totally worth looking at the work as well. Amazing. I'm going to do a different thing now I'm going to ask that. Oh, you know what the problem is, I was sitting here going I can't see, and I'm not sure why. There we are. I'm going to ask that people who haven't read who do have a poem with them that they'd like to share to throw a thumbs up on their screen. And if you don't do that I'm going to call you out. So you know, to be fair. All right, Bobby, I see your son up there. Let's go with you next. Bobby Coleman, a stalwart of the poetry scene in the city. And somebody who's been also incredibly helpful to me. Go for it, Bobby. Can you hear me now. Yeah, you hear me. Good. This is titled. And it's for the host. She doesn't know how to say, uh, nor I'm sorry, I don't have time. She doesn't know how to say that'll sort itself out. Knowing it won't until sometime much later. Not without her poetry in action. But why is it that way? Why is it? Can we see it in her eyes? Somewhat. Yes, sure. Or in her rhythms. Uh huh. Uh huh. But look also. In the other places. The unique. Untranslatable in between entirely. Authentic liminal places. The parts that live the sacred hole. The torn up drafts that turn into a masterpiece. The part that does grow on trees grows up with trees. Big Oaks and also the frightened ones buckling sidewalks. Dodging dogs. DPW and political bullies. It grows too big for this world of greased palms. And birch rulers. Like a plant that thrives. Like a healthy young person's feet. Like a plant that grows on trees. Like a plant that is ready for the new shoes. She will fill while growing and going further. Thank you. Here I've been trying to figure out how to say. With. Very limited success. I've got it. Is that Dax you have right there, Jenny? It is such an honor to have Dax here for my birthday. I've been experiencing one another's test. Of late. The Dax is actually a massive urban cancer. So. The light is, and yeah, I'm avoiding responding to. Right now. Thank you. A Vata. Happy birthday. You know, it's an honor to be here with all these amazing poets. Thank you. What can I say? Anyway. I just wrote, so I don't usually read something that I just wrote, but this one. Kim and I spent a lot of time talking about. A lot of the folks that a lot of other folks have forgotten. And so this one. It's called. Never alone. We have never been alone. Marcus Garvey or total Schoenberg, and all those other incorruptible ancestors who show their contempt for slavery and servitude by spitting in the face of evil. Jumping overboard and freeing their souls, proud unchained souls, whose restless spirit still roam the ocean's floor, stamping their presence on our dreams and minds and hands, revealing their essence and creativity all over the globe. We were never alone. We were never alone. We were never alone. Zumbia Palmarez, Kauaiya, aka John horse, Harriet Tubman and Argentinas, our beautiful, brilliant ancestors manifest themselves in life saving rhythms, rhythmic vitamins like Samba, Rumba, Landon, they sing to us in daydreams and dance with us on stages. Their tears become our paintings, our books, our way. We will never be alone. Yeah. It's on the wall. Then Mark Vessie, Granny, Manny, Aloso, Yes, and gospel Nanga, the unstoppable freedom fighter hero, a better cruise who reincarnated themselves in each and every one of us. Hell no, we are here. We are free. And no matter what they say, we're here today and we're here to stay. We are the voice of the millions of ancestors whose names we never got a chance to know. Ancestors who know that some of us are brave enough to know their truth and promise to wear their sacrifices all over our actions, a sacred legacy that will never be forgotten and forever live in the heart of our souls and never let us forget to remember the price they paid for us to know that we were never alone. We are never alone and we will never, never ever be alone. Hey, thanks for listening to my words. Thanks for those words. Well, here. Norma, you don't have a poem. Well, I was going to send you a poem that I'd written inspired by you. So I have a poem. This was written after one of the first times I think I heard you at a reading. I think it was at the Berkeley Public Library. And I was blown away. As I was just getting to know your work. And in the Q&A, I asked kind of a rhetorical question. I was just mulling it over myself and you engaged it. Yes. I didn't know who I was talking to. So this poem is called. What would it mean? And it starts with an epigraph from Kim's response to me. The truth is fugitive. What would it mean? I meant to ask to acknowledge and announce a weaver laureate of the town. In the place where they said poet somehow equals truth keeper. So many words are twisted against the people. Weaving itself is a deep. A soft. A sturdy. That is a girlish metaphor. As well as literal work. Tide. To everything. To weave is to rhyme to rhythm. To tether images of daily life. The sacred materials held together merely. By juxtaposition or strung perhaps between two shells. To tiny stones. Needed. Like