 That means is it'd be great if we all muted. Yes, everyone else please mute. Okay, here it goes. We're live on YouTube. All right, John, I'm gonna let the folks in. Here we go, we're live. Hello and welcome everybody. Thank you all for coming to this month's poem jam with Kim Schuck. I'm John Smalley and I'm a librarian with the San Francisco Public Library. While we're waiting for everyone else to join us, I want to take a moment to acknowledge our community and to tell you about a few of our upcoming 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 rights. SFPL Summer Stride Literacy Program is continuing through August. Summer Stride is the library's annual summer learning, reading and exploration program for all ages and abilities. Join us for author talks, reading lists, book giveaways, nature experiences and more. You can register today by visiting our website, sfpl.org. This Saturday, poets gather online to celebrate the life and legacy of former San Francisco poet, Laura Janus-Mirikitani. A visionary revolutionary artist and the embodiment of San Francisco's compassionate spirit, Mirikitani used the power of her words to fight for equality and for a more just and peaceful world. Saturday's reading features San Francisco poets, poet Lauret's past and present, including Tongo Eisen-Martin, Kim Shuck, Alejandro Mordilla, Jack Kershman and DeVore Major. The next day on Sunday, August 15th, poet and publisher Bill Vartner, are hosts a reading by towering horn press poets, including Avacha, Gail Mitchell, Gene Powell, Tom Sharp and Kim Shuck. On Wednesday, August 18th, San Francisco Chronicle Film Critic, Mick LaSalle will discuss his new book, Dream State, California and the Movies. Referencing films such as The Wizard of Oz and La La Land, LaSalle will take us on a free-willing humorous journey through big screen versions of The Golden State. And on August 23rd, NPR editor Malika Garib leads a workshop on the ins and outs of creating your own zine. On August 24th, please come to the Total Asset Book Club program when authors Daniel Handler and Gary Camilla discuss their new anthology, The End of the Golden Gate. On August 25th, Jim Van Busker and co-hosts present an illustrated talk on neon's luminous presence in cinematic representations of San Francisco. On August 30th, the On the Same Page Book Club meets to discuss award-winning author Jacqueline Whitson's new novel, Red at the Bone. Finally, on August 31st, author and photographer John Lander shares his positive images of temples from Japan's Shikoku pilgrimage trail. He will discuss the origins of the trail and the trail's significance for its thousands of annual pilgrims. So this ends my announcements. I'd now like to turn the microphone over to our beloved poet and poem jam series organizer, Kim Shuck, take it away Kim. So I'm being accused of organizing, am I? I'm not sure I really organized anything at all. It sort of comes together. To which end, I have to say I'm really glad I'm here to my own understood that I was reading on Sunday. I really need to get that under control. We're here today to celebrate for a second time an anthology that I've really been enjoying and not only because I'm in it, because that's always a bit fun, but because it's just a really great collection. The revolutionary poet's brigade building socialism to fighting fascism. It's a really great anthology for those who haven't looked into it yet, just an incredible piece. And I've invited some people here and we're gonna hear some of the work trying to find the person I wanted to have started. So I'd love to start us off with Christina Brown if she's content with being first reader, that can often be a little fraught, but it's a great room and there's some great people and I'm really looking forward to it. Christina, I think I met Christina after I became the poet laureate, but had been hearing her read at events and previous to that is a really, has a very strong personal voice and I really enjoy her writing. So please welcome Christina. You need to unmute darling, there you go. Hi, I wanna begin by thanking Kim for making this possible and thanking you all for being here. I'm going to read two pieces this evening. The first piece, also my piece for the anthology was written for the celebration of the life of QR hand. QR, celebration allergy, QR, QR hand. He's gone now, wild and dignified. He was so great, so strong, so deeply sweet. Always unrolling new rhythms, making the sun shine brighter, the sky look bluer. Oh, how I adored him. Everyone did, he made it easy, always ready with a kind word or the right word, whatever your piece or your song, whatever you needed, always generous, always kind, always full of empathy and sympathy, charity and clarity. So big hearted, filled with love and joy, pouring out the words, laying the mom, lifting us up. He was free jazz. He was unexpected, sizzling psychedelia. Most of you probably knew him too, even if he wasn't as famous as he deserved to be, confident, but easy, loving and kind. Have I said that before? Not nearly superficially nice, but deeply humane, forgiving the bad, celebrating the good. He was a mighty soul, not crushed by cruelty, injustice and prejudice, working to make life better for everyone. He gave the gifts of respect