 You're going to want to know. Okay. Perfect. All right. That's two minutes till showtime. Okay. I'll wait. I'll send a greeting to people letting them know we'll start in a couple minutes. I Nicole, I see you here. Nicole, can you unmute yourself and just say a word so we know your mic's working. Word. Right. Perfect. Thanks. I'm going to quickly try to practice sharing my screen because I just realized I took the update of Microsoft and I just want to make sure I can do it. Try it right now. And then after that will. Can you guys see this? Yeah. Looks good. Yay. All right. It's almost. Almost two o'clock. So I'm going to press the record button. And everything hence forward will be recorded. I'm going to let folks in. Hi, everybody, and welcome to dispatches from quarantine. My name is Alexandra Costulus. I'm the editor of. Of this. Publication and I'm the founder of the SF creative writing institute. And I started dispatches from quarantine, sort of in the middle of the night. At the early part of the quarantine, just like in March. March 15th. And then I was like, what do I do? And so I started, I just decided to start blogging again. I was a blogger. 10 years ago. And then I stopped. And then I just thought, well, let me blog again. And I, I researched blog names and I thought, I'll call it dispatches from quarantine. And so I bought a domain. Dispatches. From quarantine. And so I bought a domain. Dispatches from quarantine.co. Because it was a dollar. It was a cheaper than.com. So that's why it's.co. And, and then I just started writing my thoughts and, and they were kind of late night anxious sort of writer ravings and sort of meandering worries that became art. And as a writer, I feel like this is the time where it's kind of, it's all happening so fast and things are moving in such a quick direction, but we have to, we have all these things to say, and it's important to write them down. So then I, I turned it into an, an open call for submission and I asked writers I knew to send in work and then put it out into the universe. And, and people sent in work and, and then we published them. And so we, here we are. I'm writing, I'm writing my thoughts and feeling like I'm, I'm a writer. I'm writing my thoughts and feeling like I'm almost a year into the quarantine. And it's, I have having all sorts of feelings about it. I don't, I don't know if you are, but. There's a lot of. You know, weird, sort of tumultuous feelings going on in the last year. Some good, some bad, mostly bad. And, and, and sort of all, I've been noticing that the writers, I know, and the writers in my classes, time we're writing I taught a class everybody wrote about their regrets at the beginning of the quarantine like everybody was kind of locked inside thinking about the regrets of their lives and then you know and then other things people you know then there were all the civil unrest people wrote about that there was Trump and the inauguration and the protests and the six so we've been kind of the riots and six so we've been kind of chronicling the dispatches as they come in we've got 50 published we have about 100 more submissions in the pipeline which we're going to get up in the next in the coming weeks and we invite you to submit as well if you're really if you're watching email is submissions at dispatchesfromquarantine.co and I'd like to introduce our first reader first with us we have Paul Corman Roberts Paul Corman Roberts is an instructor at SF creative writing institute he's published five poetry books and his newest one is coming out in binaumatic press and 2021 it's called Bone Moon Palace Paul Corman Roberts read us your quarantine poems I do I do have quarantine poems this is uh this is called uh American American steel silver syringe seeks sweet spot in that crook where your naked shoulder and sleek neck come together and scream for a warm and wet slickening of salivatory supplication cream and salvation right after the shutter a new kind of prayer a new kind of immunity and then this one is one that appeared in dispatches from quarantine as Alexander was just talked about this called in the sanatorium in the sanatorium everything is made out of lies I mean everything the sheets the wallpaper the counters the desks the wall clocks the beds the trays the vital monitors the ventilators the food the clothing the floors all the words on all the forms and brochures all the words that come out of the mouths of the doctors and attendants and administrators and yes even the patients no one lies more than the patients even the devices that manufacture the lies are made out of lies in here lies make up the fabric of reality so that in the sanatorium the truth is a hidden and mysterious thing so rare and precious that it is the most beautiful and dangerous thing anyone can imagine possessing even as I write this the axis and the allies the Nazis and the socialists yes even the union and the confederacy are in a desperate race against each other and the clock not only to possess this truth but more critically to prove to the rest