 Hello and welcome everyone. Thanks for coming to this month's foam jam. I'm John Smalley and I'm a librarian with the San Francisco Public Library. So while we're waiting for everyone to join us, I want to take a moment to acknowledge our community and to tell you about a couple of our upcoming programs. We're on there. We're on. Okay. Sorry for the delay. On behalf of the public library, we wish to welcome you to the unseeded ancestral homeland of the raw mature Sholoni, who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula. As the indigenous stewards of the land and in accordance with their traditions the raw mature Sholoni have never seated lost nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place. As guests, we who reside in their traditional territory recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. We wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders and relatives of the raw mature Sholoni community and by affirming their sovereign rights as first. On Wednesday, February 16 authors Frankie Bailey Tracy Clark, daily a pits face noted and Abbie van diver will discuss midnight hour, a chilling anthology of crime fiction by 20 authors of color. And at the end of the month on Thursday, February 24 in the main library is quite auditorium, also online via zoom, the author Charlie Jane Anders talks with journalists Peter how loud and Heather night about writing writers bookstore San Francisco and her latest novel victories greater than death. And ends my announcements of upcoming programs. I'd now like to turn the microphone over to poem jams host the poet Kim shock will introduce today's program and readers. Thank you. Take it away Kim. Hello everybody. Thank you all for being here. I'm really excited about tonight. I'm always excited. When the poverty scholars come to the poem jam. It's always a lot less work for me because they're so incredibly organized but also just I love the words. I love the heart and everything else. I'm always excited about this. So I am not going to babble too much at you we have. Not only is this month great. We have to really great months coming up for March and April in March we're doing reading with just fantastic women. I don't always do that just that we're making sure that that's the focus in March, and then in April, our, our focus is going to be incarcerated poets. Not just in the US, but elsewhere, and poets whose work has been banned so without any further ado I'd like to introduce tiny poverty scholar who has been a friend who I've read with a lot. And who has a new book out and the people that she's brought with her. And I see D Allen over there to who I have not had the opportunity to say hello to yet. Welcome everyone and take it away tiny. I'm that poverty scholar that houses mama that houses daughter, all those people you don't want to see, never want to be look away from me what you're going to do arrest me, we're in your city. Yeah, we'd be sweeps cake, kicked and evict. That's what happens when you see me swept kicked and evict. That's what happens when you see me. You see that house was mom and daughter sleeping in a tent. That's because we don't got money for the rent. Yeah, my poverty scholar and I rock my jailhouse attire is me and my po mama did jail time for the poverty crime of being houseless and this occupied indigenous holler. Shout out to my mama and all of the po and broken and traumatized mamas who sit alongside me who I walk shoulder to shoulder with every day in this stolen America KKK. We are your clients and your con consumers, your nonprofit off of poverty product. We are all those people that you never want to see you want to look away from. And you always want to arrest. So yeah we speaking up standing up and resisting up because we have solutions. It's just nobody listens up when it comes from people like us. And that's what tonight is about. That's what poor press is about. And that's what this liberation is about. And we want to lift up the San Francisco public library for allowing us access. Thank you. Thank you on every level for opening doors and recognizing that our voices do matter. And also shout out to all the poor people who went in the SFPL just to pee. And sadly, sometimes we're dragged out with security guards. I'm not putting that on this space tonight but I am naming it because that is what we do. We always walk in truth and always walk to our mind all of us that we've all been lied to by capitalism, and we all have a different walk that we can do. Want to shout out to our sister Kim for it also enabling and inserting this powerful medicine, and all the work that she always does is an indigenous woman, a warrior she wrote. Our other warrior First Nations she rose Korean gold who walks with us in this work, and flea flea and so many more. So without further ado, tonight, this beautiful poor press, like all of our poor press events begins with prayer. And we are blessed to have one of our warrior elders, my deal from another father, the powerful warrior musician and prayer bringer, none other than Jose Quayer, starting us out with the prayer which is beautiful. Thank you all my relations. It's an honor to be with you. And in this evening. I want to also recall and call the name of Leonard Peltier who is in prison was ill and who