 YouTube, and yep, let's do it. I left them all in. All right, it has been done. All right, welcome everyone. Oh my gosh, what a great crowd, I can't believe it. Thank you all for joining San Francisco Public Library's virtual library for this amazing event. Right now, book launch, Writers of Color, Essential Truth, the Bay Area in Color. And yay, Shiz and everybody, I'm so happy for you all. I'm Anisa Malady, one of the librarians at San Francisco Public. It is summer stride, don't forget to do your 20 hours reading, get that amazing iconic San Francisco Public Library tote bag with the amazing artwork from Keilani Juanita, a Bay Area native and now chronicle published author and illustrator, yay for her. We wanna welcome you to the unceded land of the Ohlone Tribal people and acknowledge the many Romitush Ohlone Tribal groups and families as the rightful stewards of the lands in which we reside in our beautiful Bay Area. The library is committed to uplifting the names of these lands and community members from these nations with whom we live together. And we encourage you to learn more about first person culture and land rights. I'll place a link into the chat box that has a link to tonight's event and to everybody's, you know, all the library's resources as well as to right now's resources but has a great list for first person culture. We do have the Northern California Book Awards coming up on July 11th. So please come around for that. Some of our best here in the Northern California. And that's all I'm gonna say, I'm gonna turn it over to Shisaway Siegel who is the founder and director of right now San Francisco Bay and she has supported San Francisco Bay Areas and artists of color through workshop, events and anthologies since 2015. Shisaway Siegel everybody. And I'm gonna stop sharing and turn it over. Okay. And let's give us all a big hand. I'm so happy to see you all. I just, there are so many talented people in the Bay Area and I still, I mean, it's like when I say to people, you know, we're 60% of the Bay Area. I still can't believe how many people are surprised by that. And I say, yeah, well, you know, I guess, you know, we're invisible, we're essential but invisible. It's like street lights and fire hydrants, right? Bus boys, bus drivers, security guards, nurses. Yeah, we're all that and we get taken for granted and we're essential but we're also a lot more than that. And one of the things that drives me to do this work and let me tell you, it makes me insanely busy and sometimes I get really crabby when I don't get enough rest and I don't get enough time to just walk around and enjoy nature. But there's so many amazing people in the world doing so many amazing things. And it's just, it's such a joy, you know, to interact with you all. So, and I'm sitting here in my Richmond District, you know, Western San Francisco office and I'm looking into, you know, that secret green heart of San Francisco backyards and I'm looking at the Willows swaying and I'm looking at the Dudley and just really grateful that I'm a guest on this unceded ancestral homeland. And I take my responsibility, you know, to carry on that stewardship as much, you know, to my inept ability and to honor the original stewards of the land with gratitude and solidarity, seeking to restore balance and harmony within ourselves with each other and in community. And I think a lot of you feel the same way and that's why we are a community as busy as we are and as seldom as we're able to interact with each other in these crazy times, that sense of community, that sense of a bond, this collective, I don't know, sense of mission or responsibility, collective love that we have. I feel that it's really strong and I'm really grateful for it. So, yeah, the vitality of the San Francisco Bay Area arises from its diversity. We are 60% of San Francisco's population are people of color, 60% of the greater Bay Area's population are people of color. I think the only county that is still majority white by one or 2% is Marin. So, you know, I think as usual that San Francisco is leading the way and we are what the country is going to look like, you know, in a decade or two. And I'm sorry that some people are unnerved by that and are resisting it, but I think we can all say, you know, it's aside from the high rents and this and that and the injustices that we have to fix, the fact that we live here with such amazing people is such a blessing. So anyway, and the other thing is that, you know, the pandemic kind of shook a lot of people to the core and George Floyd and Rihanna Taylor shook a lot of people. But a lot of people I know it's like, so what else is new, you know? Racial violence and prolonged uncertainty, that's what we live with, turbulence, uncertainty and loss, you know? And we have learned how to live with that. And I think a lot of times more than cope, it deepens us, it enlarges our souls, it brings us compassion and gratitude. And for me, that's what the book is about. So this book includes poetry, prose and visual art from 130 contributors, black, brown, indigenous, Asian, Asian American, immigrants, Buddhist, Muslims, straight, queer, differently abled, there's so much diversity. So the first set is going to be eight writers, five minutes a piece with no introductions, their bios will be, Kevin is gonna put their bios in the chat, because I wanted to have, you know, more readers rather than spend too much time talking. So next up is will be Kim Shuck and then Vanessa Diaz Cabrera, Carla Brundage, Tamina Khan, Anbui, Andre Lamont Wilson and Crystal Rica Perkins. And then we'll have three artists showing their work and talking about it, Cindy Shea, Lorraine Bonner and Mark Harris. And then the second set will be Dena Rod, Francie Covington, Karina Munoz-Pagan, Kevin Madrigal Galinda, Lina Begonia, Max Leung, Venus Zetaro-Noble and Yeva Johnson. So this is the book launch for essential truths, the Bay Area in Color. It's 300 and 24 pages, a hundred of them in color. There's some gorgeous artwork in here. And you can find it online on our website and Kevin will put in the link for that. And you can also find it at something like 14 bookstores already, you know, this is my fourth anthology. So a lot of the independent booksellers know me already but they're so excited by this. They took one look at the cover and, you know, instead of taking three to five books, they're taking five to 10. So I love the fact that they're excited about it. I think there's a lot to be excited about. Anyway, so I'm gonna read a little bit of some excerpts from a poem of mine that I put in the book, even though it still needs work. But anyway, city snapshots spring. Time remains elusive, sense and schedule virus scattered, but meaning is crystal clear. Earth and sky are calling us to remember who's in charge. Skies unload after winter drought upon a super bloom of spring. A wealth of Dudley and Acacia flourish alongside a proliferation of tents, mushrooming, mushrooming as the world turns upside down and backwards. Celestial cycles grind on earth, bounds and monoliths, pyramids and skyscrapers. Humanity's been here before. How the mighty rise and fall, but the poor will endure. Can we bridge the salt of the earth to stars in our eyes? Everlasting gold in the heart? In my neighborhood of stubborn weeds, did COVID come just in time to save us from total eradication, preserving the last of the grit from million dollar scrubs of virgin olive oil, oatmeal and sage that slathered on by the pampered few who can afford to bathe their skins with what lesser folks could eat. Will the virus slow them down? Like the bursting of dot com one or the 1989 earthquake? Coastal fog used to be enough to keep away those who did not love this land. Fog burst against our cheeks, reminding ships at sea and land lovers alike that we are all adrift on life, reality rising and falling, heaving and lulling by turns. There are no guarantees, only the invitation to risk. We are a hearty people, buckwheat and sorrel, dandelion and succulents. Look down your nose at us, indulge yourself elsewhere with showy blooms and gourmet crazings. We are a plain people whose meager dollars sent a generation to college. So they could look down on us too. Let's see, I think I'm gonna stop there. Anyway, I think that Anissa, I wonder if we can change the screen so we don't have the library symbol on screen. It would be nice to be able to see the readers. The library symbol is in the bottom corner, so it's not really