of the world that they really do possess this truth so rest assured we are going to be here for a while um just two more short poems um this poem is entitled to the older Bosnian man in a velour tracksuit smoking a cigarette beneath hooded eyes in front of the surfside palms apartment complex this afternoon I swear to god I wasn't staring at you and that poem is dedicated to joe landmine and I will conclude with this poem called easy bake apocalypse a hard crack rings out to my right a very large corvid 19 sits there glaring at me they have broken a thick branch off a beach bramble near the top of a small dune and hold it in their beak 72 inches between us we stare each other down for a hard few moments and then they lift off into the stiff bay breeze a long curved overhead arc that makes me nervous enough to flip my dubs hoodie up I think about how I had been set up for my first successful April poetry challenge 30 poems to be written in 30 days it was coming in a preset pandemic mode there's no way I wouldn't nail it but once more I will settle for something less something clumsy and awkward but perhaps no less wrenching in this soon to be romantic age the days we were always talking about how to begin social encroachment how to violate boundaries to get themselves a bigger stick the days we have always talked about sift through our fingers and minds a distant echo of a giddy laugh that was once nearby this is all gentler and softer than it has a right to be the days we always talked about flapping about our crowns and ears and we wonder where our hats and hoodies went the days we always talk about have been replaced by talk of newer days to come my favorite elephants get up off the couch and step up to the plate only to lay their bats down and shuffle off mumbling these newer days are cobbled together with the more ephemeral sand than we have ever sunk our fingers and toes and heads into before mud flats and kites litter the quarantined beachfront and yet children joyously skipping and sprinting from muddy sandbar to muddy sandbar at low tide like a swarm of miniature pioneers staking out little homesteads on a large lakefront not unlike the not unlike the way any beach looks right before a tsunami ripples through these days are the good old days I think the holla is stale enough now let's make french toast for dinner thank you everyone yay thank you for reading and for being our first reader I'm gonna post the order in the chat and it's nice to see people in the audience too and it makes us feel like we're really together which is great but if you get tired of being in the audience and you just want to listen you can also go to the youtube live stream and and that's fine too okay introducing our next reader our next reader is Dana rod Dana rod is a non-binary poet who writes to illuminate their experiences in the iranian american diaspora and queer communities through creative non-fiction essays and poetry their debut poetry collection scattered arles is forthcoming from milken cake press in may 2021 without further ado Dana rod hi there thank you so much for having me um most of these poems I'm reading today are all written in quarantine and they are modeled after promped by winter tangerine that envisioned um write a missing case report for something you have lost so I will be sharing these missing case reports with you today of what we have missing or have lost during quarantine missing craving surprises runaway yes it chased itself down the street with no known aliases I no longer expect nor want surprises only a sure step against the earth any scars marks tattoos or piercings only a line in its forehead from a needle scratch 10 years ago from sitting up too fast in bed when shadows flew in too close case number 081999 missing the pleasure that comes from the pressure of bodies against your own in the dark base pulsing sweat sticking last seen at new year's eve shrieking amongst its kingdom as it waved through the party any aliases the feeling of your body next to mine blanket wrapping not unlike fog 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 absorbing each fleck into a thick paste we stop and start rested 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 missing shame my mother gave it to me and I lost it amongst the fire of the sun it weighed down my kneecaps worse than heavy cream whipped and frothed into a kiss nursed into a knot dogged against my collarbone where warmth bloomed shame chain smoked impulsively into a cloud condescended to guilt on its way out jewelry worn simply two drops of sun hanging from its ear lobes this next poem is called save what dates tea timed next to the sink drink with a spoon still clinking in mug I try to piece together our lives with a needle carved from butter melting in my hands much like my face under your mouth I'll leave you with this one last poem it's responding to the last four lines of sam sacks's poem on prep or on prayer when I say pre exposure prophylaxis the last four lines say you know each new medicine trails are dead behind it like wedding