needs to be free. He needs to be at home, send home on on on compassionate release or on home confinement but he has to go home to his folks. And so this inspiration goes out to them to the ancestors your lonely and to all the current poverty scholars and forward to struggle to make this a better society. My relations. Thank you. What though. Thank you. I just want to lift up that Dr. Jose Quayer, Dr. local is a powerful warrior, a member of our poor magazine, but also family. Also a poverty scholar himself who infiltrated a K K Demia by any means necessary with the medicine and the love. Oh, my tail. Oh, my tail. Yes. Thank you so much. I'm going to bring in, I'm going to bring in my poor magazine, familia of houseless and formerly houseless co writers, cultural revolutionaries, whole poets dreamers and what I call mama festers of the poor and homeless people led movement and vision known as poor magazine and homeless. We say, as poor people built these homes with a poem. For the family again. Thank you. For the Jose Quayer. And he most of the opportunity. Mutiado Silencio. My words on my bullets, my pen is my gun. So see back and relax. Migrante from each of God, Mexico, during the slum bio again. Part of also one of the families here resident of home for this land is people self determined solution, a little bit for the folks who don't know about the poor, poor magazine familia. Coming out of struggle coming out of poverty being still one page check away from being on the sidewalk motels. And again, the poverty scholars are not only here in the US, but also are funding the favelas in the ghetto said Mexico and throughout the world, we are the poverty scholars. This is D Allen. This place is better. Po poet and Po press author and land liberator, and now resident of the landless homeless people solution movement called hopefulness. What is Po press. This is a publishing arm of Po magazine that was launched in 1998 by mama D and time. And this dedicated to the publishing of the writings of Pope house list disabled incarcerated poverty scholars. So the framework of Pope press and all of our change work is the original theory of poverty scholarship. This is an excerpt from the poverty scholarship textbook that y'all are seeing before. People led theory art words and tears across Mama Earth. The notion of poverty scholarship was born in the kais prisons, street corners, community centers, welfare offices, shelters, kitchen tables, assembly lines, sediments, favelas, projects and ghettos, all the places people don't look for educators, experts, leaders, researchers, lectures, linguists, artists, creative thinkers, writers and media producers. We are told our knowledge is not valid. It's not legitimate. Our speech is improper our work and our choices criminal. Our words enact. We are usually silenced incarcerated criminalized displaced or called illiterate and the shame of poverty and disability itself. In this stolen land is the dominant narrative of what knowledge even is. And what we do as poor people is take care of each other. We resist to save your industrial complex. The first Pope press book we're going to feature tonight is the hopefulness hamper. This new book here, which is written lived and dreamt by all of us poverty scholars and many mo not here tonight, and many more would made their journey to the ancestral thing. So, E by a to Lori McElroy mama D. Oh, my tail. And Kathy Galvis, rest in peace. The following words are from the hopefulness handbook land from land back to black land from a live discovery to the colonial settler live private property from the black Panthers to move Africa. And this is to support a land trust and to hopefulness land trust and what. How do Poe houseless indigenous evicted disabled folks border terrorized people from all four corners of mama Earth. We're exciting on stolen and occupy turtle Island actually by land and build permanent homes food justice art and healing community for ourselves and the world. It almost seems unanswerable. The vision seems almost unrealizable and what I call a crappity list system. Oh yeah I did say I like to mess with the colonial words, whose entire criminal injustice system is set up to protect the settler by a private property. And I want people to hold that in their hearts whoever's here tonight with which we love, because we've all been lied to about mama Earth commodification. I must be unpacked these myths and messages of hoarding accumulating buying selling evicting incarcerated sweeping and stealing must be untold, unsold, and unlearned. I want people to just hold that because this is just a little bit of the medicine of the hopefulness handbook, but it goes out to all of our fellow poverty scholars, and also housed people with resources, because we cannot do this alone. Here, a beautiful excerpt from this absolutely beautiful artist writer and my, my neighbor at homefulness brother D from the hopefulness handbook it's called beyond beyond own stand amidst the slush garden so far, to and back, one in front, soon to be seven with both straw veiled dwellings added to the liberated land, a cafe, a library, a radio station, a media center where the destitute evicted displaced gentrified out can write their own tales from their own standpoint, reaching digital streets live