and love. I wasn't alone in my admiration. Almost everyone who knew him loved him. When I wrote this, I thought, if he ever did anything wrong, I'll hear about it now. But I haven't, no one said a bad word about him. He was the sun rising, the espresso steaming, the tree blossoming, taken away by capitalism to Vallejo, then taken away altogether. He was joyful, free, always in the rhythm, honor off the beat, refusing to be circumscribed, to be less than amazing. Always so far out there, always so close to the heart, to the bone. QR bubbling, riffing, yelping with joy, leaping to another plane of existence, carrying us within. QR so wise and generous and ecstatic, but sad sometimes too. Missing old friends who had gone before. Now QR has gone too. Oh, how we loved you, how you loved us. And second flower in the dim twilight, the scent of the lilies calls us. The flyers and the levitators, the slim ones, life with flex, and our liminal breath ring, the floaters on the breeze in iridescent bubbles. Vistar lilies say, come, make love with us, with us, be deep in ecstasy, intoxicated by our sweetness. The wind in the leaves whispers secrets, mysteries, sings to us, weaves an arabesque among the boulders of the murmuring stream. Leads us onward, higher. The rising moon is bright, dabbles the forest floor with silver, lights up tonight for our big arms. In the grove, when I arrive surrounded by perfume, the first of us are here before me, lounge on huge, creckled white petals and dark green leaves. Lean against giant fluorescent green pistols, stroke the orange-yellow heads of stamens, smear golden shining powder on the centers of lilies, on themselves, on each other, on me. Our skin is soft, electric. I, we breathe deeply, swim with delight, feel the simultaneous heat of all our hearts, rising, flowing through the lilies, through us all. We all glow, move, twist, leap, sway, dance together, make complex patterns of embrace and release. Thank you, Christina, for being here and for sharing your words. I think I've decided I'm doing a semi-alphabetical thing, so if that helps people, prep. And that helps people, prep. So I'm thinking I'm going next to Judy Bernard, who I get into some great trouble with, good trouble. And who has a new book out, which she may hold up if she has it nearby. But I can't wait to hear her. Oh, no. I think my coffee's downstairs, or I'd hold it up. Anyway, you can say a short thing about your book, and then please share your poems with us. Oh, there it is. No, that's not it. I hope so. Okay. I hope so. I hope so. I hope so. I hope so. I hope so. I hope so. I hope so. I hope so. I hope so. He's got the book. He's coming this way. Yay, Byron! I should really warn people. Anyway, Judy Bernard. This is my new book, Marriages. It's flash fiction. It's a very good book. You'll love it. I read my piece from the Revolutionary Poets Brigade, fighting fascism, anthology, in another event. Two of them, in fact. So I'm gonna give you an old poem, which is also an anti-fascist poem. Will the poets keep quiet? No, they will not. They will not linger in the gloaming. They will not idle in the daybreak. They will not drowse at noon. The poets will speak. They will whisper to their lovers. They will talk among themselves. They will relate and orate and berate. They will traverse to converse and scramble to gamble. They will stop and chat about this and that. They will discuss what is old hat. They will rhyme and keep time. The poets will speak. They will scurry to the dais. They will lean upon the lecturing. They will hold forth in the hall. They will hitch and miss and flail and fail. They will proclaim and declaim and defame and inflame. The poets will pounce to pronounce. They will praise and amaze. They will search their souls for days. The poets will not keep quiet. The poets will speak. Thank you, Judy. Virginia Barrett. Do you like to go next, please? Yes. Of the people here, I probably know you the least, but I have read you a lot. So, prepare to be dazzled people. Thank you, Kim. Thank you for having me. I apologize for the low light. I'm on the east coast, so it's dark here now, and I'm not in my own space, so I can't control the light. Let there be more light. So, I'll read the poem that was in the anthology. Just a little bit about it before I start. It was written on New Year's Eve Day, 2019, and I was having a very introspective day in the city and sitting quietly, but there was so much noise outside. So, you'll hear some words from someone I heard outside that aren't the usual language that I use, but I feel that poets often need to be the archivist of what we hear and speak it out. And also, this poem has a line from the poet Robert Bly. It also starts with an epigraph by Bly. What I value in poetry are the mysterious lines the cross, roads that start out in political energy and end in spiritual energy. It was Robert Bly. What is needed? They are raising the old hospital. What a racket. A woman outside keeps screaming, shut the fuck up. But not at jackhammers. Those indomitable drills, drilling. Just crazy, we'd say. The old poinsettia is starting to sprout red leaves. Ancient Aztec medicine. Here, a holiday display. Wild varieties disappear to deforestation. Beside me, Carlos stares full blown from the