cans listen you can hear them now can't you trials I hear the cans ask what do we learn from the dead our doctors before they were doctors crept into graveyards at night unearthed bodies to dissect and slice into unclaimed flesh less than planned by autopsy every day we're learning from our dead if they're still infectious with rear mortis can they share their organs with the living walk a test tube a genotype split with a second strain that couldn't kill alone but rather intubated complicity down a larynx as systems shut down no reset button to power back on a sharp prevalence of the question cause of death natural or accident what's the severity of this loss other than a magnitude of learning potential is the lesson to never take that lash falling on your cheek the heat of freshly brewed tea against a sore lip for granted we can't look in the rearview mirror leaning into every new day leaving trails of salt with cans dragged through we hear the cans my name is dinner rod thank you so much for having me and my book will be out may 2021 from milkin cake press thank you thank you very much Dana if you're just tuning in this is dispatches from quarantine i'm alexandra costulus and this is a san francisco creative writing institute project co-sponsored with the sf public library we've got four poet laureates reading with us today former and current i think three two of them were named poet laureate after sending us work so they have good luck from from dispatches has sent them good luck our next reader is one of the poet laureates georgina marie is the current poet laureate for lake county california and the first mexican-american to serve in this role georgina sent in one of the earlier dispatches along with dana that we published in dispatches from quarantine um earlier early and on in the pandemic welcome georgina marie thank you alexandra thanks for having me i actually thought i would read my dispatch if that's all right and i'll do it with my poem it was lovely i hope you do thank you so this is dispatch 11 and i'll follow with my poem cold gin and a pandemic i'm writing this on monday april 27th 2020 and i had to google when the shelter in place in my town began it was march 19th the days have been blurring together so fiercely that i seemed to forget when all of this began two of my sisters often said that terrible things happen in threes my beloved cat clad passed away on february 18th my estranged father passed away on march 18th bringing up years of unresolved conflict and now the shelter in place order since march 19th there is always a pause in my writing when unsettling events occur i'm human after all and can't always be swept away by the romance of poetry despite my hope that being a human and a poet can be interchangeable on october 8th 2018 i jotted down a note in my iphone that read seems like every time a new trauma hits i can't bring myself to even read poetry i don't know the psychology of it but it makes me sad this was after my sister died my dog died and i was evacuated from a wildfire writing poetry is my passion but even reading a poem at that point in time made me sick to my stomach but this time the terrible threes made me feel different it may be resilience built from the last round of devastations it could be that some of the discomfort was balanced with the excitement of being appointed poet laureate in my county it could be a sense of responsibility i have as i continue to work full-time for a non-profit organization serving low-income families in need or it could be the impressive impressive amount of poets and writers who are coming together from a distance during this time to continue supporting each other with online readings workshops or by posting poems and articles and pictures of cats and flowers on social media we're all in this together all of this combined keeps me going like many others this period of time is offering me a new offering me new days of self-reflection i think about how loss has shaped me as a woman and writer how these new losses in this new phase of my life will shape my personal evolution in months or years to come how i want my long-term goals to happen fast like publishing a full-length collection of my poems or submitting more of my poems to literary publications or should i say being accepted by those publications but if there were a time where goals and productivity could be put on hold and we can just be it's now we can grieve we can panic we can remain calm we can laugh we can cry we can look forward to voting in 190 days for reasons i don't need to explain we can stay busy or we can be leisurely all of it is okay and all of it is valid there is no wrong way to cope so long as it doesn't harm anyone this is not to say we can't aren't also acting with kindness while thinking of essential workers thinking of our healthcare workers on the front lines working tirelessly or taking a moment of silence for those who are losing their lives to this virus so i've been trying to write in the margins with my aim being to not place too much expectation on