sweat weighing down the sticky fabric twined and died. In order. Unlike the sometimes disorderly truth. That our hands might. Divine a pattern. Our mouths can only mimic. Earth tones. Primary hues. Cries of the spider mother. In a way. To make their mother. Depositing her eggs. Speechless on the branches. And in every crevice. The younger ready now. To make their getaway. To make it home. They hunger for their mother. In a way. We can barely imagine. Thank you. My screams is something really creepy just now. And I was like. Yeah. Now what do I do? Please answer. Keep running. There are other poets here. One of whom I'd love to hear, but I don't know her well enough. Yeah. I came to listen and I've been loving listening. So. I don't want to make you feel bad, but if you want to read something, I'd love to hear it. Okay. Well, maybe somebody else go and I'll. Try to find something because I really came to listen, but. I get it. I get it. I like leaving things a little bit open. To change. Tango is here. And I hadn't seen him here before, but I'm not sure. He's here. And I would love to hear one of his songs. Tango. Is in Martin is our current. In San Francisco. Right on. First, you know, happy birthday. You know, on behalf of. All of us who continue to depend on you. And you're on any leadership. We are. Is a groovy new phone. The boss belongs to the masses now. I got the boss likeness on a string like a love poem. Wild stride speeches replace memories of the boss. We got machine guns in the communist bar tonight. We're naturals in the communist bar boundaries are just a little death. We stand outside the gates of San Francisco listening to some good preaching. Congratulations. Your mercenaries hurt your money jungle hurts your mouth's hurt. Merchants are phonetic white flight. Luckless in there for a well armed primitive business. Reaching down into the patterns of your soul making for funny stories. I didn't name any schools why they had those kids in those cages. Joy returns to decent revolutionaries puts a hermitage in the fascism thanks for losing thumb in your shoulders family and needed guy crawling in between the bullet heat yes our grandparents guy. I'm going to be experiencing the last words of black organizers let's let's make a periodical of their last words Lord of the remaining addresses of black power. We become and go along both sides of humor of acts as a foot race to public property remilitarized pork improve celestial pork platinum minted pork. Choose your words carefully pork. The first mirror was clay the first human was not humanity recommencing near the white power it would be nice to sound universal. It's like a life's work depends on replicating Birmingham caravans or particulate Birmingham, one of five shells flying at the state capitol sign thank you for the resources. Big band scatting up the throat of a surrogate fascist in love with their one eyeball at the parade with tuxedo colored guns marrying the cowardice. The rerunning white politician is born in a black neighborhood black neighborhood taken as a stage of history, born of a black messiah taken as a folk old biography is born black. Legislation some dimension fuse to decide a loud steps copper summer rise but still some blood involved still some necessary slums involved. Black tag armies masked in Western height and primary emotions, the latter cocaine both worked and not worked enough images can be cousins. What happens when you step outside the country sugar gorgin. What good are you all to the world sitting in heaven, who we gonna lay out books for who's going to test the knives at night and sing to the gaps in between shadows gas between our love. Who's going to teach our knives to sing tobacco road teaching that they are family picture black socialists in a perfected bone yard in a tributary bone yard whispering the cheekbone. Deming the wind, a black socialists who will live for 100 years in this graveyard to make this point that we're in too much pain for naming ceremonies that ancestors need to inflict on the world are continuity. Thousand good deeds decorate the 20 year police precinct janitor janitor who called it who needs slides but not like you telling you if I have dead humanism the past the time a math teacher in a little red book. I used to dream of revolution and even enjoy the dream. Right on. Happy birthday again to the almighty can suck you did. One of these days I will manage to convince people that the might. Any might I might have his loans in very small pieces from everybody. It's an honor to have been able to wield some of that. You know, it's a huge honor. And, and it was, it was weird to realize. No intense at all was so they announced that I was to call it lawyer to San Francisco and my son decided to make me the dinner. So we, we went over 24 streets and go get burgers because I am a simple creature and so I said I would like for dinner. But I don't eat as much burger joint. Somebody sitting on a bus stop said aren't you the new poet lawyer to San Francisco is the same day. And I went. Yeah. Like well