showing. Oh, all right. So maybe it's just the view that I'm looking at. It might just be yours, because we could all see you while you were reading. So I think it's good. Oh, okay. All right, that's weird. Okay, well, that's great then. Anyway, so yeah, and I don't know how the other readers feel, and I know that for a lot of people, it's the end of the day, and we wanna just kick back in our messy apartments and whatnot, but I think the readers do really appreciate seeing you guys and feeling like we're actually communicating with folks, and we love the feedback and response. So yeah, do the jazz hands or the finger snapping, put your favorite lines in the chat. Let the readers know how you feel about them. So with that, Kim Shuck. Hey, it's really exciting to see so many beloved people in the Zoom. This is called protest. This is where the tattered banner hangs, taken by freeway weather, like feet slipping between chill sheets, like hope, song of no dreams. Have you heard music, music that didn't hand you a memory, feathers in the left hand, feathers in tremble, moth against glass, banner, wound into the chain link, wound in wild weaving, like feet sliding over unfinished floorboards, an idea of floorboards, a slow polish, step and step, bringing up the grain, tree life written in dark ridges. Dark ridges the night foot cannot read. Have you heard the music, the music that keeps your memory, is your banner hanging there, woven into the metal webbing over the freeway? And I am going to read short because that is often useful in a long reading. So thank you all. Thank you, Library. Thank you, Shiz. It's a beautiful book. Thank you, Kim Shuck. You are one of the most generous, eagle-less people I know. Blessed to have you in the community. Okay, Vanessa Diaz Cabrera. Hi. This poem is called Snakes in the Garden. Between weary eyes, tear ducts run dry, consuming ballots, watching numbers filter, democracy exists on CNN, between blues, reds and purple. On univision, they can't escape screens. Jorge Ramos hunched over tweets. Media eats media. I eat democracy with my eyes, feeling the edges of the thing that hides underneath. They say this is a thing of third world countries, boarded downtowns, protecting leather purses and Apple stores. It is third world to protect material goods, plague the people of towns with wars. It is the same taste. American democracy, puppet governments, bleeding fruit from trees, eyes that never thought they would see, snakes in their own garden. Maybe it is the lie we tell ourselves to believe we are free. Thank you. And this is my second poem and will be my last poem. This one's Mars Poetica, number two. I want my words to dance in your heart. Skin unpeel and let the words set the rhythm. I want words of resonance, humming, thrumming across a page near you. The words of my dreams, negligently cared for, but always loved, pictures of my life, El Salvador, ghosts, lakes, birds, all the women and none of them at all. The way I look at you with love, a mass words I could never tell you. These words I dedicate to you, all of you. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Vanessa. Next is Carla Brundage. Thank you. This is called love, death and distance. Day 34. My father has COVID-19. We are on the phone. I can imagine his frail body leaning stiffly against the hospital bed rail. Everything in the room is dull blue and gray, like his eyes, the hospital blanket, the half open tied robe, his house shoes. On the phone, I can hear him opening and closing his mouth, gasping silently like a fish, hooked on its way to be sliced. He would say, I wish I could download my brain. My own brain spins to receive this, knowing he has not ever used a computer. Yes, I say. I keep imagining this phone line is like a connection between us. When I close my eyes, he says, I can see it. There's a long pause. I can see the connection. I close my eyes. I was wondering, he resumes, do you know where we could get any LSD? LSD, I ponder. He responds before I ask, well, we could take it together. Oh, I say. I know what my father believes about LSD, him having spent most of my teenage years on the truth serum, as he used to call it. What made you think of that? I ask, well, it's a way to connect, you know, an opening of the minds. I think about how long he has had that thought stirring in his head, how many years it has been lingering there. My father, pioneer wasp, married to a dark-skinned Alabama woman in 1964. How they of his generation believed that LSD was the portal to a new way of being, of blending races, of overcoming prejudice. Now, so many years later, he is asking me, what could he have told me, his three-year-old daughter, about why her daddy and mommy were not together anymore? He says, I did not know what to say. And then I felt so much shame. All I could say was we did not love each other anymore, but that was not true. I'm trying to process these feelings of longing from my dad, how much he still loves my mom and how he could never let go of that ever. Not that I wanted him to, but all the anger, all the wasted time. I do not know what to say, all of the waste. What were they doing? Especially my dad. My mom, she built a life. There's nothing she can really regret. She moved on. But my dad stayed stuck in time, despite the LSD and the truth serum. Thank you. Thank you, Carla. I was so moved when you submitted that piece. There's so much honesty and poignancy in that piece. So thank you for sharing it. Okay, Tamina Khan. Are you here, Tamina? Yes, yay. Okay, there we go. Hey, everybody. Thank you. Thank you, Shizue. I'm so honored to be part of this anthology. And wow, yeah. And to be in such gorgeous illustrious company tonight. So thank you. Thank you so much. I'm gonna ask you to indulge me with a short poem. Today is June 30th. And on this day in 1996, a guy named Charles Hutchins and I declared our love for each other at a big Indian wedding in Oakland. So, and we're still here. So this is a poem, this is a poem for Charles. It's called First Meeting. And the events of this poem, alas there's no LSD in it, only movies, but the poem takes place five years earlier. So 1991. First meeting, I rushed up to the line of a sold out movie. You in front of me told me it was sold out. As I pondered a way to sneak in, I saw something in your face I knew I would need one day. Yet I kept talking, unafraid. I was not looking for love. I was always looking for love. Only our voices held each other that night. After seeing a different movie, writing the 22 from Japan town to the mission, we did not exchange numbers. True story. I'm gonna read a poem. Let's see, I'm gonna read one of my poems from the anthology. Let me have it up here. Oh, why is it so big? Okay, why did it do that? There we go, okay. So this poem is called To Breathe. Thank you to the wind for bringing us fresh air and taking our brother on his journey. Michelle and Ashley Monterosa at the Remembrance Protest for Shawn Monterosa, murdered by a Alejo police officer as he was demonstrating for Black Lives June 5th, 2020. Wind, fresh air, to breathe, to take oxygen into lungs so it can travel through veins like our ancestor, the fish who ambled onto land. Air in lungs are animal inheritance. Where does my body begin? Where does it end? Molecules enter and leave me dispersing into air. I breathe you, you breathe me. We stand six feet apart, cover faces, sanitize surfaces, stay home, all to protect this right to breathe. Then what of George Floyd? He survives his birth. Black boyhood, black adolescence, young black manhood. He even survives the virus and keeps breathing, keeps breathing. If we hold our breath long enough, we will go unconscious and our bodies will begin to breathe again. To calm the chaos inside spiritual teachers, tell us, focus on the breath. This miracle of air entering and leaving our lungs. Watch it, hear it, feel it. Offer gratitude to this air, this friend that accompanies us in and out of our bodies on this terrestrial journey. George Floyd survives the virus. We stay home so he can recover. And yet, recovered lungs cannot help him when a murderer in police uniform crushes his throat. Son of a mother who pushed him from water to air and wept at his first crying breath, he cries for her after his last breath is spent. Tell us, whose breath are we protecting now? How will we heal ourselves from this deadlier virus that takes away the air in our lungs? Thank you so much, Tamina. I love the way you read, too. You're