myself reminding myself that it's okay to be productive but it's okay to not be too the best thing we can do is to take care of ourselves and by keeping distant if we have the privilege of doing so we're taking care of others too it's okay to work eight hours in a day then do absolutely nothing afterward or go lie in the sun on the dining room floor with my dog and cat and read a few pages of a book or maybe to not even read or to not write at all but to lie on the couch with my animals and stare at the wall if i'm so inclined or write a sad poem and not feel any bit of shame or embarrassment for writing yet another sad poem such as this one cold gin and a pandemic a swig of fresh lime squeezed over ice san francisco's junipera gin with the garnish soothes the overwhelm of more bad news and sudden heat what i learned at home today the length of estrangement becomes short in comparison to the weight of regret 100 more days of solitude a poet's irony bare white walls wait with open hearts to catch our size how much i miss my father now that he is dead toss back tonic water with an extra kick catch the sun warming the side of my face through the glass door into the dining room now a reflection of how many years have passed how the idea of a father became a ghost how a ghost haunted me into adulthood how adulthood became a poem always in the works how poems became home how hard it is to live inside this one thank you so much and i can't believe it's been almost a year since that dispatch was written no that was a beautiful poem and i'm sorry about your dad thank you for reading it and the bravery to read that kind of stuff thank you that i i love all your work let's keep it going dispatches from quarantine i'm gonna share briefly share my screen so you get a sense of our our our website anyone that's watching and is curious about it let's see usually we have a home page but we i changed it so that oh i guess it came back i i put all the oh something happened well here's the web here's the web page and it's basically we have different phases shelter in place the movement the reopening the surge the lockdown 2.0 the vaccine and these are just you know pictures i took around san francisco we probably could use some better ones if you have any submissions and you want to send them to us that would be great you can just send us your dispatch here on the website and then our blog for some has all of the submissions on there we've got 50 up so and we're going in order so they're kind of they're going in order of the quarantine and we started in april or you know publishing them and we sort of ended in december and then we're we've still got more so however you want to send them there's no deadline uh you're welcome our next reader is um danlyn dan linley uh dan linley is an sf-based comedian writer performer and lover of everything fire truck related and he thinks beaches are overrated um so without further ado dan linley thanks everybody great job all the readers before um i wrote this in june 2020 and it's called my pandemic life frankly i thought a global pandemic would be a lot more fun this is the most boring worldwide health crisis ever i always thought something that completely disrupts the world in every considerable way would be like the walking dead going on missions of survival and adventures to save family and friends while always being a little grimy and sweaty but nope all we do is sit around watching screens and being terrified of standing next to somebody my daily mission of survival is going to wall greens to buy gum while not exciting or dangerous at all i still bring my my crossbow it is wall greens after all it's frustrating to live in a time that is both boring and weird i never associate boredom and weirdness those two adjectives exclusively cancel one another out this is like having a talking dog but the only thing the dog wants to talk about is soup everyone is drinking too much posting way too much on social media and watching too much news also masturbation i want to see my friends when i see my friends i immediately regret seeing my friends what am i seeing my friends for there's nothing to do and there's nothing to talk about we just talk about how dull and frustrating life is these conversations are dull and frustrating in normal times my friends and i had stories and experiences to exchange because we all had lives we all have we all lived lives an exchange of stories and anecdotes about our daily lives is a good conversational foundation days don't really exist anymore so who cares thursdays feel like mondays and there's no difference between eight a.m and three p.m there's no stories to exchange because none of us are doing anything my reflections on my comfy new flip flops is really a story that can sustain conversation my most interesting story from the past two weeks is a brief altercation i got into with a woman at a burrito shop about our wildly different definitions of extra cilantro i go for a lot of walks these days in my really boring neighborhood there's nothing to look at or take