 good evening everyone hello it's so good to see everybody here thank you for making it out on this rainy evening for our poetry reading today it takes a village to raise a black poet with the author featuring the author Yeva Johnson yeah so I'm Shauna Sherman I'm the manager of the the space we're in today we're in the African-American Center and just a few housekeeping items if you the restroom is on the first floor of this building near the elevators so you need to you can leave it anytime but make sure try not to block our camera here also I want to thank all the staff that helped make these programs happen that includes our facilities department or custodial who sets up all the chairs of course our media services department and our team on the third floor who's always very generous in their help for these programs before we could start it I'm going to read a land acknowledgement so I want to acknowledge that the library is located on the area now known as the San Francisco which is on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Sholoni peoples of the San Francisco Peninsula as the original peoples of this land the Ramaytush Sholoni have never ceded lost nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place we recognize that we benefit from living working and learning on their traditional homeland as uninvited guests we affirm their sovereign rights as first peoples and wish to pay our respects to the ancestors elders and relatives of the Ramaytush community in the African-American Center we also honor the gifts resilience and sacrifices of our black ancestors who toiled the land built the institutions that established the city's wealth and freedom and survived anti-black racism despite never being compensated nor fully realizing their own sovereignty we acknowledge this exploitation of not only labor but of our humanity and through this process we are working to repair some of the harms done by public and private actors because of their work we are here and will invest in the descendants of their legacy so once again we are here to celebrate and be a village for poet Yava Johnson who is friends of the San Francisco Public Library Brown Handler resident maybe she'll talk to us a little bit about that I'm going to introduce Yava Johnson before we bring her up here so Yava Johnson a Pushkart Prize nominated poet and musician poet and musician whose work appears in the Bellyham Review obsidian sin Caesar sinister wisdom and elsewhere explores interlocking caste systems and possibilities for human coexistence in our biosphere Yava is a current Brown Handler's writers resident her debut chapbook analog poet blues is available at Black Lawrence Press Green Apple bookstore and at Medicine for Nightmares bookstore as well as the library right over there you can check it out from the African-American Center so without further ado I'd like to welcome Yava Johnson to the poem Shawna thank you so much I am I am thrilled to be here this evening and I'm not gonna say too much about the Brown Handler except if you are a writer or poet based in San Francisco it the applications are open and it's a fantastic opportunity because you get to do a library work with the library you get to read a lit crawl you get to have studio space in the friends of the public library offices and you get to meet other really awesome writers so if you're thinking about it now is the time to go to the website and and check it out there yeah there are some refreshments feel free to get up and get refreshments at any time we are not gonna have an intermission so go ahead if you have to go to the bathroom go downstairs again come on back so I will say I really want to say thank you to Shawna for working with me we've been able to do a couple projects this year it's really fun I thank you to Brown Handler for this wonderful opportunity to the friends of the public library to the San Francisco public library and this is this is my home branch so I'm just really delighted to be here I want to thank all the communities who helped me with poetry and thank you so much to this village nurturing this African-American poet and the readers who've come tonight are people I know very well and I realize I'm in these different groups but they haven't had a chance to meet each other all yet or to hear each other's work so it's gonna be really exciting and fun for all of us so you are all in for a very big treat and thank thank you to everyone who's here for coming and for supporting writers and poets and some people we'll be watching later online I'll be getting text messages all day with this rainstorm people are gonna watch it will be some parts of the program will be filmed and you can watch it online okay we are going to finish by 7 30 this is this is just for everyone who's here we will be done most likely at 7 29 and 30 seconds but we don't so what I would like to do I'm going to start off this program with one poem some poets some poets here have heard versions of this poem but it's just gotten updated so it's a poem that I was thinking about reading here and then I will I often do a little bit of music so I'll start with some music read the poem and then I'll give you your first person this poem very upper-poise calm it takes a village to support an emerging black poet with modified gratitude