so powerful. And you sent a lot of your students submitted work to the book, so I appreciate that as well. Let's see, Anbuy. Yay, see you. Good to see you too, Shizuri and everyone. This poem is called Shelter in Place. On March 17th, 2020, Santa Clara County issued a shelter in place mandate. I've been staying home ever since and even before temporarily employed since May, flirting with unemployment since March and grieving in San Jose since November. From a social distance, the world feels quiet but isn't silent. Hums of an airplane fly through hazy orange skies as California forests crackle through acres and acres, begging for indigenous stewardship and care, questioning why we don't for her and the incarcerated who sooth her births. Inside, screen lights stay on long before and after dark. News outlets and media continue to tell us to slow the spread, but they only mean of the virus, not of police brutality and racism across the states, not of the evictions of those losing their home sweet homes, not of the transfers to ICE detention centers and deportations, nor of hidden agendas of politicians that put profit over people or the amount of work and labor you must still produce. Even during a global pandemic when the world is burning, people are dying and places are closing deciding to make sure to tell us that we're not worthy of care. But this is a lie. And in our multi-generational homes in San Jose, we have no choice but to take care of each other, for we know what it's like to live in chaos and survive. Refugee resilience alive and flowing through our ancestry, COVID-19 could never ban this essential love, this healing of our past through gochu and through hoisul, this building of our future in solidarity with our gongnong. We must learn to mend the gaps between the Indian, Espanol and English. We can't keep this distance of six feet apart from other communities, can't preach what we won't even try to practice in our own homes and city because liberation cannot exist just in theory. The world is on fire. We can't pretend that we don't see the smoke. Our loved ones have passed into ancestors and they can never come back. So we don't have to wait for the county to lift restrictions for us to connect because we are all that we have left. And this cannot be all that we leave those after us. Thank you. So great to see you read that. I enjoy it on the page, but you just bring so much to the reading. It's really great to see you read it. So next is Andre Lamont Wilson. Thank you, Shazaway. And thank you everyone who contributed to this anthology. Phantom Man. On St. Patrick's Day, I plan to wear my Kiss Me, I'm 6.25% Irish t-shirt. But the executive director closed our Oakland Day program for adults with disabilities on March 16, 2020, because of the pandemic. Now my shirt remained unworn in my closet while I remained at home, navigating the unfamiliar world thrust upon me and billions. I had worked as a backup personal care attendant for 25 years. I changed the diapers and clothes of men who couldn't change them themselves. In the absence of lifting men from the wheelchair to the toilet and back, five days a week, my body experienced shock. I had adapted my body to support another man's body to such an extent that I felt lost without him, like the hindquarters of a centaur separated from its man half. I wobbled on two hooves. A severed horse torso searched for its man half, but couldn't find him. Memories of his weight lingered in my flanks. He existed only as a phantom limb. A phantom man. If man and horse were united again, the virus could kill us. I had engaged in work. I couldn't do remotely. Social distancing and six feet were incompatible with a job that required close physical contact with the bodies of others. I watched with trepidation as first dozens, then hundreds, and then thousands of attendants and nurses in nursing homes, group homes, and hospitals contracted the virus and died. I wondered if I would receive personal protective equipment when I returned to work, or if I would be forced to wear a trash bag. I returned to work on April Fool's Day. The building was empty of the sounds of wheelchairs, walkers, and their occupants. A skeleton crew of mask staff either taught Zoom classes or disinfected surfaces. The executive director asked if I wanted to teach storytelling. I used to perform stories before participants behind the building after lunch. But in the year before the pandemic, attendants needed my help in the restroom after every lunch, all storytelling ceased. I told my director I would think about it over the weekend. On Monday, I told her yes. During the shutdown, I had attended several literary events and workshops on Zoom. So I was familiar with the virtual meeting technology. However, I was so accustomed to working behind the scene, wiping behinds, that I felt odd working in front of a camera. I used to change men. Now the pandemic changed me. My first Zoom storytelling classes consist of videos of my storytelling performances, comedians with disabilities, followed by class discussion. However, my hosts so botched the sharing of videos that I took over as host and began to tell stories. Why are you still wearing that? A participant asked from his box on the screen, his eyes motion to the mask and shield on my face. I said, I wear them not because of you, but because of the support staff around me. For the next class, I placed a portable dry erase board behind me, not only to block views of the classroom, but to prevent staff from walking up and breathing near me. Even if they were wearing masks. Now, I removed my ghost bed sheet, shield and mask, and unleashed the full arsenal of facial expressions and gestures during storytelling. The participants laughed from their screen boxes, like the Brady Bunch in their tic-tac-toe boxes at the beginning of their 70s show. After six weeks, I received a report. My storytelling class had the highest average attendance of any class we offered on Wednesday. I filled my office with storytelling books and ordered another on virtual storytelling. I attend to revamp my lesson plan to make my class more interactive. I'm not in a rush to reattach my horse half to my man half as his essential servant after the pandemic. I have a lot of stories to tell. Thank you. Thank you, Andre. I also should say here, I should say that Andre and Kevin Madrigal and Tamina and Chris Perkins were all part of the editorial committee. There are some others too. I don't know if you're here tonight, but they put a lot of time and energy into reading the submissions. I was expecting maybe to get submissions from 40 people and instead I got 140, 150 submissions. A lot of people submitted more than one piece. So it was a lot of reading. And Andre read every single piece and commented on all of them. And he has a full-time job. You know, working with people with disabilities. So, and you know, Tamina teaches and you know, Chris is also a high school teacher. I mean, it's, you know, and I didn't really realize this at the time when I first started right now, five years ago. I wanted to give voice to writers and artists of color, but gradually I began to see a lot of folks they're not writers sitting in some garret somewhere in isolation, you know, I would say the vast majority of people that submit to right now and come to right now are doing things already that make a difference in society. And maybe they're not necessarily the decision makers, but they are a lot of times in the frontline, you know, working with students and kids and the elderly and, you know, doing social work and all kinds of things. You know, it's, this is, and I think that, you know, the literature of, you know, the precious people writing in garrets, living off their trust funds, you know, that era is fading away. And we are what's replacing it. You know, what we write about is real life about real people and the lessons that come from that, you know, fiction is fine, but you can make up happy endings in your head sitting in your garret and not engaging with real people. And those things that are written are not going to be the same truth as if you're out in the street engaging with people. There's so much richness. If you allow yourself to engage, if you allow yourself to think, how can I make a difference? Even if it's a small one, you know, how do I deal with disappointment and stress and adversity? Those are the things that enrich our writing. So that's part of my plug. I think I'll go on here a little