on wifi. A school to decolonize po children from the ways of genocide masters and relearn ancestors knowledge thought to be lost to history. A barnyard with livestock supply families needs milk and cheese from goats eggs from chickens. None of these are utopian dreams. There with this lush garden produces every day, aside from vegetables and buying scaling up the chain link steel fence. All of these began with a dream somewhere in 1990s open a self determination vision was discussed between mother and daughter inside a park car they both slept. Their ambition was a solution to extreme poverty. Their words contained an alternative to sleeping in cars on a scraps of lives living nowhere deemed undesirable to the eyes from homelessness to homelessness flash forward 2012 when the right place was found. Smothering asphalt cover in the land had to be broken lifted hauled away. The dream had to live beyond two homeless females, the dust had long cleared the construction tools long and storage. The asphalt longer moved the land law mended seated planet and flourishing still. Homeless means everyone has a home, even plants and animals. It also means there's nothing this one way system can offer us that we couldn't teach, build or farm ourselves. Each passing day, each new project on this land or overtures movements conducted from Oakland's deep East long blighted on purpose toward lives without undue hardship beyond just ideas. The government's toward the growing green future beyond the slush garden and the comfortable life capitalist. Oh, again that's in the homeless handbook. And I just want to let you all know that the homeless handbook is the journey and the how to have all of us poverty scholars evicted and houseless people to spiritually and legally on sale. And build the vision that is homefulness and to all the warriors who are here who deal with the violence called sweeps. We cannot continue. We cannot continue the same way. We will come out any all encampments three corners schools, universities, communities to share this work with fellow poverty scholars and conscious world holders, ready to live a different way. And it's time to change what's happening to Mama Earth. And again, this is just a template. And we definitely want to have we're already helping folks in Seattle, Washington and different poverty scholars who are ready to be so determined. Oh, my dear. So that's the one of the her story books that's in this beautiful 2021 2022 catalog on the street corner the street corner catalog of four press. Again thank you to everybody who is here and thank you to the San Francisco Public Library and the beautiful Kim Chuck for making this space on this digital street and for all of you sitting with us tonight and taking in this medicine. Thank you to everybody bringing in the other beautiful poor press authors. Again, for folks who are just joining us for press is a poor people led press, making sure that poor households incarcerated and evicted and unheard authors are heard in their own voices because we are done with about us without us. So I'm going to bring our beautiful sister, a powerful poverty scholar and a love illusionary as she calls herself, and you'll hear why. Lady Audrey candy corn with Oakland to Iraq. Greetings family. How are you guys doing out there and digital screen. My name is Audrey candy corn. And I'm a grieving yet breathing mother. I had my first son, Tori and they sure use his ancestor at the 10 to age of 17. And I lost him at the age of 17, six years ago. So with that being said, me and my children, his two brothers, me or entire. We have a way of not traditional way of healing through telling our story, which is a living life that through some of the same things that we have went through to kind of have a guide and to feel happy to have a safe space where they feel like they belong. So we also have an anti brilliant campaign that goes along with the book. My son name is Nick name is issue me. And so the book that I will be presenting to you today is called issue me danger danger saga. And we live in Oakland, California, that I like to call it Oakland, Iraq, which is another book that we actually have. And I'm an open native and it is important for me to not only heal myself, but to make sure that my brothers and sisters in the community also are able to heal because we don't live forever, but energy never dies. And so as long as we're able to keep the energy uplifted when we transition, we're still be doing the work, even outside of our bodies. So with that being said, the time is now. And if you don't know here in Oakland, California in the Bay Area, we've been dealing with the school's clothing. And the majority of the schools are some of the schools that I grew up with and in. And so this book has to deal with the injustices of schools and the abuse of power and authority when it comes to the school systems. Here we are. Hello, love culture, love illusionaries and level overs. Join me and my brothers on my stranger danger quest. It's anti bullying campaign to help keep keep us kids safe. Amy wants to help you have a voice. Always remember the three B's and they are one, be aware to be loud, three, be courageous, like me, issue me. I am your friend and child advocate. Together, we can change the hearts of evil