centers when asked to pick a favorite black poet I chose to Audrey Lord and Pat Parker then I thought what about Lucille Clifton Gwendolyn Brooks James Baldwin or June Jordan or so many more before and since these greats had passed on but so many still live today illuminating a black poet's path picture the village I see filled with black poets women poets Asian poets older poets queer poets disabled poets youth poets lesbian poets Jewish poets brown poets Muslim poets eco poets Latin a poets indigenous poets transgender poets musician poets non-binary poets Buddhist poets artists poets feminist poets and even more poets an infinite village come meet some poets of African descent who reside in my poetry library Alan Pilias Lopez Amanda Gorman Amanda Gunn Amber Flora Thomas Arissa White Artress Bethany White Avacha Ayedelian Zingha Brittany Black Rose Capri Camille T. Dungey Carl Phillips Cheryl Boyce Taylor Claudia Rankin Dana Smith Daniel B. Summerhill Dossier Grego Sykes Denise R. Irvin Douglas Kearney Eve L. Ewing Evie Shockley to love and mourn in the age of displacement means this black queer hoe and a contingent of black faggotry yes each a citizen look it up in the book of Buck studies and remember I never told you about things I didn't do with this body all I could do was give you a glimpse of my soul so don't call us dead because even without a knife or a semi-automatic we fierce poets use our tongues to navigate the red channel in the rupture then the war makes us realize with every step I take towards peace we'll all have a chance to get free Mama Fife represents recounts our stories in verse as we ignite this trophic cascade so at last when we arrive at the hill we climb beyond electric arches we find the sorrow land oracle divine divine divine who grasps the black pearl of my af America Grisel Yolanda Acosta James Cagney Jericho Brown Joel Gomez John Murillo Joyce E. Young Junius J. Ward Keith Donnell Jr. Laeni Mataka mahogany L. Brown Major Jackson Marilyn Nelson Dr. Martina McGowan Mason J. Michael war Mimi Tempest MK Chavez Morgan Parker we made the move to discover poetry contemporary American poetry and you know we had to roll deep in still water we may never be able to explain the tradition or how it happens but we will always honor the delicacy of embracing spirals it's not just the crossbones on my life over a chlorine sky that become necessary things to pack on the way to everywhere so sing me a lesser wound sing a sweeter song called the Armageddon of Funk watch our mother morphosis watch this magical negro dance like black steel magnolias in the hour of chaos theory because we know that being a strong black woman can get you killed Nizela Jameson Norm Maddox Pamela Sneed Patricia Smith Kareish Ali Lansana Reina J. Leon Rita Dove Robin cost Lewis Sonya Sanchez Terrence Hayes Fia Matthews Tongo Eisen Martin to Rita Miquel Tayem Bajas Vernon Keev the third Vyvie Francis Willie L. Canard the third a profeta without refuge gathers American sonnets for my past and future assassin to unearth the flowers on the voyage of the sable Venus she sees blood on the fog while her prayers echo in the orders of service a fugue through which she shouts look here shake loose my skin the skin of dreams this funeral diva uses her evolutionary heart to transform collected poems using black calculus to create incendiary art for the shared world her southern migrant mixtape listen again and again to this olio she calls synchronicity the Oracle of Sun Medicine. Thank you. I think that one is a fun one, especially for people who read a lot of poetry, but it's fun. Okay, right now I'd like to tell you about. You need to know the name Nicola Andrews, but it's Nikki for me because Nicola Andrews has become an author and has a chapbook out and you should go get it. Okay, Nikki Andrews is a minority writer living in Rai Matush Ohlone Territory. Their writing has been supported by Vona Kearney Street Workshop, Kenyon Review, Rooted and Written and Tin House. Their debut chapbook, majority made difficult, is out now with Tram Editions. And I got this, you get an extra special bonus tonight. Nikki is also a librarian. So please give a hand for Nikki Andrews. Kia ora, thank you. Thank you, Eva, for this invitation. It really means a lot. And you can know that it means a lot to me because I left work at the library and then came to this library. So it's for real. I'm going to share two poems. The first one has a lot of Māori words in it. The second one doesn't, so bear with me. This first poem is called Fractions. It's in an anthology called Spoiled Fruit, Queer Poetry from Aotearoa, New Zealand. And I wanted to read it because when I was thinking about what it takes to nurture fellow poets, one of those things is self-acceptance. Fractions. You were born and quartered. One quarter Māori, quarter cast, cast away. Your father's broad nose, your mother's pinned straight hair, features that never quite settled like an etch a sketch portrait and trusted to shaking hands, a bit of a wallflower vining into sour shadows. Your cousin invites you to the art gallery. A piece of raranga weaving catches your eye. The broad, vibrant harakeke split open, shining threads of muka coursing through, like tributaries migrating home, a bloodline twined, a kākahu, a cloak gathered around you, a