cover of fine arts. Her scarlet lips dying to swear. She demands to know who stuck her there. A communist turned into a commodity, cabrona. And the museum shop features a fair trade Frida doll like a small effigy to burn. The new stutter health releases homeless addicts from emergency after minimal care. Shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up. Toward the graffiti park. What is needed to write good poems about the outward world, the poet said, is inwardness. Sometimes our introspection turns to obscure. Maybe just sit and listen. Quiet now. How loud this peace we need. Thank you. I can do another one, Kim, if we, if we, yeah. So this one actually appeared on Kim's poem a day in the library. I think it was late December last year. It's a pandemic poem. Collection day. Pandemic to we are feeling the universe with giant gloves, which grow each night covering the cosmos. As one covers their face when caught by surprise, or an overwhelming grief, cloud shadows move and don't move. Walking trees make their way closer to stars while we sleep, draped on limbs. From the window, I watch a woman wheel a dog in a carriage on the sidewalk. As a man pushes a shopping cart down the middle of the dead end street. She's shouting at him across the space between them. Over the rattle of the metal cart piled with plastic garbage bags full of empties. They vanish from view, become barely audible. Gone. I put my mask on and go outside. After collection, blue recycling bins stand like bodies gathered for an action yet to begin. I breathe through the tight weave. Watch light salvage wreckage from the sun. I am to seldom at the ocean to hear the murmuring of shells. Thank you. Thank you so much, Virginia. Thank you for being here from the East Coast. You're not the only one I think, but I appreciate that very much. As here we are in Zoom world. John Curle. John Curle was in the first anthology I ever helped to edit. Yes, Coleman is next. John Curle is next because as I said, I'm doing this in a modified alphabetical way. I see. But thank you. Jack, I'm not on the schedule today, but thanks for the name check. Thanks. All right. I appreciate it. John Curle was in the first anthology I ever helped edit, which is, you know, no pressure for somebody nobody had heard of at that point at all. And I had been teaching some of his stuff and I knew who he was. And it was really exciting to work on a project where like three, three of the really big names who were in that book were just delightful to work with because you get to hear about everybody's ego problems and everything else in the poetry world. Not at all. And I just really appreciated his attitude then and nothing has changed my mind. And it goes without saying he's also a spectacular poet. So please everybody welcome John Curle. Oh, thank you so much, Kim. That's a incredible introduction. I have in the, in the anthology, I have a translation and a poem of my own. So I'm going to read the translation first. And if I have time, I'll do the my own poem also. This is called a Mazawal. So much tea kettle indigenous teacher. This is a poem by Juan Hernandez Ramirez, one of the most renowned living poets of the Nawat language. He grew up in a Nawat community in the Huasteca region of Veracruz and currently resides in Shalapa Veracruz today. He's published three volumes of poetry in bilingual Nawat Spanish into editions. And as you probably know, Nawat was the common language, the lingua franca of all Mexico during Aztec times and is still spoken by one point seven million people today. And of course, now what has changed over the last 500 years, Juan Hernandez Ramirez writes in the Huasteca dialect, which has the largest number of Nawat speakers today. And by the way, I studied Nawat in Chicontepe, Veracruz. And this is my translation. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. And in English, it's indigenous teacher from the four pitchforks of the old house and with flower music, I bring the wind of greeting. We still have the yellow corn, which has painted brown moons on the children's faces that you carry through the tree of letters. Your hands are from the primal mud that splintered into sparks to illuminate the dark furrow that fireflies do not light up. Indigenous teacher, you know who we are. You know about the sacred coyote palm and about good and toxic winds. Tell me if your word is true and if you have roots of oak and stones so that together in the boat of thought, you and me, we can navigate in otherness. My song is a tree of ancestral dances that carry a rhythm oblivious to others, but we can shake hands. Indigenous teacher, there are songs of birds and stars that only ignite with our light. The word of the ancestors, the music, the dance of the rain, the little flower dance, the harvest ritual with the scent of copal and the taste of tortilla that can only be written with our poems. It is you, Indigenous teacher, who can rebuild the pyramid of the sacred serpent that has given us the face of corn. Where are we? Who are we? Where are we going? What will become of our children? Have we given value to the word of our grandparents? Do we know who we are in order to know where we are going? I salute you, teacher, from the four cardinal points. I leave you with the smell