doing adults. And so that is the back of the book. And I'm not going to take too much time with reading the book. But basically, this book has to do with a mother and son entrepreneurial family. And that is grappling with poverty and not choosing to live off of the government in any way, no food stamps, no welfare, no general assistance. So with us creating the books and telling our stories, we are able to generate money and able to pay our bills and we are also through the colonized Academy and the Pope poets and homefulness, able to sustain our mental stability and deal with our emotions to having a tool of sharing our story with others. And so this story, the last little bit, the reason why we wrote this story is because a man came on the kindergarten campus and told my son at the tender age of five, you've been a bad boy. I'm going to come back, take you and kill you. Well, this was a mistaken, a case of mistaken identity, which little black boys have to deal with and men have to deal with all the time and when you ask why are they scared of the police or have a problem with authority figures. It's because they've had situations and encounters with evil things like this that unfortunately corrupt them. So my son issue me had to deal with death threat, because he said I'm a comeback take you and kill you. He had to deal with a mistaken identity, because the man thought that my son had bullied his daughter, but the reality is, is my little boy just looked like every other little black boy. So no one should have to deal with this. And I dealt with this during the school district me and my children ended up being homeless behind this, and we were kicked out and alienated and we found ourselves to homelessness. And every sense we have been nurtured and we've been able to sustain and we don't deal with mental illness. And we have this book to tell our story and we also have it to share with others on how to deal with these types of situations. My name is I can do corn, a grieving yet breathing mother, I coined the word love evolutionary, because we are revolutionaries, but if we could take the RAP out and put the LOP in, I think our messages could go just a little bit more further. Thank you. And I just want to echo what Mama under candy corn said poor press is actually what we call underground economic strategy. So people can kick down money 100% of the proceeds go to poverty scholars as a micro business real talk again another revolutionary act of poor press, we don't make money at all on poor press. We as poor people make sure that our each other are taking care of so buy that book if you can it's a children's book just like the mom and me lived outside that I did an angel heart series of Children's book and the Roy Moore series of Children's book and brother multi others team Ali and there's more that we have a whole list of beautiful children's books that are made so that a protagonist can be houses indigenous poor, and we can also see ourselves as heroes and she rose. Anyway, having said that check out the beautiful. Thank you. Thank you so much and just so that they understand I did not write this book. Right. The five year old boy wrote the book and his brother was the illustrator and his deceased brother is the co author. So thank you so much. And with that, again, poor press dot net, you can get these beautiful books so come check them out a beautiful audience who's sitting with us in this liberation work, and we are going to bring in another sister warrior poverty scholar, who struggled with three count them poverty, false colonial borders, only to come to this stolen land and deal with poverty and homelessness and separation from her babies. She is the powerful the beautiful she wrote and mama and we're going to have translation by my brother with the silencio so please bear with us. This is also hard zoom struggle is real family. So he called almost Mote, Mote. Mute. I'm from Guatemala, I'm the mother of four children and the grandma of two grandchildren. And I'm a woman who lives in violence and domestic abuse. And I'm a survivor of violence and also specifically domestic violence. And I'm also fighting against poverty. And again, I'm still struggling with poverty. Now I can start to read, right? So now I'm going to share a paragraph of the book that I wrote. I'm going to read a little bit and I'm going to translate it. Can you teach me a little bit of the book? Can you show the book to me? Thank you. Okay, I'm going to read a little bit, right? Yes, so I'll read little by little. Okay. The words have so much power to build or destroy. The words have so much power in building or destroying. And more when one of those words come out of the mouth of one of your parents. I'm 45 years old. And at my age, I think it's still resentful or something to my father. Something to my father's day there when I was about nine years old. In the far away place from the city, what the only happiness, happiness sounds coming will be the birth chirping, chirping away. And again, the wind will make a sound as if I knew it would be playing. I was born and raised in a place where we had eight children and my parents. I was a very happy and loving child. As a child, I was very happy and very loved. I always thought that my father always loved me. The