waka pulling closer to shore. Kaz mentions there's a meeting happening next month. You should come. Your language is faltering. Every syllable stumbles in the right direction. Flipping through the dictionary, the page presents the kupu, the word for quarter, ho fa. Fa, for, obviously, but also fa, the harakeke leaf, fa to cause something to happen. And ho, ho, vitality, wind, prestige to exceed, a present in return for one received. Inside you, there are two tuner, one lunges onto the river blank, open-mouthed, thrashing. The other glides among swans, seeking out breadcrumbs, accepting end pieces. The tuner glisten like the hopeful growth of a new leaf. They contain cause and catalyst. They are all of your ancestors. You are breath and reputation, a reciprocal gift, a vital essence. You are both tuner. Kia ora, thank you. So this poem is new, and I wrote it for Javer. You don't have to like it. It's okay. So this is written after Javer's poem called Stranded After the Digital Ship Sailed. If you haven't read it, the book is right there. And so this is called Some Ships Are Meant to Depart. Some ships are meant to depart. Let the email be filtered out. If it's important, we will call you. The public library probably has a phone book that I can pour through like a detective in the 90s, before my smartphone crashes again under an Apple launch, while my touchscreen locks up despite my deliberate jabbing. I can barely figure out how to buy bloody concert tickets anymore. But I won't ask you to prove that you're not a robot before inviting you along. Learning how to live to thrive is damn hard enough without turning sweet contentment into sponsored content and rendering reality with augmentation and artifice in ways that will recall only when the algorithm prompts us. Javer, I wish you a domain of your own name and a life untracked, unfamiliar to key loggers, screen captures, and surveillance. May your mother's maiden name remain a happy secret, and all of your likenesses remain forever untagged. May you reside in an analogue cabin of your own choosing, where cookies remind you of ocean breezes and love. Let that Digital Ship be pulled under three dimensions of waves before we also come to technic and unblockable blue light. Kia ora. Thank you. Now I might be crying during this. Oh, that was so awesome. Please give another hand for Nikki. That was really cool. Oh, my goodness. But first, I want to say Tomica Wang was born and raised in San Francisco with roots in Japantown, Chinatown, and the Richmond District. Her work has been included in Standing Strong, Fillmore, and Japantown Lunchbox Moments. I am a warrior on Pacific Time and in Asian Week. She writes poetry, memoir, and song. Tomica has also produced podcasts and zines. And the other person who couldn't make it is Damani Thomas. Damani Hive as a writer, nerd and aspiring filmmaker from Oakland, California. He's interested in the tiny moments that capture attention spans. They have received fellowships from UC Berkeley's Art and Research Center, The Watering Hole, Foglifter, and others. Damani's debut chapbook, Grown Up Elementary, was published last year. Outside of poetry, catch them studying horror movies, dancing and eating too many fries. And I just wanted to bring them here. So we have a reading from Tomica. Oh, that's so cool. Thank you, Shauna. So welcome, Shauna, bringing Tomica to us right now. Tomica asked me to read this for Yeva. She wrote it, especially for this event. Dear Yeva, with your lilting words, your kind smile, your embracing spirit, your musical interludes, flute tones to make your words penetrate ever deeper. You listen deeply, exclaim over the little and the big things. You hear, you see, you do more than accept, you appreciate, you lift up. To be in community with you is a gift. You bring your whole self week after week, meeting after meeting, bringing your sparkle, your spirit, your experience, your excellence, your everything, your joy, your love. You say this is about how we nurture you, a black poet. Here in this beautiful city of ours, it is you to make this about what we bring, what we give, when you shine so brightly, you are the sun that many of us are pleased to orbit and bask in the light in. You were the one, you were the one, you were one of the most important lifelines for me during the pandemic. I could feel your warmth, your kindness, like an enveloping embrace, even with a digital age. It came through the screen, like virtual hugs and a dance party all at once. Through the chat, through my speakers, your energy touched my soul. Despite distance, despite barriers, despite being in a room full of Zoom strangers, who became friends, who became a community with you as they're like member number one, scaffolding and anger, your presence so integral, so needed, so relied upon. The BIPOC Writing Party was a special and unique gathering, a place to be inspired, held, honest, you brought it week after week, meeting after meeting in a sky full of stars, you were a bright light, one of the shining beacons of hope, of connection, of community. And then we were rooted and written together. We found another place to connect, to share, to create, to belong. Your accountability group still going strong these many years later, in no small part because of you being there, bringing your