of wet earth and the taste of the ear of corn. That was Juan Hernandez Ramirez. Thank you so much for that. Do I have time for my own poem? Yes, go ahead. This is called They Shall Not Pay Us. Wait a second. It starts with a quote from Martin Luther King. Be loving enough to absorb evil and understanding enough to turn an enemy into a friend. Downtown I walked along the warm night, everyone out. It was bustling. Women in colorful dresses, dogs sniffing each other, children hopping over cracks in the sidewalk. Then the street clapped at my feet. I staggered back. I saw vehicles, people cascading down into a vast pit, falling. They were all disappearing into darkness. I couldn't see bottom from the shadows, belched fumes and smoke. I was choking. I knew that to breathe those toxic fumes meant death. Then I awoke, shaken. They say that the thoughts you have right after a dream are the thought of the dream itself. I thought about my grandfather, an immigrant to America, of how his dreams collapsed into the Great Depression, fascism, World War II. Then suddenly I was downtown again, down from down the block in the middle of the street, women, children, men, a long procession, all ages and descriptions, colorfully dressed, with ganners and signs chanting as they prayed toward me. There were so many of them, they kept coming and coming. As they approached, I realized the signs and chant weren't in English, but sounded familiar. I'd heard that chant before, though I didn't recall from where. Then suddenly I understood the words. No pasaran, they shall not pass. It was from the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, before World War II. It had been a rallying cry of the populace defending Madrid against Franco's fascists. Brought back to America by the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and other international brigades of volunteers fighting in Spain to stop fascism before it engulfed all of Europe and the world. As the line of marchers arrived at where I stood on the edge of the sidewalk, a woman at the front handed me a sign and without another thought, I stepped off the curb and was swept into the march. I felt exhilarated, striding side by side with them chanting, no pasaran, they shall not pass. Then we stopped short. The intersection was blocked by men in black military gear with helmets, shields, guns, truncheons and behind them a group in white robes holding banners painted with ruin-like symbols and behind those were armored vehicles and uniforms as far as I could see. I wanted to get out of there fast, but I was fixated. I couldn't move. They started towards us. Then I awoke again. I lay there a few minutes thinking about my dream. I wondered what my grandpa would think of the world now. Thank you. Thank you so much, Don. You know this last month, this, I don't know, the last couple of years, but the last month in particular it's been a little hard in terms of people we've lost. And you know, who's on the bill and who's not on the bill. So Bob, if you have a poem you want to share, I'm happy to hear it, but otherwise I'll move on. Were you referring to me? Yeah. Sorry, Bobby. Yeah. Let's move on. Yeah. I'm very eager to hear from the, I appreciate what you said, and I'm very eager to hear from the others who haven't always had a chance to participate in the previous editions. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Jack, did you want to read? You are muted. Let me find you. I'm going to read the anthology that I left. If anyone wants them, please write to me. I'm at, my email address is A G G I E F A L K. And then we can arrange how you get the book. Okay. All right. I'm going to read the, the, the, the form I wrote in the anthology. Yeah. There's an article in the book. It's a story about the Spanish Joaquin. If it could be done in Portugal almost 50 years ago, the red carnation can stop the spread of fascism everywhere today tomorrow. So let's get that huge jail built for the 838 hate groups, spend time away from the innocence of children they despise, the blacks who they've always terrorized, the Jews they've always lied about, the gays they've mocked and now the red carnations have exposed the traitors of the working class, the police, whose betrayal is rooted and resonating to those very clansmen and Nazis. But now an enlightened understanding has the cops jailing clansmen and Nazis and beginning to deal with neighborhoods as if they were neighbors and didn't wear hoods. And hopefully they begin to think that perhaps they'd had it all wrong defending capitalists and begin seeing blacks as their working class brothers and sisters and children in a vivid family, look at that with all the mongers of fascist hate in the jail where they belong, just look at that beat cop who's admiring Bula May Dandridge's garden of red carnations in the outer mission. Why she's even given him her watering can and he's sprinkling the carnation with water from that sprinkler on the side of which is written American Ku Klux Klan, American Nazis, you have finished with murdering democracy at last. Thank you, Jack. Thank you for being here and thank you for that poem. Ken, can I jump in and say, you know, Jack and I come from communities back in New York where speaking out against these abuses of