congratulations. Okay. Then we get into the restaurant. We're sitting there in a former student of mine is there and, and with his parents and he mentioned it, which made more sense to me because you think people who studied with you would recognize your name and the piece of history was six but then we ran into an old friend of my partner who then mentioned it and I thought is this really going to be like three and a half years of it. Is that really what it's going to be because I got to tell you, Doug is really my social credential my human credential, I would sit under my desk, pretty much all the time reading books and writing books. If I didn't have to be in public periodically, I'm not the social one of, you know, the litter David in fact who's sitting there with the social one of the kids, not me. He's also the funny one with some of you are going to find difficult to believe but it's very true. So, the family humorous. So then we took a trip across the country, and a friend of ours, this is, this is the how I met Malaya Powell actually, and I thought I'd met her before. When we were planning the trip, we were invited to suffer at their place that's imposed and I said yes, and I thought we've met before, because I can't keep things straight, as much as it does look like I sometimes keep things great. And a friend of ours, but that's a room and a hotel info, because it was all very complicated, but we got booked at this room and as I'm checking in to dump our stuff out of the vehicle, so that we can go up and eat dinner with Malaya which was spectacular dinner. So I'm checking in miles from home. And I'm having no problem with women and everything's working and I had anxiety because an extensive working place and I'm essentially a poster, you know. So I'm ID and I have the same. So we've been eating in the car so my scarf is like covering the taco scene. I'm loud. I can't seem to eat these days that dumping food usually a thought on mostly my right. And the person who was checking in somebody down the counter says, in this really loud voice in, in, you know, colonial New Mexico tile work room that was back. I was at poets, and I just, I went I'm, I'm a poet, you're the poet lawyer to San Francisco and I'm sure I turned absolutely purple because taco staying and tired and driving for a very long time and headed off to dinner and checking in and everybody and I just, I, it was a moment where I was really unhappy, but I should have predicted it because as we were pulling in there was a rabbit in the parking space and that is always. So, a voice behind me that I was pretty sure I recognize that is this the first time that's happened how long has this been happening to you. I turned around in the midst of saying this is very new, and I don't know for sure. But I thought it was Terry Gilliam, at which point now I really can't talk, because this is one of my big heroes in the world. And whoever it was looked at me and said I have found it useful to have a character to play when things like this happen. It makes it a little easier and then I'm more prepared. And I went. And he said do you know where the vending machines are for the candy bars. And I said no, there's a sign right there that says that washing machines are off that way and they like to keep the coin operated stuff together. And he nodded and walked away and I still don't know if it was him, but I'm pretty sure it was. It was a really terrifying moment. And then we had to try to find Malaya's house which is just exactly out past with GPS. She is about five houses, like when I say exactly she is GPS failed five houses before her house so we were like driving up and down her little road going. It's somewhere right here. And then they stepped out of the house. So the whole laureate thing of San Francisco was a much bigger deal than I thought. And when I agreed that I would do it if I was chosen I kind of thought it was what I'd been doing, just more of it, you know, organizing poetry and doing those things. There's something remarkable about basically saying something to somebody that they suspected all along which is your work if you could as anybody else is half as fast and twice as loud as you think you have to take a deep breath the microphone is yours and the audience is on your side. And really that is the trick to being a poet that is all of the tricks being for it. And people are remarkably grateful for carrying that little thing for now you have all of my sister that and friends with people. Michael horse told me, I sound like a name dropping the biggest man but he's been a friend for years and he had told me. We have to talk because now you're going to be. You're going to be not famous but something like it. And I thought it was really funny. Because I hadn't thought of that. And he said, so I have to tell you who you have to be nice to. And I said okay Mike, who do I have to be nice to, and he said everybody, you have to be nice to everybody. And that is not that is a taller efforts and you can imagine sometimes because some of the stuff that I've been approached