bit. I have two writing workshops every month. One of them is at the main library. They're both virtual. And second Tuesdays from six till eight sign up through the main library. That's called the hatchery. Let's see, the hatchery creative writing for writers of color. And then on Eventbrite, you can look and find right now SF Bay, a third Saturdays. And that's another workshop. The library one is free. And the other one is, you know, one to $10. And, you know, if you don't wanna spend the dollar then you don't have to do that. But I have spent a lot of money in my time taking writing workshops that were, yeah, useful in a lot of ways from different organizations around the city. And oftentimes I was like the only writer of color. Maybe there were one or two others. A lot of times they were very quiet. Sometimes they dropped out after the first or second week. So that's one of the reasons I started right now. I wanna hang out with other writers of color. I want to, you know, talk about real life. I wanna be real. I don't wanna be pretentious and literary, you know? So anyway, if you're interested and if you're not a person of color, please support us anyway and sign up for our mailing lists and come to our readings. If you are a person of color, then let us know that and ask to get on the mailing list to get on the mailing list for our workshops. I think that over the last five years, I have interacted with over 300 people. They've either come to the workshops or they've been published in the books. And it's like this amazing community. And, you know, a lot of you are too busy to come to the workshops. I wish you could come because it's always such a joy to see you. But, you know, we have this sort of moveable feast of people and you never know who's gonna show up, you know? So that's one of the joys of it. And it's not just seasoned writers and established writers. There's a lot of people who've never written before. They're just thinking about writing, et cetera, et cetera. And you're more than welcome. I'm a college dropout myself. I sort of taught myself how to do what I do. And I don't know how well I do it. So, you know, I certainly am not in a position to judge anybody. And I think that's one of the things about the whole literary educational establishment is the way they shame people into doubting their own thinking and their own words. So, yeah, so put your email address in the chat if you want to be on our mailing list. So, sorry to make you wait, Crystal, but there it is. Anyway, so next is Crystal Ricca Perkins. And she comes to write now regularly as she is writing a really interesting book. Hi, everyone. Thank you so much, Uzwe. And everyone who's been involved, thank you so much. I just feel so welcome. I've been up in the Bay Area for five, six years, and I came up here to join the literary community. So here I am. I have two epistolary poems. The first one is called From One Teacher to Another. Dear Rona, I'm going to teach exponential relationships this week. You are the prime example of how curves go upward, neatly tabled, evidence ample. We graph the cases doubling and the number of deaths per day troubling. As we make tables and model the flattening that we seek, the peak, the elusive peak. But then again, it's hard to preach the importance of algebra two when a mom calls at 2.32 Saturday of week two. Sorry to be rude. Yes, we got the laptop and the hotspot too. But what we need is food. Dear Rona, I'm going to teach about supply and demand curves, widgets and guns versus butter this week. You are the prime example. The supply of hospital beds, ventilators, protective gear, the demand of the people for life, work to get back to the pursuit of happiness. We'll play the stock market game. But then again, it's a luxury to lecture economic theory when a student texts from a neighbor's cell phone. Teacher, I can't talk unless you call me because our phone is cut off. We just moved and then my mom and dad were laid off. Dear Rona, I'm going to teach about the food chain. The biology textbook says that humans are on top, but you are teaching me otherwise. Thank you. The second poem, also an epistolary poem that I have is called from one virus to another. Dear COVID-19, you are 10 K smaller than a human cell. You target our heart, lungs, kidneys and intestines, and you invade, hijacking the cell structure to replicate so that from the one comes the two, comes the four, comes the multitude, so many more, to overwhelm your health, your host. You are killing individuals, institutions. We humans strive to create antibodies against you. Dear COVID-19, all humans put together are 10 K to the 10 power, the size of the earth. We target the water, the atmosphere, the mountains and the valleys, colonizing and hijacking the planet's resources, becoming super predators, classes, consumerism, hyper inequalities, the haves and haves not revolts. With each revolution, we become stronger, more prolific at murder and mayhem. We are killing entire species and forests, overwhelming our hosts. Dear COVID-19, I think perhaps you are the earth's antibody. Now mother nature pits us against each other, virus against virus. It's not personal, I know. All viruses are immoral, whether we want to admit it or not. Thank you. Hey, thank you, Crystal. I have a couple of more shout-outs to make. I hear that Rosalie Cavallaro is in the audience and she has proof read all of the anthologies and she did it again this time, even though she has a full-time job working in affordable housing. And we had a crazy schedule this year, but Rosalie hung in there with us in all the proof reading. And Aisle, T, I don't think you heard me say earlier, but you contributed a lot to this cover. You're the one who suggested the sans serif yellow type on the black background, which I think really makes the image that much more striking. So thank you very much for leaping to the occasion and donating your design talents and your work on the clarion mural project. And I'm glad you said that, but I'm glad you said that and said, I think the book could use a little tweaking. The cover could use a little tweaking. So thank you for that. And I think that. God, I'm blanking out clarion alley mural project. I'm blanking out on your first name right now. But I think you, I think I saw your name in the audience as well. And I want to thank you for your work on the clarion. Thank you for giving the opportunity to the artists, the Japanese artists from Osaka. Who did the mural that this is a detail of. The booksellers have been going nuts over, over the cover. And I think it's really powerful. And I love the fact that they're. A couple of Japanese guys from Osaka that do commercial art. As their day job, but they, they, they like to do murals as well. And their work is just incredibly powerful. And the photographer for this, there were actually two, I first learned about this from one of the writers, Kalechi Ubozo. And then the photographer who photographed this particular version is Edza Rivera. Who is new or recon and he loves street murals. And he used to be my neighborhood mailman. And I used to just love to see him. You walk around the neighborhood with a big smile and a pit helmet. And, you know, over the, over the years, I learned, you know, that he has, he has a collection of 7,000 street art photos. And, and loves to travel. So you never know who you're going to find talking to people on the street. There's amazing, amazing people. So anyway, next up, we're going to have three artists. They're going to put up their work. I included, I'm a visual artist myself. So I like to include some art in the book and. So there's a hundred color images in the book. So anyway, the artists will be in this order. Cindy. I hope I pronounced that right. Lorraine Bonner and Mark Harris. Thank you so much as a way. Can you all hear me? Okay, excellent. Unfortunately, I don't have slides for the images I have, but they're in the book. First of all, thank you so much as a way for all your hard work birthing this book into existence. I'm, and creating this platform for really underrepresented artists and voices to tell their stories. In this book. So I have four pieces in this book. They're titled seasons. Seven plum blossoms for Jacob Blake. Cultural decay and the case for hope. And all these pieces have a short caption in that describes my inspiration. So I'm not going to read it, but you can go ahead and take a look when you get a chance. But. But I really, you know, all