power were very natural. And I just lost my uncle who was a member of that community. And so what we do here in this modern context may strike people as combative and oppositional and yet it's mother's milk to us who grew up with it and many others here. So I just wanted to say, bravo Jack and thank you all. Thank you for that explanation, Bobby. I really appreciate it and I'm really glad you're here as well. And people need to continue to keep speaking out because silence has done my community very little good just as an aside. Karen, Melinda Magoon, can we hear your piece, please? Pieces, pieces, pieces. Oh, I was going to introduce you. Karen and I, I see Karen a lot these days because we read on another Zoom together pretty much weekly although I've missed a couple of them. And so it felt kind of natural just to say her name, but she's been part of the editing process of these books. And people probably know that other people who've already read also part of that process but might not know that you are and has been really delightful to work with and it's been great getting to hear more of her work and I know you're going to be delighted. Karen, Melinda Magoon. Thank you so much, Kim and thank you all of you for being here for this amazing collection on Zoom. We are getting so much into Zoom. It will be interesting when we become live again. I'm going to read, I'm going to start with Dark Matter from a book that I actually put out in 2020. I've put out a whole bunch since then but the book, the poem in the anthology is also in my book called A Year of Anguish, Time for Miracles. Dark Matter, Ghosts of the Universe. Dark Matter, Unseen, Yet Present. Essential energy, unobserved gravity pulling like invisible taffy on all corners of space. Ancient pre-creation, primordial. Black holes without limits like the Sargasso Sea written in chalk. Edges ever smudged, blending into the universe, dented with planets or meteors, even with stars born or dying, lying upon dark essence, denting it as on a hammock, a blanket ready to slide like fog into unknown spaces. Silly putty claiming all timelessness, all energy beyond light. Invisible yet essential, pushing against gravity, forcing life to evolve in unfathomable waves, dark oceans of the universe, enormous ghosts like hands of God, holding us in space, needing energy, pushing against time to create thought, pods and antipods, molecules for giant children, cosmic ghosts playing with their blocks, refashioning clay forms into breathing life. And here's the poem in the anthology called Refashion the World. We protest in the streets, black lives matter, immigrants matter, homeless matter. In the prisons, brown and black and white do battle, who shall matter? Who shall shatter histories of misplaced hope? Scattered dreams to piece together dream by dream, all colors of the rainbow, all life nourished on earth, but all may thrive. We protest violated lives, unredressed grievances, unmitigated loss, unanswered sorrows. We pound the earth with anger yet she cannot help. The dreams we must refashion, thread by thread, rag by rag, until we all together fashion a new world. Thank you, Karen, the new world. Thank you. I know that technically this is out of order, so I'm aware of that. But I'm gonna go with Raymond Natt Turner next because I think it'll be a good contrast. So I'm really excited. Here's my introduction for Raymond Natt Turner. I did a lot of my early poetry in a scene that he was in. We used to frequently get put on similar bills by Kim McMillan would book us both for the same thing. And we read it a lot of things together. And I have been in awe of his voice and his truth for quite some time. And I had forgotten how much I missed it. And then I heard you read Natt that long ago and just had a pang of longing to hear you more. I was delighted that you could be here for this. So welcome and thank you. Thank you. Wow. Who is that person? What an incredible intro. Where's the person? Oh my God. Oh my God. Anyhow, one thing I'm gonna try and angle to possibly do a second piece if I can. This is called Black Lives Matter. And so it kind of fits. It kind of is segues nicely with it. Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter unless you listen to loud music, shoveling snow, or own a phone or car. Black Lives Matter unless you're breaking up a fight or your brake lights broken. Black Lives Matter unless you're a Chicago child unschooled in Mississippi apartheid. Unless you a man not laughing at unfunny jokes and looking up from red mud into steely blue eyes. Or resisting rapists coming after your mama, sister, daughter, wife. Black Lives Matter unless you smoking a cigarette or making a turn. Unless you a child scoring sugary snacks in the sunshine state. Unless you unhouse and have healthy reactions to homelessness and its insanity in each city. Black Lives Matter unless you a doctor describing decent care to Mengele medicine men from your ICU bed. Black Lives Matter unless you caught trying to breathe between swastika of neo team and long white arm of the law. And if I have a moment, I have another piece if I could. It's called, you'll know who it's about. It's called a known known. And Epigram is quote, there are knowns. There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns things we do not know. We know unquote an infamous work room. We know extraordinary rendition wasn't glad as in Marvin dropping smash hit versions of grapevine the same year. We know enhanced interrogation wasn't probing philosophical conversations regarding grand mysteries of life. In a dark damp dank demonic den of depleted uranium shrouded in white phosphorus clouds belching fracking fluid. A devilish war criminal. WMD dances around gas lighting Dr. Goebbels and empires death rattle the stench of sulfur swirls up in his flared nostrils. Alas, he's home. Look, there's the thug and Brooks Brothers suit architect of terror on war. Walking war cry. He's on a hellfire missile. Fallujah background. Abu grave tags on his baggage. Unapologetic for the head leg of his journey. He's the latest ghost detainee house in the Hitler Hoover wing of the for the worst of the worst. War criminal. He's a criminal. His place is cemented in the pantheon of war criminals for continuity. He leaves behind warlocks like old Schmoe, Raytheon's Craven Raven, the drone ranger and war like rice women. Lady blue at Alia. Now he can devote himself full time to stress positions, to interrogation, weaponizing phobias. After the war criminals laid to rest and off the new cycle, after boots are gone from the ground, old Schmoe will keep on sending and sending and sending shareholders, drones over the rainbow to Afghanistan, Pakistan and congress members sporting red, blue, their moth jackets will keep huffing and puffing hot air, floating war profiteer balloons. And now a moment of silence, wet cold wiki leap, fall corn loud for Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, Pakistan, millions slaughter on the watt of a cunning, sadist, torturer, mass murderer, devil of death. Certainly on topic. Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it. Nobody else is wondering who I was talking about now. Just you. Okay. Nellie Wong is a neighbor. One of my early poetic inspirations in that when I decided that when I took this step from writing the kind of things you write in high school, into writing the kind of things that I thought might be more broadly accepted. Carolee Sanchez took me to see Unbound Feet 3. And I see one person applauding. This is part of the poetic history of San Francisco that really, really needs to be honored and recognized slightly more broadly because something clicked in my head. And I think that was a great role model. And I think that really wasn't a great role model, not that Mary tall mountain wasn't a great role model, but just that particular reading sticks in my heart. And I ended up studying with Merle Wu at San Francisco State and, you know, encountering others of that group of folk and just really getting to know each other. And with Nellie or heard Nellie, it floors me. And with that kind of really impossible to live up to introduction. Thank you for being here. You are muted, darlin. Thank you, Kim. That was great. And it's great to see Raymond, everyone else and so many and John Curl and everyone else who's here. And I know I haven't met a lot of you, but I've known about you, read your works. And it's great to be in your company. I'll read first the poem from the anthology building socialism fighting fascism. And thanks to Jack and Aggie and others of the revolutionary opposed brigade for including this piece. That was, you know, it just got out there. And this is what I call interiority. Hey, interiority, pungent and prickly. Wefts from the pot, stainless and gleaming. Brown rice kernels, toasts, relapse in mellifluous heat. My legs entwined the kitchen barstool, wrapping me in a haze of aluminum foil. While sunlight pours through specks splashed window. Soon to do GJ bubbles and go to John. Red fiery. I feel audacious adding meatless sausage balls, putting aside scallions, reserving spring for evenings rep us. COVID-19 crisis inserts itself irresistible. Non-discriminating and worldly when, when the Chinese woman on a train coughs and a white woman chow. Oh my God. Shooting herself with her trench coat, sinking further into the plastic coat of sea on the train, while other pairs of eyes shoot arrows of fear and panic. Whole bodies move shrink on mass. Yellow woman pariah again and again, the exteriority of suspicion. Yellow alert splashes across headlines. Modern day yellow pierol springs into consciousness. The president tweeting a foreign virus. What model minority? What passivity? What dragon lady? The blah of stereotypes. Ah, the orient. Ah, the accident. Steal their labor and run. What invisibility? What lies? Yellow women excluded before onslaught of Chinese exclusion out yellow men killed at rock springs, murdered in Hawaii, not real and buff and masculine enough to grace the silver screen. Just real enough to mine for gold. Build railroads, grow wine grapes, live in cramped quarters, fight the QB air law, the right to attend public schools. Talk it up to ignorance. Wholesale? No, no, why? COVID-19 is named referring to as eruption in Wuhan, China. There they go, giving identity, racial and ethnic to a virus, stressing it with epicanthic foals, dividing us, shelling us, tucking us into drawers, locking us in prisons with psychological bars. Oh, we work hard, we do. Bodies and minds in