moment. Again, he will always, will hear me by the names. And I was one of the happiest child. At the age of seven, I met God even though I have never seen him. Again, I could feel his presence. Also, when I was a child, I would wear leather shoes. In my siblings, on the other hand, would use cardboard shoes or plastic shoes. And that's the first paragraph of my story in my book. Words have power to build and to destroy. Gracias a ustedes. Please support Ingrid, who like Audrey, like Lisa, like Angelheart, like all of us here. This is a micro business for poor people. Not only is it healing, not only is it powerful to be heard in our own voices with our own authorship and our own byline, but it's also a way for us to survive. Yo, nosotros amor tú, Ingrid, okay, gracias. Okay, we're gonna move to another powerful warrior, an amazing poet, a revolutionary, and a rock star of his own accord, my Bodhikha brother from another mother, Mr. Valvera. Take it away. Thank you, Tiny, thank you, appreciate it. Thank you to the San Francisco Public Library for creating this space. It's always an honor to share the digital space with so many wonderful artists. My book is entitled Crip Lyrics, The Unapologetic Poetry of Disability, and it is an illustrated collection of disability, culture, and liberation. So I will read one of the pieces of that book. It is entitled Creation. Look what you've done, what you've created. Quiet poster child turned Crip, unapologetic and jaded, shunned by able views, shaped by privileged views. Who he's supposed to be, where she's supposed to be, what there is supposed to be, a drain on society, a drain of silent compliancy. The irony, not in rebellious, proud and overzealous, expectations of us wilt like soggy lettuce. Did you forget us? Stigmatize, infantilize, menace the able society, surprised? Pounding this chest, King Kong, flexing his best, Crip Kong, change the stereotypes we carry that cross. Elegantly, flamboyantly, our culture is boss. Advocating, celebrating, graduating, legislating, aggravating, the status quo, educating, we reap what you sow. Motivating, revised above the low, our imagination wild, our ingenuity and style, venomous, ravenous, sensuous, a subtle guile. Look what you've done, behold, your invention, disabled and proud, ableism's creation. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. I just want to say, prep lyrics, follow him on all the digital streets, also a warrior for disability justice, a powerful artist and an amazing poet. We love you, Val. I love you too, thank you, everyone. All right, all right. And again, kick down that change if you got it. Get a copy of his book, please, forpress.net. Sister Angel Hart is putting in the actual direct links for all these books as well, thank you. So we're going to call out, without further ado, another warrior, poverty scholar, formerly houseless, badass from occupied Squaxon territory, AKA so-called Olympia, Washington, none other than the warrior, the chalker, the anti-police terror, warrior and just badass. Lisa Ganser, welcome to the home. Thank you so much, thank you so much, Tiny. It's so awesome to be at these events and be surrounded by so many awesome poets and writers. I'm grateful to be here. Thanks to the library, thanks to Kim Shuck. Thanks to all our ancestors. This is the book, this is my very first book ever. It's called, What's My Address? And it was written because of my family here with Poor Press and Poor Magazine. We met as a group and we published these six books that we're so excited about. This is mine, so I'm gonna read one piece from it called Escape to the Blueberries. This is my book, Escape to the Blueberries. For a while as a grownup, I'd run errands for my mom. I'd help her keep her birdcage clean, take out her garbage, make sure she had what she needed. I even bought her pot a few times. I could see that what she was getting wasn't right. I had grocery shop for her. It always took so long because her lists were all over the place and she'd send me into Cub, this big grocery store by Northtown Mall. Sometimes I'd pitch in a few bucks, get her things that weren't on the list. Special treats. I was trying to get her to eat less processed food and also not take away the choices she was making. She had a hard time keeping weight on, disabled and chronically ill. She got foods that were easy to make. They were organic blueberries on sale and they tasted delicious. So I got her a pint. When I got back to my mom's apartment, I had to rush off after putting away her groceries instead of sticking around like I usually would. Later, I saw she sent me a couple texts and also tried to call. Legs, I need to talk to you about the blueberries, she said. I was thinking, uh-oh, maybe she didn't know what to do with them or was upset because they were expensive. I texted her that I paid for them and I was sorry for getting the things not on the list. She said she couldn't text about it. She had to talk to me, so I called her. She told me a story the way she once in a while would, a vibrant colorful story of her childhood that was not about the trauma. It was the bomb for the trauma. Eating those blueberries straight from the package brought my mom back to the last time she remembered eating blueberries. Tears welled up in my eyes and the hair raised on my arms. I've always said that my mom was an unrealized poet and you know what? Maybe my favorite poet without ever having been published. I wrote this poem for my mom from her story. Please run free little girl, knock, need, summer breeze, Michigan by the water. Face and hand stay in purple, blue. Tell me so full, almost sick, you said. Running, laughing, escaped to the blueberries. You are healed. You are the sword you wield. You were meant to be exactly how you are right now, to be free. I wrote the following lyrics on the plane 10 days after Nomi's mom, Melinda, died. Nomi and I were on our way to so-called Coon Rapids to pull my mom off of life support. 