with the absolute entitlement that some people have approached me with has been remarkable just gobsmacking, you know, and my response, potentially from years of studying at the feet of David check with the sarcasm, my response is to come back with something and, and as some of you know, I can do that. I can do that. But you kind of have to swallow it a little bit. And that's the real challenge of being nice to everyone. But the fun part about that is that if they came to you not looking for niceness they won't remember you being nice to them anyway. And that's not a bad thing to have on your side. I have been tap dancing for a few minutes waiting for KR more to walk into the room. She has done that. So I don't have to tap dancing. Can I, can I do something really quick. Yeah. But one second. Never Miranda and you take care of sleep well. And I'm so grateful that you could make it. Bye bye honey. All right. Go for it KR. Okay, can we all and Mike and sing happy birthday. Okay, one, two, three. Happy birthday to you. I'm going to channel your wish, so think it and then I'll blow. Got it. And I thought it was bad when everybody was in the same room. And many more. That's wonderful. I know that there are some people in here who have perfect pitch and perfect timing, so that was been slightly awkward for some of you. When I sing happy birthday, you know why I play the drums. Well, are you going to read a poem, my dear? I didn't plan for that because I didn't know. I know this whole one up, I can tap dance a little longer. All right. I'll read you. I'll read you what I wrote for women like you. Lady Viking. Where is it? A tall and laky woman with rings on every finger once told me that her lungs warehouse snare drums closest to an artery that one way streets to her decisions. Of course, we became fast friends. And next to her. I imagined a world where we women could be free to love one another purely. The kind of friendship that when holding hands, rings go forgotten. Fingers grow confused. This world is possible. Ladies with gas lamps tucked inside rib cages. Torches blazing inside our thighs. Highways made by our bare feet. Scarlet fire seasons chronicled by sapphire and garnet around our heads. I cannot tell my new friend this. So instead, I wrote her a love letter on a bar napkin. Dear Lady Viking. I want to climb into your mouth. Salvage your tired words that retire below a rooftop of memory made of you and me. With you, I want to hold female gravity in my hand. Swim inside your burning stomach. Listen to your loud heart in a seashell roosting in a lost man's ears. That's it. I didn't plan to read. I didn't know I made the cut. So I was just don't torpedo your work. That was beautiful. Thank you, mom. I'm very grateful for you. So you're grateful for everybody here. And a lot of people decide. I really need to think. I really need to think. This particular event. On the regular has been me and John. And at least one of the AG team at the San Francisco public library. And they giving me a really soft landing because there's some things about me that we're about to see and miss a smiling and smiling. And I'm not sure if you can. I'm not sure if you can. Which is difficult to advertise. I like to decide what order people read in later. Which is difficult to advertise. And difficult to feel like it's under control. And I keep Kenny mostly. You're right. It's been Kenny mostly. And I've been pulling rabbits out of my hat for three and a half years. For this event. And I keep there is always the rabbit in that hat. And I've never had to cook it too hard. I've never had to cook it too hard. I have a different perspective. You won't know that until you see me do it a hundred times in a row and have it keep working. I don't know why it worked. It might be that I keep carrots in my pocket. I don't know. But there's always a rabbit in the hat. And I've never have to cook it too hard. San Francisco Barry is an incredible place for poetry. I don't know if that's everywhere. In the world, but it's certainly true here. It might be part of what the city is. Because it seems like that's been pretty consistent through the years. And I'm told. By people who know that it was true before the invasion. So. I'm really grateful to the people who've made this possible. So, you know, not to leave her out ever. Michelle Jeffers is incredible. Just incredible. Consistently wonderful. And has been enormously supportive. And if I'm being really honest. Michelle. It was Michelle's idea to do the poem of the day. Although it kind of came about this way. We're not done yet. She asked, because I post the poem of my own pretty much every day. And she has said, do you want to do that on the San Francisco public library site? And I thought. So you're asking me. Do I want to publish completely unedited morning using. Before coffee. So that, you know, half of literary world can see them. And the answer is no, no, I don't want to do that. But what I'd rather do is publish other things that I've already read and made sure are actually okay. So that's how that that