deliverance of materiality, of mass, they're hundreds of thousands worth of Terrorism bills for their madys donations, for their menus, Drawn souls, and shouts of men, colored uniforms they have until now bringing them together. but the typewriter and I have been comrades for ever since I was a teen and this is called oh to typewriter with your 42 keys your steel co-heart you dare me to pound on you a dancer unsure of her steps gravitating toward the forests of orangutans monkeys and toucans calling calling out the first time I touched your body my fingers tiptoeing into fever my eyes following an exercise in print uncomprehending sentences structure and strength emotion my fingers raining insects onto a ghost white page legs and wings of the alphabet fleeing prison of your some nambulant keys oh beautiful machine oh utilitarian office workers tool you launch across open airfields typas transcribing shorthand from dictation abandoning longhand in favor of speed human labor still for food and rent and electricity for film noir of moonlit rainbow streets and prison breakouts at first manacle to impossible dreams at first the muscles of the brain content to lie anchor to sleep your keys punctuate my ears your noises saturate my sanctuary stillness in motion stillness exploring a woman's land of lock backspaces and shifts your force spills floods and puddles cavernous and hollow climbing the precipice of granite the sea itself your purpose undefined you lead you lead with paper in your platen going round and round up and out conversion with the ringing of the carriage's bell with the material of transcripts business letters and job evaluations the swing and little of a stenographer's hands you carry my caution and dream of security through winds of inertia through fangs of fantasy of wild desire you confront you rescue your grunt throwing me across the ropes and I bounce combat combative with humor the liberation of ink the torch and the song the sweat the sweat of a secretary beyond duty and wage spreading her wings thank you so much for that typewriters I'm that early almost baby boom but just gen X group of women who were not made to cook in high school but were made to learn to type and it became and I actually went through my first degree in university still having to type on a typewriter I tell that to millennials and they they are aghast at the whole concept of it I really appreciate that but thank you so much writer that's a typewriter I have and still have a functional um uh royal portable royal typewriter although I think royal typewriters have the same definition of portable that the military does which is if you can put an eyehook in the top of it and pick it up with a troop transport helicopter it's portable um but I used to haul that thing around so we lost a lot of people I'm I'm reading tonight by the way so take a deep breath and relax um I got in trouble with kitty castello last time for not reading um because I am in the anthology as well but I wanted to show you a thing one of the people we lost just recently uh her name was Lorraine Drywater and she uh was an artisan in the of the Cherokee Nation she was a Cherokee national treasure and I don't expect everybody to know the list of Cherokee national treasures but Lorraine used to make these dolls and um somebody said to me I posted this as my Facebook picture for a couple of days in honor of her to let people know that we're thinking of her and then a bunch of other people did it too but the day I did it somebody asked me like how important is it this doll maker for the Cherokee Nation wall in a lot of cases it was the first doll that any of us had that was us you know and and that's really important and um and it made me think of a thing somebody sent me a message offline asking me why I didn't do a big floor in an introduction for Jack Hirschman and I've always sort of wanted to introduce Jack Hirschman as he's about to say something don't bother I'm going to do it anyway so you might as well not fight me over it um don't fight me over it um that uh I've always wanted to introduce Jack as what did I stutter Jack Hirschman if you don't know look him up but um because the legend is there right but there are people that we know in the poetry scene in San Francisco that um have made so many things happen that it's really difficult to to do anything like a real introduction and that's really why I have I always have a hard time introducing Jack uh apart from the fact that he's poet laureate emeritus but um if I may yeah because just a couple of things if you don't mind go ahead I don't need the introduction just would like to say this one of the three editors John Curle myself and Elizabeth Bailey Elizabeth Bailey was retired from the maritime service and she had an event on July 30th but it was canceled because of something COVID and it was settled tonight so that's why she's not here reading and nor are some of the other members of the revolutionary poets brigade who are with her now at the maritime office they're having their final a final going away party as it were she did read last month at the other event for this she did yes yeah and and there were a couple of people who are with her now who were scheduled to read at this I'll get them in on another reading