in there's no crazy people to watch and wonder about there's just sidewalks and people avoiding each other i don't really mind that actually usually if someone crosses the street when they see me approaching i take it personally now i just take it socially everyone is avoiding each other in a zigzag formation it's like a terrible game of dodgeball but no one ever wins and every person is a ball to be dodged everyone is so terrified of being outside in this era taking a walk is tantamount to losing your tether while on a spacewalk i've named every tree on my way on my walk to the wall grains in the sign of confusion and uncertainty i look to our authorities for information i do so foolishly and with without any positive feelings afterwards the president is an idiot of almost impossible proportions he speaks to behaves in a manner that suggests he can't possibly exist outside of mad magazine he's like a general that gives long rambling poorly articulated soliloquies about strength and superiority during a war while his soldiers are being picked off by snipers on live tv he's like a decrepit garbage hand who's sort of learned how to speak his hand moving steering his speeches are almost hypnotic if the hypnotist was an exquisitely stupid robot he constantly moves his hands back and forth over the podium like an accordion player who doesn't know how to play the accordion or pronounce Minneapolis maybe the worst thing about the pandemic is the fact that he's here for it our media isn't doing anything to help us out the media is like a 24 hour televised haunted house with attractive women and distinguished men leading us down hallways plus sports and weather the media exists solely to keep us afraid and fully aware aware of how bad things are yes things are bad but gee whiz hasn't someone adopted a puppy lately has no girl scout hit her cookie quota no one has a parrot that does a great Charles Barkley impression can we see something on the news that's positive there has to be some positivity coming from all this tragedy the air is cleaner people are slightly nicer traffic is almost non-existent the reduction of traffic makes the pandemic a jaywalkers dreamland can the media please take pandemic lemons and reports and pandemic lemonade the face mask situation is controversial I don't know why just put on a goddamn mask it's not a big enough deal to fight about be angry with someone who doesn't like pickles or people who still wear cargo pants those are arguments that make sense eat your pickles buy some chinos wear a mask no one loves wearing these masks at the time I had a very substantial beard if outside and wearing sunglasses and I use old school wired earbuds none of these make wearing a mask any fun putting on a taking a mask taking off my mask is like trying to remove spider webs from my face while underwater everything's getting tangled my glass fall off my face my phone catches on fire I hate way wearing a mask but I don't want to kill accidentally kill anyone's Nana I was on a city bus last week and I realized I had forgotten my mask the looks of hatred and disdain from the other passages felt like a sunburn I was reviled I covered my mouth and nose with the top of my jacket like some kind of public transportation vampire this is a terrible time and everyone's sad people have died we're all stuck indoors or on walks with friends with us nothing to talk about aside from how terrible things are no one is happy and no one's doing anything I'm more miserable than usual and so are all of my friends time is frozen that we're all still getting older that seems unfair but that's where we're at I feel like I'm in suspended animation but I'm still losing my hair every day to prevent my brain from turning to mush I think of games to play I've assigned personality types to all of my toes left ring toes the one that calls when it's drunk just to argue when really he's just projecting his own feelings of inadequacy right pinky toe is actually the reincarnation of Dom Delouise but he doesn't make a big deal out of it I've taken to despising my roommate just to feel something mainly because he performed zoom karaoke karaoke shows at our dining room table a designated common space in our lease the fact that my signed lease was printed on a dollar store brand paper towels seems irrelevant still don't do karaoke in a common space or don't do karaoke my pending eviction aside my favorite game is to count everything in my bedroom of a certain color it's therapeutic kills time and rests firmly at the bottom of the barrel of fun from my desk chair I can see 51 blue things I'm saving red for Wednesday and green for Friday I want to space out the insane adrenaline rush of this game I feel trapped and bored and looking towards a future that is going to be very strange only rival by how strange now is is we live in a threatening time with leaders who have their heads so far up their asses they can actually check their own lungs for COVID people hate mass wears almost as much as the masked hate the mask list we live in a time history