these, although all the pieces that I have included also utilize the fresco inspired technique using layers of burnished Venetian plaster and on panel mix with sumi ink. Chinese watercolor and various pigments. And the process is a very slow and deliberate and kind of informs a narrative like our political and social landscape. And kind of a sort of. Kind of cracks and it does its own thing. So it sort of changes the landscape in which I think is kind of a good metaphor for individual stories of immigrants in this country. And then the stories are kind of within the fissures and cracks. And so I think that the share roles are actually emphasizing the interconnectedness of human migration, the sharing of ideas. And, you know, despite what the borders with what the current administration wants our borders to look like and what they want us to define as asked and what the political landscape is at the present. It provides a quiet and passionate reflection of. Of the discussions around race and society and environmental justice. And I work often uses a lot of cyclones and and forces of nature and. And symbols around that. And so they really kind of suggest the societal forces that pull immigrants into a place and push them out. After they, you know, utilize their labor. And, and, you know, it's a state of always being on the inside and outside in temporary states and then this is what we are going to do. And that's how we do it. And that's what we're going to do. So we're going to get into the next question. And I just want to end on the fact that there's, there's no accident that I think the Bay Area continues to be such a creative powerhouse for artists of color that continue on to success and elsewhere or wherever. It's such a dynamic and fertile ground paved by activists. To allow for new voices to shine and. the immense effort that it takes to build and nurture that community. And I'm just really proud to be a part of the book that really exemplifies that effort. So thank you again, Shiz, and editorial team and all of you for thankless work that makes where we live so special. And it's really all because of you. Thank you. Thank you, Cindy. I'm sorry, I guess you didn't get the email that what I asked the artists to do is to put together PowerPoints of their images. So it didn't happen. And I unfortunately am not, I'm on my laptop right now and not on my main screen. So I couldn't jump on and show the image. Okay, there's one image. No, yeah, I'm sorry. I must have missed an email because I really didn't have that prepared. I mean, you are kind of busy right now creating a baby and you just had a residency at the Van Gogh exhibit. So it's not as if you're sitting around the house twiddling your thumbs. Ah, okay, wow, fabulous. Thank you, you did that. This is me, I'm giving everyone just a preview if you want to see the rest of the sequence have to get the book. Thank you so much, Kevin. That's awesome. Thank you. That's fantastic. Yeah, she has four pieces in the book and they all sort of blend that sort of Chinese brush painting sensitivity with her social conscience. So okay, so next is Lorraine Bonner who is a poet as well as a sculptor. Okay, okay, cool. Thank you, thank you. I want to thank Shoesway and the jurors for selecting my work to be in this fabulous, beautiful anthology. And I want to thank the library for hosting us. And I have a couple of pieces of writing and art in this book and I'm just gonna try and share this one. See if I can go to full screen here. Slide show, there we go. Okay, can everybody see that? Okay, okay, this piece represents where we are now. Oh God, it's slide showing all by itself. It shouldn't be doing that. I'm gonna try and go back there. Okay, I'd like to stay there, just stay there. Okay, this piece is called Blinded by White. And when I say white, I don't mean so-called white, so-called race, because I defy you to find anybody with skin the color of paper. And we all know there's no such thing as race. When I say white, I mean the perpetrator. And when I say perpetrator, I don't mean the guy being perp walked by the cop to the cop car on the cop show. When I say perpetrator, I mean something specific. I mean someone who violates a trust. Because we as human beings survived and evolved as for millions of years, because of trust and trustworthiness, it's the foundation of human society. And this person, this sculpture is representative of all of us, what I call multi-hued humanity. Many different shades of brown from very, very dark to very, very pale, tinges of red and yellow. And yes, even so-called white people, you are maybe you're very pale, brown, you may be a little rosy, maybe a little bit of yellow, but you have melanin, just deal with it. So this human person has a bird in her chest, which there it is, a good word. A blackbird in a white cage. And you probably remember the poet Maya Angelou, who wrote the book and the poem, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. She sings because she has a song. This is the natural state of the human being, a human singing. Now, because we have layers and layers of genes and brain cells devoted to this complicated thing called social living, which is based on trust and the expectation of trustworthiness. When someone has betrayed your trust, when they perpetrated against you, that is trauma. And when you're traumatized, scientists have discovered and they have brain scans to prove it, that it messes your mind up. And as we all know, we see with our minds and not with our eyes. In other words, as folks in the South used to say, and probably still do, when confronted with an act of perpetration, you don't know whether to go to the bathroom in your underwear or go blind. There's a shorter version, but this is library, so I'm not gonna say it. So for those of us raised in this traumatic environment, being taught that there is such a thing as a superior center of the universe race, the norm against which everything else is inferior, which is the most beautiful and kind and intelligent race, the most highly evolved race. We know there's no such thing as race. And did I mention it as a white race, that everything white is good and pure and holy and true? Well, there's the kind of perpetration against the truth that is extremely traumatizing, and that can make it difficult, very difficult to see properly, regardless of where, along the spectrum of melanin, your skin color happens to fall. So as long as we are blinded by this trauma, I'm gonna try and go back here, the black bird of our heart has to stay in her cage. And although she has a song, it may be difficult to hear as well. Thank you. Thank you, LaRaene. Sorry, I did it again. I called you LaRaene instead of LaRaene. Yes, you did. And I think one reason is because I was thinking that a few more thanks I need to give is I think one of the reasons for this fantastic turnout tonight is Lenore Naxin of Naxin Consulting and John Fink of Encore Communications 2.0. They are white allies who really walk the walk. I paid them a pittance of what they normally charge to do what they do, but they have 25, 30 years of experience in publicity and they know how to reach people and they're persistent about it. So I really appreciate that. And I also wanna thank the San Francisco Arts Commission and California Humanities and the Literary Emergency Fund for helping put this together. And I think that this would not have turned into an unwieldy, overly ambitious project if I hadn't gotten a little bit of funding to help me along. Anyway, so, and then the last of the artists but not the least is Mark Harris. Thank you, Shiz. Thank you, Shiz. And thank you everyone who is joining and has hung out to hear me talk a little bit about my work. I think this is the third time I've been included in one of the anthologies that Shiz has put together. And I just have to say that I'm really grateful for having an outlet for work that isn't always easy and accessible for people to digest. But that I believe is necessary to really sort of shaking us out of our sleep and spurring us to action. And so the pieces that I have, that were chosen for the book are some older works from 2015. And, you know, they're pretty visceral pieces that were cathartic for me that dealt with just specific incidences regarding racial violence and just processing my emotions as African-American in this country. So the first piece here is called Pride and Prejudice. And all my work, the work that's included in this