whole self, time after time, sharing straight from the heart, gushing with praise and support, kind words, love for all. You say you are an analog poet, yet you navigate email, Zoom, Google Meet, even challenging yourself to volunteer to also do tech for the BIPOC Party. I was so impressed and inspired. You find your way and we are all blessed and better for it. Thank you. Whatever life brings you, still you rise and you lift all of our boats. We cheer on your every success, every achievement, every mountain you climb, every residency you land, every fellowship like this one that you're honored with, every barrier you're pushed through, every publication you are in, every ceiling you break, every talk you give, every yes for you is a yes for us. Every time you share your work yourself, you are right there and here. We are right there and here beside you, cheering you on. Inspired and delighted every time in every way, unabashedly, unconditionally, conditionally, completely. I am proud to be part of your village, to show up, to sing your praises, to bask in your glow, to say here and now, you inspire me and you are an important part of my village too. Thank you. That was Tommy Cawong. That was a surprise. And it's wonderful that Shauna, Shauna is not just the librarian here, but is also in a village group with me too, so it's just so meaningful. So thank you, Tomaco, thank you so much because Tomaco will watch it later. And Damani, thank you so much. Damani's book also is available here at the San Francisco Public Library. So I am, yeah, okay, I won't go on because I want you to hear these awesome people and their work. Next up, we are going to have Lorraine and then followed by Zia. So I will read Lorraine's bio. Lorraine is a sculptor, poet and retired physician. When she is not in the studio, she spends time in her yard creating a garden that she hopes will keep her self-sufficient in vegetables and fruits year round. Her written and visual work bears witness to trauma, personal and political in the service of planetary liberation. Please welcome Lorraine. Well, thank you, everyone. And thank you, Eva. Oh my God. I mean, really, thank you so much. I so appreciate being invited. And I just appreciate you a lot. So thank you. Yes, some of this work is trauma informed. And some of it is about extinctions. So protect yourself as you need to. This is called Truth. Someone has poured lies into the watershed. It's hard to read with this thing on. Someone has poured lies into the watershed. The trees all shrivel and burn. The frogs die. Water comes out of your tap. You drink lies. They go into every cell, into the saliva filling your mouth, into the breath that forms your words. It is not your fault. There is no other water. You believe there is no other water. The liar tells you there is no other water. He has poisoned all the water. If truth came riding in on a horse, would you believe it? Do you believe that tall man in the white robe or the old black woman in rags, that fellow in green overalls, dirt crusted on his knees from the garden, or the woman with the baby at her breast? She says the breast filters out the poison. Shall we all go back to our mothers then, beg to be nursed? The mothers are dust now or ash, have died from the lies, have turned to a pillar of salt, like the mother who turned and looked back to see the billowing yellow flame of the great God engulf her home. Was it the great God who poisoned our water, killed our trees? Or was it one like us, a fragment of that God, but with sulfur on his breath? Still, you seek the mirror that reveals what smoke of the burning world obscures, and searching, you find my eyes. I'm so afraid, you say. I say me too. I am afraid of the size of my wanting. Have you ever felt like prey? Have you ever stared into the night trapped, wanting so hard to be free? I was just another rabbit in that trap, straining to move my leg shackled by pain. I wanted it not to be happening. I wanted so hard to be free. Now I walk with a cane, and I want to melt down the traps. I want to blow up the trap factories. I want to kill all the trap makers. I want that so much. Don't tell me to forgive. Don't tell me I matter. Don't ignore me because I limp. The trap makers are making bombs now, and you don't see. I am afraid of the size of my wanting. Though wanting is a slim blade of grass, it slides through a crack, slices like a knife through skin, nerves, the bloody bone. And wanting leaves my lucky foot behind that the trapper may feel my curse. This is called, I know that my redeemer liveth. When our great grandparents, our grandparents, our parents, and our children, our children's children, our brothers and sisters and cousins, aunties and uncles, our enemies and friends, the people who live on our block, and people who live in countries other than our own, all are gone. When the cattle and chickens, pigs and sheep, which we have enslaved, branded, castrated, tortured, crowded together in pens, standing in their own filth, are gone. And the billboards advertising their dead flesh gone too. When cages that hold birds and men and women, and dams that cage rivers are broken, and gaping mines and petroleum spilled like cum on the skin of the earth, are washed away, coastlines swallowed up as the sea enters and renames the continents. When