ended up happening. And it was her idea at its core. Florence did you want to read a song? Or are you ready to not do that? Since I can't hear you. Yes or no. You'll need to unmute yourself. Yeah. Okay, I'll read. Hold on. Okay, I might, I'm going to read a poem that I read for an event that Norma, I think in Kimmy, that we were at in front of the ice facilities. It's a very short poem. So I'll read it in English and then I'll read a new version of this of the poem in Spanish. It's very short. Okay. And it's a poem about, I guess, the importance and the limitations of words. Lullaby. Eyes and trees. Eyes and trees. And maybe a B. I know words will not stop the armies or the tortures. Still I draw imaginary trees. Eyes and trees. Eyes and trees. And even a B. And Spanish. Cansion de cuna. Ojos y árboles. Ojos y árboles. Y quizás una beja. Sé que las palabras no detendrán ni a los ejércitos ni a las torturas y estos días pienso en poca otra cosa. Pero aún dibujo árboles imaginarios. Arboles y ojos. Arboles y ojos. Y quizás una beja. Thank you. Thank you. I totally know I put you on the spot and I do appreciate it. But you had it. So there we are. Thank you. So. I'm going to look one more time, make sure that I haven't missed out anybody who really wanted to share a poem. I know there are people here who, who poems. You want to do one? Yeah, I'll read one. I've been on my family kicks. Because of the project that I've been working on. And this one also comes. From my book, Pride Out Laughing. It's about my family. I'm going to read one more time. It's about going through ancestry. You know, those motherfuckers. Could be a black. You know, I could live without knowing some of these things. But it's called her. Sometimes I feel like I'm not part of this world like close encounters of a third kind for I damn near lost my mind when I found out the man that I called father. Wasn't mine. DNA vital statistics and records and senses only provided more questions than answers. Like the fact that my birth certificate is a delayed registration. 15 years after the fact. My sister is considered an abstraction for we are half of one who is whole in the truth. He still holds, but I will not let him have that control over me. You see, dad, no amount of DNA could ever take the place of the countless of times you used to lick your thumbs to clean my face. I remember our last dance and our favorite songs and I still have visions of you rocking baby girl to sleep in your arms. So I might not know why, but the truth is real love requires no bloodline. But I know her. You see, here she is. And it's L2A1C4. And I could chase her back 5000 years and more than I could ever imagine. I was born in the West African, language of the cliques, mongoloid and pygmy tribes survived the cross-atlantic trip through my maternal line. I learned of my great-great-grandmother Sally frankly and how she became Halsey, how she begot my great-grandmother Betsy who married a king. And Betsy begot my grandma Juanita who bore my mother Joan who begot me and underneath it all I am no longer confined to roots and vines that dangle from family trees twisted with lies. I am her. Thank you. As always, my lady. Honestly, thank you so much. Happy birthday. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you all for this. I see that. Exactly. I see that Anissa is doing the thing I was about to do verbally, which is advertising. Our next two column champs are going to be dedicated to the concept of violence against women. Yeah. And it's really an incredible lineup for both of the reading. Very strong women, all of them. And I am delighted. So you should come back. The 11th of March. And then you can't remember the date for April, but the 11th of March for sure. And we're going to deal with some of this stuff. We're not going to resolve it, but we're definitely going to talk about it. It's part of the one city one book. And I think it's one of the things that we're going to talk about in that it's inspired. Well, we ended up doing it for that, but almost everybody in the lineup has. Written about violence against women. And there will be a lot of different perspectives. And it is definitely something to think about twice. Because I've come with a. None of us. Whole country. Be prepared and bring your big kid on these. And I'm happy to see what my partner is up to judging from the sudden death in dance with. Probably watching some of this. I'm going to go investigate that. I love you all. And, and I'm grateful. And thank you for making me miss people a little bit less. I mean, I do love my house. And I do love my partner. And I love the. The street cats that I feed. I don't know. They don't cover them every day. Make it a little easier. But it's nice to see other things. Oh, thanks. I will say hi to that. Thank you all. A lot of family show that tonight, which is not always. So it's kind of exciting. Thank you. on March 11th. Happy birthday again. Happy birthday. I will see you on the 11th. Happy birthday. Love you Ken. Happy birthday. Happy birthday Kim. Thank you. Happy birthday Kim.