anthology is all mixed media collage. So I use a lot of historical imagery that I will sometimes just suppose with current imagery. And I'm trying to create an alternative narrative to just the experience. You know, what some people may see when they look at something and flip it on its head to really get them to asking questions of themselves about how they fit into to what was happening. So this first piece was in response to the Charleston massacre in 2015. And it pretty much just was a snapshot of my emotions at the time when I remember hearing about the incident as it happened. I immediately went to my studio and this idea started, you know, coming in and this is a result of that particular incident. The next piece I'm going to go to is, it's a little bit lighter. It's called A Guns We Trust. And I created this piece again, looking at the symbol of the Statue of Liberty, something that everyone knows throughout the world and brings their own interpretations to and making a little bit more tongue-in-cheek but very serious in addressing the amount of gun violence that we have in this country that affects people of all races. And, you know, really sort of taking a shot at our Christian values. And instead of in God we trust, I went within guns we trust. Again, these are old, this image of the woman's from an old maiden form bra ad from the late 60s and I added some other elements to it to again try to sort of create that wrinkle. Next piece, another pretty heavy piece for me, but again, these pieces for me were cathartic, things that I needed to do to stay sane as, you know, there were so much police, you know, state sponsored violence against African-American men and boys. You know, throughout the history of this country, but really ramping up in 2014 with the death of Michael Brown. And this is a piece, again, that was just reflecting my feelings and sort of the indifference that I see regarding, again, violence, state sponsored violence from our police taxpayer-funded agency against African-Americans. And the last piece, this is a more recent piece that I created last year, last summer. And this piece was inspired after the grand jury hearings in Louisville, Kentucky. It was the day that David Cameron, I can't remember the guy's name, whoever the AG is in Kentucky, an African-American man came out and basically said that there would be no charges brought against the murders of Breonna Taylor. So this piece, I used a real mirror. If you see it in person, you would see your own reflection in this piece. And I used the actual police patch from Louisville PD and the badge. And again, just really a summation of what I was feeling on that day when that announcement was made, just the real disgust that I had. So that's it. That's sort of a overview of the work that I was fortunate enough to have in the anthology. So again, Shiz, thank you so much for creating a platform for people to share their work about their experiences and hopefully create conversation and inspire people to action, no matter how small. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. I just love your work. Okay, so in the second set of readers, we're gonna have Denna Rod, Francie Covington, Karina Munoz Pagan, Kevin Madrigal Galindo, Lina Lagonia, Max Leon, Venus Zathara Noble, and Yeva Johnson. Okay, so Denna, Hi there. I'm excited to read some new poems for you tonight. This first one is called Case Number 0812001. I ended up writing case, missing case reports for things that we were missing during the lockdown and quarantine. Missing foresight. We ignored the harbingers of spring brushed omens warned off our shoulders as we carried on despite corpses trailing our steps. The coming specter of a dripping Mandarin crushed in his hands as he smiled grievefully, the tuber eating everyone in sight. We have no video game power ups to fight the big boss, only the veil of reality crashing down on our shoulders. Case number 0812002. Missing trajectory. No one knows where we're going anymore, least of all the future. Five year plans crumble into getting through the next 24 hours, each hour sifting through our hands like powdered sugar on top of freshly fried dough, oil absorbed in our hands. We stop and start rusted joints waiting for oil that will never come. Standing still, we claim someone glued our eyelids shut, but we can clearly see the whites of our eyes bald with fear over what the next four years will bring. Thank you for having me. Thank you, Dana. I know you've been really busy lately with Pride Week and all, so I really appreciate that you made the time to come. Let's see. Francie Covington. Francie, you're muted. You're still muted. Francie, why don't you go out and come back in and we'll go to the next question. Okay. So, Karina. Yes, thank you all so much. Really good to be here. My piece is called offering. As an organizer for the National Domestic Workers Alliance, I had the privilege of being able to work from home. But the house cleaners, nannies and care workers in our membership did not. By April 2020, most domestic workers had lost 85 to 90% of their jobs. The caregivers who were still working risk their lives to take care of others while lacking access to hazard pay or enough PPE to keep them safe. I was witnessing the race and class divide in heartbreakingly sharp contrast. So many black and brown women I knew were the ones doing the essential work and bearing the brunt of the virus. During this time, I received an invite from a theater friend to participate in a virtual festival where teams of three, one writer, dancer and musician, all strangers would come together online for one day. Fiona began the festival as a response to the impact COVID had on artists worldwide to show how creativity could transcend borders and isolation. So along with 30 other artists from 11 different countries, our group of three had one day to create a piece based on one of the four elements before the virtual curtain went up to debut our five-minute video. The theme my group chose was Earth. So I sank my feet into the Earth, looked up at the sky in my own silent early morning ceremony, and then sat down to write this offering. In the silence of your branches, we hear your words as I, my love, shall mourn for thee. Let the absence of touch be retrieved in the warmth of your soil. Dig our hands in so deep that alchemy is the only thing that we can do. Let the absence of touch be retrieved in the warmth of your soil. Dig our hands in so deep that alchemy of your womb turns fingers into roots. Grounded amidst this insanity of grief. Hold our fragility for what we thought couldn't break from the weight of invisible war. You are the original life cycle, the reminder of only two constants, of hunger that waits to be fed by tomorrow's sun. Mother Earth, root us to you, to this calm underneath the storm, the glimmer of dew on a silent still morning, life buzzing just below the surface. You are the expansiveness of our contained constricted bodies, of rhythms we took for granted, the magic of a hummingbird's migration, the freedom of movement, the interconnectedness of all life forms. Mother Earth, in the silence of your branches we hear your words, as I, my love, shall mourn for thee. We touch your soil in honor of the bodies we could not hold nor properly prepare, could not kiss goodbye, nor touch our lips to outstretched hands, caress a forehead, whisper prayers of peace in unexpected last breaths, our tears they cannot see. Mother Earth, we lay marigolds at your feet. Underneath your swaying branches crack open our hearts to this collective grief. The roots of inequity exposed, cavernous wounds, safety nets washed away in the river's surge. This was not of your making. So much sorrow could have been prevented. And still, we are here, letting go of perceived control, accepting the offering of your stillness. Left with our essence, plant our feet firmly inside your resilient hands. And we will never forget this. May we move with the lightness of spring's renewal. Thank you all. I can see everyone now. Okay, Francie. Do you want to try? Yes, I'll try now. Thank you. Yes. I couldn't see anybody. I mean technology is my nemesis. Technology is my nemesis. Technology is my nemesis. Easy lies the head of the black mom. I listen in the night for the return of my son, who is out with his friends for the evening. I don't worry about his non-black friends. They're congenial, working hard at their first jobs post-college. Just as he is. I'm afraid that he