mountains awaken as blankets of ice slip from their shoulders, and there will be no more ice for a million years, then there will be a time of great silence, of grief and relief at the bottom of the turning. Then there will be doulas ushering the dead into the soil, fungi and microbes turning us into food, a deep compost waiting for the return of flowers. Then will be a time of ancestors, of those who are to come, of the children of violently orange bacteria in the steaming springs of Yellowstone, the children of translucent crickets creaking in deep cool caves who know nothing of what has happened. White tube worms clinging to volcanic events erupting from the ocean floor will bear children whose forms we cannot imagine, and the children of mycelia and algae will form new lichens to prepare a cradle for new moss. Thank you. Thank you so much, Lorraine. Please give a quick another hand for Lorraine. I also want to mention if anyone's really hungry get the food now, because at seven twenty nine it will have to be taken away, so feel free if you need to go ahead. We are going to have Ziya Wang is going to come up and then Karen Yagas will come after. So I will read Ziya's bio. Ziya Wang is an Indian-American and part of the third generation of her family from East Africa. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in the American Journal of Poetry. No, this one I should have asked before. S-W-W-I-M or swim and drunken boat, among others, and was also selected as a runner-up in the 2023 New Orleans Review Poetry Contest. She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay area with her husband, two daughters, and an orange cat. Please welcome Ziya Wang. Thank you so much, Eva. I'm so honored to be part of your village and to echo some of the thoughts that came before as I was thinking about this theme of the reading. I was thinking about how Eva has nurtured me as a friend and a mentor and really allowed me to have more of my authentic voice in my own work, both by just being inspired by her work and also just by all the support that she offers. So I'm just really honored to be here and I have a few poems to read. The first poem is called Heretic. Those male cousins, your gods, soft bellied by birthright, addled by adulation, misplaced, accustomed to extra helpings, while their sisters gather empty teacups. Auntie, keep your boys with their plastic happy meal crowns. I'll be a lapsed Indian. In summer, I'll lay my body across molten asphalt to protect my daughter's toes. All right, this this poem is called What's in a Name? It's a Sonnet. I repeat Rizia with patient smile. My name, its new American beat flows, buttercream trimmed with sweetness and guile. But can't we call you something easy like rose? My smile and its remains clot. In squalled chalk at school, I write my name but then erase myself. I'm the mouse, tick-tock up the clock. My English clay accent reshaped by place. I could carve in stone rather than relent. But then again, why hold sacred its sound? In Arabic, Rizia means content. But within English rose, can I be found? My father says, listen hard, you are not lost, but he is gone. And to heed a ghost must cost. Thank you. I have two love poems that I wanted to read. Just because when I thought about a village that nurtures a poet, I wanted to read some love poems. So I have two short love poems to read. Yes, is that better? Okay. The first is called Love Notes. It's a half Sistina. If you invite me, we'll find a sidewalk table. Spoon, tiramisu, and sip sparkling gold. My sundress will flutter in city summer and I'll wear a silver necklace with a key at the hollow of my throat. My mother's, when her future hovered, a reverie. You invite me and in my reverie we sit across a little sidewalk table and melt icicles in our throats with sips of sunset gold. My necklace dangles a silver key to our future beginning this city summer. You invited me to dinner in the summer when our future hovered, a reverie. You said our daughter will wear that silver key. I already knew you at that sidewalk table. Your taste like sparkling gold, a city sunset in my throat. All right. My last poem is called On Turning 49. I know darling, but aren't we so alive when we step off platforms amidst Alaskan spruce, carabiners slicking our ropes, your fingers strumming my hair, sticky citrus resin in our mouths, our whoops streaming like ribbons between branches. Baby, let's release our sorrows from their cells, watch them flutter freely trilling like snowbird sparrows returning to nests hidden in tall grass. That was my first half, Sustina. That's like, I haven't been able to do a Sustina. I mean that's like so inspiring. Thank you. One more quick round of applause for Rosia Wong. I'm going to read you the bio of Karen, Yagas next, and then Ed, you're going to come after that. But we're going to talk about Karen, Yagas. Karen, Yagas' new poetry collection, All of Us are Cleaved, is recently published by Nomadic Press in 2023. Her first collection of poetry, Archipelago Dust, was published by Meritage Press in 2010. A recipient of a Rhino Founders Prize, Philomortavios Senior Memorial Poetry Prize, and a Hedgebrook Residency. Her poems and reviews have also appeared in various journals and anthologies. She lectures at UC Berkeley and divides her time between San Francisco