10 days between two matriarchal deaths. Sometimes the tools we use, we choose to survive, take our lives. And I thought that you and I would have more time. Rest in power, mom. Sam Ganser, born in September 20th, 1951, left to join the ancestors on October 7th, 2017. Without her, I wouldn't have written this book. So thank you so much for listening and thank you. Eva, yay. Thank you. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you. Support them. And I just wanna give another shout out too to the warriors all up in so-called occupied Bellingham and Olympia, Stevie, and so many more sin because they are calling us up along with their ancestors and along with the First Nations peoples of those lands to actually launch another hopefulness. Again, like my brother Moot said, this is a template and it's really, we say, hopefulness to the world. So much, so much lovelies and everyone up there. So we wanna bring out without further ado another warrior, another indigenous poverty scholar who's doing a beautiful series of children's books to bring the real herstory of this colonized lands to our babies because we know what we are taught in these institutional schools. Welcome everyone, amazing, the beautiful Angel Hart. Hello, everyone. Thank you, Kim Shuck and the San Francisco Library for hosting us this evening. And for everyone attending, thank you for being here. My work with Secret Science Protection and Rights of Indigenous Tribes was about removing Native American mascots from public schools. And during that time, I found that teachers were looking for a supplemental education specifically around the mission systems and the projects of fourth graders are forced to do in that regard. So with the permission of the, from the traditional spokesperson of the Confederated Villages of LaShawn Carina-Gould, I was allowed to write the story of her people in the voice of her grandson, Kai. So my Kai series was last year, my first book was Orsay to Hey, My Name is Kai. And now this year I'm following it up, thankfully by a poor press and solidarity family and everyone that gives into the bank of community reparations. I was able to do Orsay to, I mean, Kai talks about the missions as a follow-up to Orsay to Hey, My Name is Kai. And I'm hoping that later on this year, I will be able to do a book about the shell mounts. So I'm gonna read from my book and I'm gonna start with the introduction. The truth about California missions and what his ancestors have went through and endured Kai tells his story. Inspired by the need for children to learn the truth about this land and with permission from Karina said before, this book was created as a sequel to Orsay to Hey, My Name is Kai. Orsay to Hey, It's Kai from Huichan. In the last book Orsay to Hey, My Name is Kai, I taught you that Orsay to Hey means good day. You may also remember that Huichan or Oakland, California is one of the territories me and my ancestors are from. The Loni have lived in Huichan and the East base is the beginning of time. We are First Nations peoples and protectors of the earth. And I'm gonna move further into the book, page 16. When Alonina was stolen to create California, some of the first laws made it illegal to be First Nations. California spent $1.4 million killing First Nations peoples. Colonizing settlers were given $5 for the head and 25 cents for the ears of Indians they killed Aloni Indians. Today, kids in a fourth grade history class learn about First Nations of the land that we now call California. Kids learn how my people used to dress, what we used to eat and how we used to live, not realizing that the Aloni are still here. Then when kids go to the fifth grade, they learn about the California gold rush and never hear or continue to learn about my ancestors anymore. My ancestors had to go into hiding and had to pretend they weren't Aloni so they could save their own lives. My Aloni ancestors stayed hidden for a very long time because they were afraid. The Aloni and elders were scared to talk about who they were as a people. My ancestors were afraid to avoid to jail for being Aloni. But now my grandma is working to save our shell mountain to get back our stolen land. She believes in truth telling and history and says, our people have always been here. My grandma honors our ancestors and so do I. I'm Kai and I'm proud to be a strong Lishan Aloni. Thank you again. Hello again. Woo! Again, support the sister warrior, Angelheart. Also, consider getting any and all of these books. If you're a teacher, if you're anywhere in front of children or adults or families or mamas or babies, these are