might have a problem with his relationship with him. I worry that his insistence on his right not to be hassled, arrested or beaten by police without cause, will be seen in and of itself as an act of aggression. I fear any interaction he might have with police officers who lean more toward the warrior code than their public service mandate. As the daughter of a black man, the widow of a black man, and the mother of a black man, I have lived in a state of heightened anxiety about the safety of the men in my life for my entire life. I've had to teach my son that whenever he goes into a store, even if it's raining outside, he must remove his hoodie. Slide his hoodie off his head and leave it off until he leaves the premises. He has to take his hand out of his pocket while waiting for the cashier to ring him up. He must put his purchases in a bag, not walk out of the store with him in his hand, and always, always get a receipt and do not discard it until he is home. I tell him that people are so blinded by suspicion of all black males over the age of five that they can't tell the robber from the frat guy, the shopkeeper from the man who doesn't want to carry his groceries around, who doesn't want to carry his bottle of water around because he plans to drink it as soon as he leaves the store, but somebody might accuse him of being a thief. I remind him that he has to think not only for himself, but the people who will assume he's a criminal or just up to no good, because that's what they've been told. You'll be considered dangerous until you're well into your 70s. About the police, I say, make sure your phone is on and fully charged before you leave the house. If you see the flashing lights of a police vehicle behind you, activate your phone, pull over and place your hands on the steering wheel. If you're a passenger in the car, at all times keep your empty hands where the police can see them. Again, make sure your phone is recording. He says, oh, mom, you worry too much. I think, I hope I haven't left anything out. There is such a thing as beautiful, loving sons like mine. Just as there are such things as tasers, lethal weapons, centuries old assumptions, and racism. Racism handed down casually and yes, sometimes intentionally by millions of other moms and dads. I know that after he's received a great graduate degree, married and had children of his own. Even then, I will worry. Because his blackness will not have faded. The downstairs door finally opens and the hush steps of his room received of his footsteps received down the hallway. I take my first deep breath of the night. Relieved that at least tonight. My son's name will not be preceded by a hashtag. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Francie. Next is Kevin Galinda. Well, hello, I just want to say thank you Francie for that reading. That was really incredible. Thank you. Cool. I'm going to share one piece that is an anthology and then maybe something else. It's a very short one. It's called, not all heroes wear capes, but they do wear masks. At least Rosa Villa does. For her protection and for yours. She's 73. And not a goddamn pandemic is going to stop her from distributing food to her community in need. She makes sure each car that pulls up to the emergency food relief pantry is loaded before they're off on their way. A beaming smile on her face, her mouth covered, but I can see it in her grin wrinkled eyes. At 73. She's a hero. Not a goddamn pandemic is going to stop her. All the folks that made. It's like those acts of humanity during the pandemic possible. Um, the other piece that's included in the anthology that I submitted. I like, I cannot read without crying. So I am not going to make myself cry tonight because I don't feel like crying tonight. Maybe tomorrow I'll feel like crying, but not tonight. Um, so I'm going to read a new piece. Uh, yeah, just about like a friend, a friend of mine recently said being who we are is a very powerful, the most powerful act of survival. And I think it's very true excepting all parts of ourselves and, and unapologetically being them. So this is self portrait as list. Self portrait as recipe. Self portrait as disobedient poodle mutt. Self portrait as boy in his abuela's wedding dress. Self portrait as, are you sure he's not gay? Self portrait as corrido. Self portrait as Raphael, the dual wielding ninja turtle. Self portrait as sex addict. Self portrait as and fajo coming to whoop my ass. Self portrait as the pair of shoes stolen through broken glass. Self portrait as Kevin, the kid from homo mum. Self portrait as huevos rancheros. Self portrait as alternative R and B. Self portrait as cognitive behavioral therapy. Self portrait as three freshly picked squash blossoms. Now dead. Self portrait as queer. Self portrait as dry hopped beer. Self portrait as anxiety and fear. Self portrait as non stick frying pan. Self portrait as faded 2003 Corolla with roll up windows. Self portrait as SpongeBob edition Kraft mac and cheese. Self portrait as Tina you've got lard come get some dinner. Self portrait as man in a woman's blouse. Self portrait as Mark will go to the God of gluttony. Self portrait as identity crisis. Self portrait as no ball that grew from concrete. Waiting to be held to be seen. Afraid of being alone. These spines only temporary. And the fruit is on its way. Thank you. Thank you Kevin. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Lena. Hello, everyone. I have two poems to share both written at different points in my life, which will make this very exciting. The first is in dedication to the eldest daughters of immigrant families, who wore their mother's clothes. Yes, I'm thanking you mother bird for all the overwrite specimens, purple orchids, dusty bundles of kale, washed carefully by hands that serve garden cats, your kindest captors. You are my green thumb, a these, sweet and sour sauce, bean sprout, lumpia, no pork, the way papa likes it. The voice in my head telling me to make my bed, wipe down the counters, Cleanliness is next to godliness or clamp shut like mother like child I was never your daughter searching for you everywhere Succulents ginger sale on tea scarlet red tomatoes I'll never be as sweet as the ones you grew and broke soil Bax Listering skin all those summers searching for you and people Ravenous mouthfuls of skin tissue and fragments of a leather all bones Mouthfuls of affirmations lungs of smoke all the blueberries in the world in lieu of a love I would never receive. How would you know? We're never given the chance to taste honey figs gulai seafood pasta opposed to thorny mouthfuls Aptican rejections greedy fingers found mouth daughters worms in my teeth disjointed sentences death by a stubborn god What was the last thing you said to your mother before you never saw her again? I never asked We fought too much gnawing at my tongue cheek drawing pools of blood There are cops at the door when did I learn to be afraid? Did he ever touch you anywhere? Mothers averting eyes tell all like mother like child She swallows her tongue in shame the weight rests upon buckling knees and weary shoulders The Pacific has cleansed me of all the muck and grime Am I holy enough for you now that I've drenched myself in salt water? That whiskey and belly curry steams on top of a bed of rice morning throw up dirty teeth burning up my fingertips when I get too close to the flame I smoke through every phone call the blunt is next the white noise is paralyzing Mama's disappointed chatter in my brain passed down like a mother bird trying to feed her baby But they choke instead The last one is quite short and one of my favorite poems writing in college. It's called mestiza mestiza now of latin american origin also used in the philippines to know a woman of mixed race Commonly refers in the context of the philippines to a mixed philippina woman Anytime a white woman looks at me. She does not paint me mestiza She categorizes me as ambiguity the bridging of two cultures two lands two people who never committed in the first place She allows me to take her purse not without removing her wallet laughing as she says just in case She does not see me as mestiza or grant me the keys of whiteness She leads me to the gate and slams the door in my face Thank you all Thank you lina um Yeah, I had done uh, I never met lina. She she submitted her work and it was such a wonderful surprise. So i'm uh glad to To see you on screen and um hope to see you at some of the workshops sometime I think you have