and Los Angeles. And you can find out more about her at www.karenyagas.com. And I will let you know Karen is responsible for creating multiple literary communities that include and overlap people in this room. So thank you. Please welcome Karen Yagas. Thank you so much Yava. Yava and I first met in, let me just look at my time, 2020, virtually on Zoom through community of writers. And the first thing she brought out is her flute. And I was so charmed and disarmed, I'm like, there's no way I would be friends with this person who does that for strangers. And here we are four years later and my life is so much larger and richer. I have to say like when I first started writing in my 20s, people asked why do you write and you have all these poetic answers. And now in my mid 40s and people asked why do you write. And honestly I have to say because of my friends. And in that large constellation of poets and stars, Yava, you are shining bright for all of us. So thank you. In the spirit of this village, I'm going to read just all new work because Yava basically, my book is here, my book is also in the library, in the Filipino American Center I think. But Yava is the type of poet that if you are working with her, reading with her, she just gives you so much permission to be joyful in your work, to be imperfect in your work, you know, and then to kind of figure things out together. So all of these poems are in that spirit. First, one is called After the Storms. Parts soil can't absorb rain. I learned the difference between content and happy. Content being the lack of bad things happening. One more likely afforded by money. The elk and lure the dogs have been on almost a day now. How I measure time as the length it takes for bones to be food, the effort, muscles, and teeth make, or the held inhale for the young doctor, tapping around my armpit, our nervous giggling as if in elementary school. I tell her I'm overly feeling, overly being these days, lacking a precise set of words, overly ovaries, a uterus intuition I should have said, vigilant as the dogs, snorting toward a muddy coyote, looming in our path, signaling we walk in a pack. What about you? What's tiding you over these days? What did you put squarely on your corner? I wanted to ask anyone who would stop. How long ago were dogs and coyotes kin? I searched. I stumbled upon a looming American experience, kinless seniors, their numbers expected to grow. Which country will your losses go? Is California content or happy? California should be allowed to flood. Another set of experts say. The next poem is called, thank you, that's the poem. The next poem is called Women in the Epics. Don't smile, they don't mean it. No, they will not soothe and surface grievances. Instead, they crow, make sounds that take temporal space. Drop your smile, you don't mean it. My friend once said, confronting syrup me at an after party. Her fierceness, a small miracle of my twenties. I'm still as amicable as sheet cake when I lecture fumble on the ancient epics of an island where I too am strange. Woman who did not suffer the hero coveting the wife of an underworld god. His first wife who assists in his ridiculous quest then leaves behind the blood and waste of maleness for the forest to tend to wounded animals. Students, we are birthed from stars. You probably already know we are meant to be warriors to dance with pre-colonial gods. And the last one I thank you. The last one is a little bit more personal. I think I wrote, I wrote it from one of our community of writers conferences. I confess to lighten what I carry. I no longer believe in asking to be forgiven anonymously. I lied to the police so my lover's brother won't be deported, which meant signing over his speeding Mustang to me. For a brief moment I own that magnificent car it smelled of pencil shavings, swirls of metal, wood and blood that was also my lover's body. I believe the love I find behind my dog's ears it smells of warmed coconut and tiger balm. Love is the work it takes to rub away another's aches to make space for the ones you can't. When the officer and I were negotiating the terms of empire all I had was the kingfisher blue and underwater rivers of our crumbling homeland how terrified I was to be out of time. I still want to be loved and to be free and isn't every prayer a prayer to not choose one over the other. I want the dog's stubborn conviction that the yellow tufted minion between her paws and in the mirror must be different toys. Her wonders at such abundance if only she could grab that one outside her reach if only I would help. Thank you. This is so fun I'm like I was lost in that pre-colonial. I was like yeah thank you so much please another hand for Karen and and please do get some refreshments calm you should eat and enjoy and relax. We have two more wonderful readers. The first will be Ed Edward and then followed by Tujana so I will read Ed's bio first. I'm practicing the Edward part you know Edward Gunawan. Hive is a queer Indonesian born Chinese writer and curator. The author of chapbooks The Way Back, Winner of a Start a Riot Prize, Foglifter Press 2022 and Press Play, Sweet Lit 2020. Edward has also completed over 25 feature and short films as writer, producer, actor, and or director. Residing on Ohlone land in Oakland California Edward is the co-founder