curriculum. Again, as poor people, we also create curriculum because we don't have a piece of paper from an institution that says that we're scholars. We are poverty scholars and our scholarship is life. And our ancestors, our poetry and our prayer. So check out Beautiful Angelheart series, get it in your classroom, get it in front of your nephews and nieces and children and grandchildren and all the children's books that we have as well. So again, go on that same beautiful tip. We wanna bring in another warrior. My brother, my mom and these other son and an amazing poet, an artista, a warrior, a border resistor. The one and only. Multiado silencio presente, Michelejo. With this beautiful book, si, my love. Thank you, thank you, and again, it's just a blessing to be here with my comrades, poverty scholars from Fort Magazine. And again, for everyone who organizes space to utilize our words, our palabras, our art, which also, as we tell in these stories, we know there's healing behind it. It's one of the things that we appreciate here at Fort Magazine and also a direct show of resistance in the racist classes, published industry here in the US. Not only the US, but the majority across the world. And so, yes, you know, my book, Chimali, which is bringing some of the images in some of the aesthetics, different tries for Mexico. And really what I'm trying to do with this is bring some of these images. I also explained, you know, that this is not witchcraft, that this is not, you know, what we, that our ancestors prayed to was the water, was the sun, was to Mother Earth, to the wind. And just to spend a little bit more of what each concept of some of these images that we see like the Aztec calendar. And again, but also it is to expose some of the young generations to know about this art. This, even as we speak now, some of the indigenous art from Mexico was taken to museums in Vienna and different parts of Europe, which is still located in there. And so also I did a little writing, you know, to go with the book of the meeting behind it, to as an indigenous person coming from poverty and struggle, I didn't have the opportunity to go to any art institute or Academy of Art or have the privilege to do none of that. Which also this book and my art, I wanna challenge that, that I think as indigenous people who we plaster art in some of these pyramids, in some of these to call it still standing now that we don't need degrees from academia to be artists, to be writers and to be creators and to be dreamers. And so this is a little bit of what I wrote in the back. As an indigenous person from the Purepecha people of Michoacán, Mexico displays here in the United States in Wichin, my intention is to inspire indigenous people to take the brushes, the paintings, the mud and remember that we have our craftsmen. There are grand and great grandparents, abuelitos and abuelitos were architects, creators, craftsmen, and then again that we don't need to spend thousands of dollars in schools or academies to be recognized as artists. Then we bring the art in our veins and then we just have to connect what our roots, what our abuelitos, what our ancestors and with the memory of our people. Yes, thank you again for magazine, San Francisco Public Library and all the folks who create these places and these assume me for us to share our stories, our palabras and our words. Thank you. I just wanna again do another shout out for Mutz and Angel Hart, for Lisa Gancer, for Valvera, for Ingrid de Leon, for Audrey Candycorn and for my brother Dee Allen who has a whole beautiful book as well on the Porepress site and is humbly helping us and standing with us but also as an amazing poet as well as Francis Moore, Auntie Francis, but yeah, check these books out. Montiado is humble but those are original art that he painted, Cimales are a shield and that's what he did. So those artwork that he has in there, that's his artwork and it's very beautiful. And now we're gonna bring on the last 2022 Porepress author to the mic. But before I do that, I wanna acknowledge the Alameda Poet Laureate just stepped into the Zoom room. Ms. Kimmy Sugiyoka. Wee! Thank you so much. And nomadic press author, Norma Smith. Oh my dear, so much. And the last author that's gonna come up to the mic will be the editor-in-chief of Porepress herself, Tani. And she's gonna be promoting her new book, The Sidewalk, Montiado. Yes! Babri Scala! But as all of my family know, there's no chiefs over here family. We all co-edited the co-madre and the co-scholar and I have to shout out my mama for without Humber being all us. Mamadi Iwaye, a broken, terrorized Afro-Boriqua sister whose body and life was destroyed by the time she was three years old. That's an unprotected child. Again, we're looking at people when they on the street, as I say in my opening poem, and people perpetrate what I call the violent act of looking away because they just can't deal with that. They can't deal with the homeless problem. So they'd rather see a swept, swept hygienic metaphor like with trash. And I wanna lift that up when we talk about this because the whole point of The Sidewalk Motel, homes and a postionary, that's my poor people dictionary from a poverty scholar because I do like to mess with the colonial language that wasn't ours to begin