but I hope you don't forget uh Bill Hatch and Kitty got still out tonight because they're both in the anthology Kitty read last time too and I don't know Bill so I'm glad you mentioned that but he's here which is excellent thank you Jack okay Bill will you read your poem please Bill as I unmute yeah can you hear me yeah you are audible more audible where's how do I raise that no no you are audible you can't hear I can't hear you I wanted to say regarding typewriters and the the governor of New York and all that's happening there it reminded me when I worked in the state capital in the 60s about how people used to refer to the women in the typing pool and that whole ah you see you know this is long you know okay uh okay this is this is a poem you imagine that there's a an art exhibit going on in the washington square and on the on the sidewalks there's usually guys doing caricatures um short uh quick sketches of people penny street sketch of the skipper for Lawrence Firlingeddy 1919 to night to 2021 from nothing to nothing and beyond to our memories wearing an ironic grin and a fine hat back straight naval officer the wheel at hand the compass within forever approaching that beach june 6th 1944 a break in bad weather but not in artillery back straight at the wheel into battle there went a gent always among us but never quite of us size drew him above us a floating fedora or fisherman's hat and an ironic grin steering to battle against the same old same old nazis thank you thank you so much and thank you for being here um thank you there've been some wonderful pleasure being here i'm wearing the san francisco seals baseball cat by the way i do see that i don't think there's anybody in this audience who remembers the san francisco seals but i grew i was my first team so i remember about them i remember about seal stadium as well oh there you go anyway we will have that conversation sometime so i'm going to read uh one piece um i i it's funny the way that i the way that i run these things for those who haven't been here before i i'm frequently heard and i think john um smally will reassure you that this is true i'm frequently heard saying the people who need to be at a reading will show up at the reading so you book who you book and then if you see somebody in the audience you pull them out so i'm really glad that jack pointed out that bill was here this is my piece from the anthology it's called song of extreme winter and minimum wage and it has two upper grounds um the first no one who works a 40 hour week should live in poverty by various and the second only the strong will survive and the week will perish tim boyd former mayor of colorado city texas as his town went into another day in blackout during freezing weather the relic suspencer and mouth is rattle and echo music of disaster in a cold february and in dc they measure the value of lives by the wealth that they can bring to someone else establish an acceptable rubric of suffering a strategy to measure worthiness in plain language we are each of mine the mineral rights belong to someone else dry bones rattling as a poet and her brother do without food without heat without water in an apartment in texas while in dc they argue acceptable deprivation in dalas they argue degrees of cold on the news they argue about blame the companies we pay for electricity owe us nothing the elected officials owe us nothing our value is measured by what can still be taken the value of a poet debated to the rhythm of victorian bones rattling in a shell of community a curio in the home of one of the super rich empathy is another resource that has run out i am extremely grateful for all of you coming i'm extremely grateful for everyone who is who is here last time i'm um i'm floored by this book i think you know jack says there are a couple left we put the the email address in in the chat and you should really get it because it's an incredible group of poems thank you john and anissa and the library and everybody else and the people who came just to listen thank you to those people as well because without an audience we are yelling at a wall so uh i really appreciate it and jack's about to say something else because he's unmuted himself yes jack oh no just to thank you thank you dear oh thank you um i'm going to remind people that we're having the event for uh janice on saturday at two o'clock and you sign up basically by going to the public library page look at events two o'clock saturday and you can uh you can register the first time i went to the registration page i couldn't figure out how to register because apparently the enormous blue button that says register wasn't big enough for me uh i think i'm still a typewriter person rather than a computer person but i really appreciate all of the work that john and anissa put into this monthly so that i look at least a little bit confident in zoom world and i'm really seriously waiting for it to be possible to gather again in larger groups uh i really appreciate all of you thank you so much for being here thank you okay be well oh well best care thank you everyone come back again on october 14th thanks john yes right we are missing uh we're missing out september taking a month off from september yeah well towering horn how it's sunday everyone