co-host of Homemade at Art Together. More info at www.adward.com. Please welcome Ed! Filled with joy and it is so thrilling and what an honor to be here as part of Yuba Johnson's village and to be reading alongside all these fabulous writers as well and poets. So I've been thinking a lot about the idea of a village especially since my partner and I became first-time parents recently. We definitely need a village. We're so grateful for our BBK village especially in the past few months and I thought it would be fitting for me to share the poem I'm going to share next especially since also Yuba and I when we first met we bonded over being queer parent poet writers and I had written this right before our child was born and like many parents before me and I'm sure many many more after the tradition of writing to and for him I even addressed this one to him directly and the tradition of epiulatory poems. So while this piece is personal I hope that this humble offering will still resonate with all of you here even if you have no intention of becoming parents yourself and as we grapple with the horrific atrocities that are affecting all of us during this tumultuous times it's called shopping for your stroller while waiting for your aunt's biopsy results. Like a scene out of some hallmark movie of the week only this time it's two grown men your dad and I grouping one display model after another as you fumble along one aisle onto the next at a bright white floors and lights of a big box store. This is too bouncy and that one's too stiff. Does it come with a car seat adapter and which can be stored flat in a quick one-handed motion? Dare we even consider those expendable ones that can fit not just one but two additional toddlers weighing our options of ultralight aluminum frames with hydrogen filled tires and SUV suspension contraptions. The designers have really thought of everything haven't they? This tank like golden carriages are perfect for off-roading an escape out of some war-torn battlefield. Well your aunt awakes in a morphine days right after her surgery on the other side of the world having extricated the malignant growth inside her body along with all infected reproductive organs like where you are now blissfully just stating in the dark the ironies so on the nose if we were in a workshop right now I'd have rolled my eyes so hard at this artless wide early device just supposing the promise of a future life with such an obvious morbid not mortality. Your grandparents I'm fully prepared but only two years apart your aunt and I even as we just passed our fourth decade on this earth never had I entertained a possibility should be the first amongst us to face such a medical calamity. After all if something were to happen to her wouldn't that mean that I'm not that far behind and I I was going to live forever. I mean don't we all delude ourselves in some ways how else could we have cared on living through the the range in hospitality of this world the one you'll be born into making plans after plans in spite of having them derailed deferred dashed again and again desperate palms grasping onto stones at the bottom of our pockets clinging to every last shred of faith as we lay in wait for what's around the corner something good must be grand a kind of naive hope our stubborn full-hardiness what is worse which is more essential would need plenty of both to survive this feverish planet of ever-increasing sea levels along with ruptures of historic deficits to match a bottomless greed the torrent of fake news and authentic lies fanning the forest fires of banned books and segregated bathrooms guns abound scarcity all around tribalism otherism lonelyism and all of the accompanying anti-isms common decency I don't know her so yes picking a stroller while waiting for your ants biopsy results is what I need to do is all I can do right now even as it comes without a hundred percent guarantee of your complete safety I had read this somewhere before that everything's alive is dying only now do I know that its flip side is equally true everything's dying is still alive precariously and gloriously alive thank you you just have to hang on for every single reader tonight because it's so fantastic this is like please give another hand for adruna one that was really cool um thank you okay um we are with our last but not least writer um who i asked please be last because you know because this is a person who can take that pressure um tijana oh eaten is a push cart prize nominated black queer butch writer whose work appears in honey literary no yo review yellow arrow vignette panorama journal and elsewhere she received the 2021 unicorn authors club inaugural alumni award and is a 2023 rooted and written fellow tijana's non-fiction memoir bolt cutters remember this bolt cutters is the story of her 12 arrests in three years in the early 1990s during the height of the crack epidemic bolt cutters remember this you need this book i need this book please welcome tijana goodbye white supremacy the dinner conversation bounced onto the topic of movies with queer characters i complained that i don't like the coming out story and i really don't like the coming out documentary because they usually stop the movie at the inflection point the character struggles with her sexuality she comes out to the