with. They determine who can speak, who has byline privilege based on how well you can speak their imposed language. So I'm gonna hopefully read two pieces here. One of them, because Dr. Quayar Falsay started us out. This is a poem in honor of him. Luis Rodriguez, another PO of mine, and my mamadi. Angel baby, my angel baby. The lowrider lecture presents his thesis on the backseat of a Chevy in Pala. The words sail through the sky and out the narrow institutional school windows. Refusing to be caught by the mandate of white supremacist tests. The story that only some people can be teachers and others are set for a rest. The cholo doctor has left today is behind his name that sway and sashay to the sounds of war and thank you, Vale. When I hear the cholo doctor, my corazon skips a beat because he teaches that the knowledge is within us. Our corazones, our almas, puro amor, our hands, our feet, our work, our struggle, la vida loca and the institution can meet. The cholo doctor brings medicine to the minds of all of us caught in the trauma of colonization and regoriant time. To my boniqua ghetto, fabulous mama who was told she was nothing and could be nothing and no matter what refused to believe that he realized the cholo doctor is your mama. Your uncle, your tío, your abuelita, your street corner preacher, your gardener, your dishwasher and lives in your own mind. The lowrider lecturer delivers lecturas and poesía and música and prayer and dreams. The lowrider lecturer is busy. He and she are mixing their trajectories and developing their newest cannons while they wash your dishes, mow your lawn and make your burrito with beans. They are having their think tanks and their test prep sessions in front of the Home Depot. And if you wanna pass the test called life, you better listen carefully to their lecturas because they don't have time to repeat them or say them twice. Between holding down three and four jobs, caregiving for your baby, struggling with false borders and fake notions of who is a scholar and who is a teacher for life. Omadeo, Mamadi, Omadeo to all my fellow poverty scholars. Luis Tamage burned alive for sleeping outside in San Francisco. Luis Dmitry Gongudapatt, killed by a 3-1-1 call because someone wanted to help him and all they needed to do is let him be. Omadeo. Stop the sweeps, family. Recognize we all have right to these stolen streets. So I'm gonna ask my beautiful sister Kim Shuck to end us on a poem tonight. Seems a little forced, except that this poem showed up in my Facebook memories just the other day. And it's about a friend that I made who was sleeping on the streets and then who died about a year later. But this was our story. We are so gentle with one another, maybe because I spoke to you the first time we met with your collection of essential, mysterious things that you carry everywhere and the look of an addict when you asked if I had cigarettes and I don't. I haven't for over 22 years now, something about having babies or possibly that I never really loved it myself aside from something to do with my nervous fingers. But I had found a lighter on the way down the hill and you can have that. And then this morning, a morning full of home of levels, not quite right of not being able to help of a mistake I see coming and I can't get out of the way of. And you stopped me and handed me a single earring with a bead carved for luck. Asked me if I could use it. And yes, I don't know your name but I can use that bead. And I hope that the lighter works and that you either manage a cigarette today or learn to do without those gentle hands reaching through what might be a barrier between us and to suspected shared humanity. I'll take that luck and I'll thank you for it. Thank you so much. Beautiful. That's from 10 years ago. Just sort of popped up on my feet. I am so grateful that you guys came and shared this time with us. I'm just gonna reiterate again to people. Check out, Poor Press. The books are really good. Tiny's book is incredible. We sort of not spoken about this. D'Allan didn't read tonight really, but he's got a new book coming out. Yeah, but I did. I'm absolutely hopeful in this hand. You did, you did. You didn't read from your new poetry book that's coming out though. I'm just saying, I'm outing you. I know it's not part of Poor Press. Anyway, go ahead, please. This year in 2022, I have not only released not one, but two new poetry books. And they both premiered in the same week. My sixth book, Rusty Gallows, Passages Against Hate, was released on Tuesday, February 1st. And my seventh book, Plans, was released on last Saturday, February 5th on Nomadic Press. Oh my God. Check it out. Just saying, there's a lot of talent here tonight. And I thank you so much. Thank you to John Snowley and the San Francisco Public Library for just letting me do and invite the people that I feel like hearing. I really enjoyed you guys tonight. Thank you. And I just, you guys are heading up to Washington? That's where my little girl died. So offer a prayer for me, please, when you get up there. Hold it down, for sure. Yeah, that's where we lost my baby. So anyway, take care. Good night, everybody. Be blessed. Goodnight. Goodnight. Thank you so much. Thank you to all the warriors who are here with us. It means so much. Thank you so much.