conflicts on You work on the days that we have some workshops unfortunately Anyway, uh, so um, let's see Next is uh max leon and um Max has about nine haiku in the book But I had scheduled he had this is he had said he didn't want to read so I sort of Booked everybody in and then he changed his mind so He only has time to read one unfortunately, but max maybe you could read it a couple of times so we can savor it Thank you. She's way. Thank you everyone for having me. It's an honor and a pleasure to be here. Um This haiku I wrote in late march of 2020 um in the middle of Of Well at the very beginning of the lockdown and when the A lot of the attacks against asians um started happening in in 2020 and so I wrote this in my room At you know when everything was in the red tier completely locked down and we all just hold up in our apartments and I looked out my My window and in front of my house on my block are cherry blossom trees and of course, you know If anybody knows about cherry blossoms, they all bloom At the same time every year in san francisco in Around late march early april. So yeah, so we're in the middle The beginning stages of the lockdown, you know anti asian attacks I'm sitting in my apartment for you know for the past couple of weeks I look out my window and I see that the street is covered in pink and I was just admiring The the beauty, you know Despite, you know the times that we were in um So my poem goes like this Cherry blossoms bloom Amidst season of the witch Pink is beautiful and The season of the witch line Has so many layers to me and so much meaning not only Because we were in lockdown in the middle of a pandemic and not only because um Of the rise in anti asian attacks not only because we were, you know with you know, the previous administration you know, but also It also pays tribute to david talbot's book season of the witch as well who is another san francisco Author author so there's many layers of that to me So Yeah, that's my poem and the different layers and the the meaning behind it Thank you all so very much. It's an honor and a pleasure to be here amongst giants Bless And maybe some other reading Max we can have you read more And maybe talk about the work that you did with the peace collective Walking patrols around chinatown in response to the anti asian violence um Okay, so Next is venus Zathara noble and she has two pieces in the book I wish that we had the time for her to read her longer piece But I said that we were going to be running out of time venus. So Just read the poem But it's a powerful one Thank you. Thank you. So honored to be here. Thank you shiz for Just all you've done so far. Um, so I'll say something at the end. I'm not supposed to have an introduction living I be m Implicit bias in microaggression by venus zahora noble So My purse strap broke while dashing around the campus I had a presentation in an hour or so Why of all days did this have to happen? Up from the quad I hustled with my backpack and toe Going to the mall next door. I ran across several people I didn't actually know As I hurried past the library a classmate noticed that I had blown out the curls in my hair She reached toward me to touch my mane I Shook my head thinking this child is so unaware I took a shortcut by the business building where a group of white mills were in conversation Asians are all smart. Let's ask one of them to help with our project I was sickened when all of them nodded With confirmation Finally, I reached the department store. The door was about to close in the elevator A little old white lady moved to the corner and clutched her bag As if I were a murderous perpetrator On this short trek of a few short blocks. I experienced bias and microaggression Black and brown bodies living IBM Beholding the disease of covert oppression stereotypical thoughts and feelings that many are not That many people are unaware of dismantles tolerance And connection extinguishing the ability to love I'm absolutely fed up With so-called colorblind displacement All of the insidious denial that non-whites overlook Regarding the irrationality of racists I hear that I am different. I'm accredited to my race Articulate and blessed above measure Covert insults are thrown consistently in my face I recounted And re-encountered the classmate that tried to touch me She Received my burning glare How ignorant of her to assume it was a compliment I sharply checked her Do not ever touch my hair Thank you Now you can figure out if this actually really happened Thank you for being among so much Wonderfulness tonight and amazing giants And sorry for miss billing and mispronouncing your middle name I was too tired to double-check it. No worries Okay, Kevin, could you do me a favor and put in the chat the where they can get the book online? It's wwsf.com Endangered I think it's hyphen truths and the sorry essential hyphen truths Endangered species was another anthology. Anyway, uh, yeah, please buy the book Please help get it into schools and libraries You know, I I do these books because these are the kind of books that I needed to have around when I was a teenager So or a college student, um, maybe I wouldn't have dropped out of college if I Had more access to books like this Anyway, uh, so, um We're coming up on the last reader yava johnson Thank you She's thank you so much. I'm very honored to be here. I'm very honored to be in the Anthology, I have two short poems and I'm gonna do it my usual way for those of you who know me with the little music before and after Incantation for black lives to remain in focus after the outrage fades With gratitude the community of writers and the BIPOC writing communities carry mar Oh wise one We call on your essence We cleave to justice But find only feather pillows after the owl's flight A shifting enemy We seek oh mother a path to prevent more deaths More suffering Let not our hearts desires emulate unscattered alliances Fanned by misbegotten echoes of promises already broken This time let the sword strike at the root to end this senseless cycle And this one is wish list for the other side When we are all vaccinated or immune I'm going to book a massage at the kabuki because osento is closed I want to feel someone's hands touch my whole body before I soak When we are all vaccinated or immune I'm going to alamedi farmers market for corn and dry farm early girl tomatoes I want to eat food that I picked out myself on the same day it was plucked When we are all vaccinated or immune I'm going to catch a flick at the valboa or the castro or a play at the marsh I want communal shared disbelief laughing or crying in the dark next to strangers When we are all vaccinated or immune I'm going to visit my children in person at home in san francisco or in their dorm rooms I want to hold them hug them kiss them and repeat and repeat and repeat When we are all vaccinated or immune I'm going to throw an immune compromise person's post isolation party I want to invite all the poets writers and friends who helped me survive Thank you and thank you chef Thank you, Eva. Thank you to all the fabulous readers. Um, you were all amazing um, and uh Come to the oakland asian cultural center virtual reading on july 22nd We'll have another whole different completely different slate of 15 Writers and artists and they will be just as amazing avacha uh, Karen Sinefuru Susanna preva provera pedes attonia aldorando Juan de severe, um, just another amazing lineup of people and for all of you who contributed Yeah, I you know because uh, you and I I think power a lot of people are individual, you know, we weren't doing the video part And I did see her um Anyway, uh, and to those of you who contributed who haven't had a chance to read yet Please if you can help me organize some readings I'd really appreciate it because there's so many great people in the book and I am dog tired right now I I need a break from organizing So any of those any of you out there, um, you know carol rupa Any of you, um That want to help, uh, you know set up some readings. Please. Um, I could use the help and they're There are some wonderful voices that still need to be heard susan dam broth Um, uh, let's see who else is out there. Oh, yosh, bucura Um, it's so good to see you. Um, anyway, so This is the end of the program. Uh, thank you very much for coming. I'm going to just Pretend that we're we're at the auditorium and I'm going to cruise around and say hello to my friends Yeah, please unmute yourselves talk to each other Amazing