family they reject her the hilariously downtrodden path of the new dyke ensues parent one decides to accept the assignment of learning to love their queer daughter she meets the girl and the movie ends on an upbeat note with a bright ass future i need to know what happens next better yet since they there are in my opinion enough coming out stories and circulation let's just start the movie right at the redemption as the redemption begins we can certainly be queer but it doesn't have to be the sole focus it can just be another routine and unremarkable part of the plot we don't have to struggle all the way through just to proclaim we're here we're queer etc let's start with the gay agenda which is the reality for millions of us give us something we can relate to you know what the gay agenda is right the gay agenda that conservatives froth over the ones that were ramming down their throat oh the irony and that we're going to use to indoctrinate their children well now for the first time i'm going to reveal the gay agenda this is top secret information and i'm not going to repeat myself so pay attention every gay is charged with enacting these points tenets ideologies values from the old guard leatherman to the newly minted baby dyke and way way beyond with those genders all over there for those who don't know this is the gay agenda doing laundry buying groceries making dinner mopping getting dressed in the morning sitting in traffic performing office work gardening giving rides to and from school helping with homework checking email applying makeup taking selfies sexting drinking coffee drinking tea cleaning the bathroom loading the dishwasher taking the car to the shop eating a good breakfast because breakfast is the most important meal of the day senior ranking officers in this crusade are also responsible for enacting these additional points of the gay agenda yoga meditation pilates cardio juicing landscaping shopping online Ibiza as is the custom the black gay agenda is obliged to include a few extra items avoid police contact stay out of jail and prison live to retirement die free at home surrounded by loved ones leave and inheritance after waving bye bye to white supremacy i intend to devote myself fully to pursuing all the freedoms that the gay agenda promises but who would i be without white supremacy how would i be without white supremacy what would i talk about right about fight about if not racism sexism classism and gender terrorism what would it be like to not live wrapped in the shroud outside the coffin above ground no longer enveloped suffocated constricted by white supremacy what would i do without the trauma and the struggle i'd make movies about mundane shit i'd make an epic film about going to the corner store and the hilarious adventures along the way i would take a five minute outing to pick up some cage free vegetables and turn it into two hours of madcap fun then write a book based on the movie then produce an album based on the book i'd sit in the coffee shop for hours zoning the fuck out not being harassed checking my phone reading articles about socks and underwear my newsfeed devoid of the killing of black and brown bodies maybe i'd pay more attention to my hair i'd focus on kink and sex and Wakanda i mean i do that anyway but i could focus on these with all my attention i create week-long retreats for black dykes that mixed tontra and kink sexuality and sex sex and bacon i'd build a dungeon in my backyard or in my dining room across from the hot tub and the music studio would look out onto the garden my home could just be a gathering spot instead of a safe spot a respite a break from the relentlessness of white supremacy i'd sit leisurely and read an anal analogue poems about diasporic loops our thurian carpool dreams the electronic assembly line of life culinary climate change the real reason you can't reach an analogue poet lavender black amazon rights san francisco offline incantation for black lives to remain the focus after the outrage fades maybe i'd shed the armor maybe i'd change my relationship with time and fear i look forward to reclaiming the 30 of my headspace that goes toward armoring myself when i leave my house every day when that day comes i will put on headphones and walk down the street lost in my own thoughts i'll forget to bring my id when i leave the house to walk to the store and not even think about being randomly stopped by cops who would take my id run my name and watch my rap sheet scroll and scroll speaking of which that one charge of my rap sheet that says it's been expunged it would actually be expunged instead of showing up on the rap sheet marked as expunged plain as day my black life would matter your black life would matter thank you tijana you've had me i was like great tijana didn't worry didn't do something new it's okay i haven't heard this one before but i want to ask all the readers to please come up and stand over here for one moment i want everyone to please give a huge round of applause please come on up just stand over here tijana now lorraine zia niki and ab and i usually do because i i promise tijana we're ending by 7 30 so i'm just gonna have a little bit of music to play us out but please give your applause to these wonderful writers and poets we have been i'm like so amazed today thank you