will call the newest stupidest civil war brothers torn torn apart over whether or not to wear a mask at a gas station I can't wait for the ken burns documentary about this emotional footage of a dude in a raiders jersey mask list calling a friend wearing a personalized SF giants mask in a safe way a sellout for wearing that mask it will make for a fantastic documentary especially with a sepia filter that's it thank you for reading I I was laughing and then I realized I was on mute but I hope you saw that we were laughing it's hard to read the room when you're doing comedy as we've mentioned but in zoom but yeah I saw giggles so just oh cool yeah yeah it was funny and thank you so much guys when you sent it I didn't get the humor I was like oh this person serious about the crossbow taking it I'm tired of any kind of weapon projectile I don't know crossbow I don't have a gun none of that so yeah I was kidding but at the time I didn't know yes but it was between their own okay our next reader I don't know if he's here but he comes from far away so it may be that there's a time difference Nadaba Sabonda are you here and if so please identify yourself or say something unmute yourself Nadaba Sabonda okay if if he comes later we'll slot him in and if you're if you're watching this and Nadaba there's a there's a zoom that you should log into and we don't see him in the room so he published in our in dispatch as he comes from Zimbabwe and and it might be a time difference issue because I know it's 10 hours I think it's 10 out there 10 hours ahead so he might it might have been a time thing but if if if he comes back at a later point he can jump in and read no problem you're listening dispatches from quarantine I'm Alexandra Costulus and the editor of dispatches and this is the SF creative writing institute's project and in partnership this reading is in partnership with the San Francisco public library and I'd like to introduce our next reader and her name is Jan Holliday Jan Holliday has lived in San Francisco since 1988 an illustrator and a preschool teacher she started writing three years ago hi okay and so this I wrote from sitting in my back garden it's the stay at home order so she sat legs crossed under the willow tree unseen absorbing the signs of here and now the man three doors down came out on his upper deck with a false illusion that he was alone invisible sucked down in his own vortex his shoulders hunched over trembling the pandemic's bony finger had stretched out and touched each being in some way on the other side of the fence at her back she heard the chicka boom chicka boom boom of the boy who was practicing his drums boom boom boom chicka boom pulsating joy his brother played air guitar use invincibility she stretches her torso leaning her head backwards face up towards the warmth of the sun like the resting cat on the top of the fence it's deep throaty pear rumbles through the air he unfolds himself arches his back before chasing a squirrel down the line of back fences next door to her right the high pitch scream of a baby softens to the soothing lullaby hummed with love as mother hides her fraying edges dad is mowing the grass filling the air with the sweet scent that draws in early summer do you know why snails make slime trails asks the three year old laying on the edge of the grass that has already been cut it's the way they find it's how they find their way home the dad laughs softly at the question and explanations of a three year old she could smell the charcoal of burning toast as the diagonal to red flows out the kitchen window you burnt the toast you burnt the toast again who burns toast burnt toast and burnt bacon the smells of childhood when it was her father's turn making breakfast before she go to school why do you always burn my toast the old lady had dementia and could never remember putting the bread into toast or how many times she had actually toasted the single slice of bread but he still expected her to make his lunch that was her job this old lady could not remember how many times she had toasted the single slice of bread or how many times this old shit had shouted at her she only saw the young man that she had married last week hello the shite came from the other side of the fence and brought her thoughts back to under the willow tree she saw the wobbling top of his head rising up until she could see his eyes looking over the top of his fence and didn't want to scare you he laughs and just trying to cut back the jasmine the energetic tendrils were flailing in the breeze trying to hook and trying to hook and twist to anything that they could capture I got oops I've got to find something to do he looked towards the base of the ladder that he was standing on and his wife he was holding tightly onto it isn't that right honey that's right she called up over the fence they had bought the house six months ago they had gotten married four months ago and they should have gone on honeymoon three months ago their bags were packed and everything and they had arranged for the cat sitter and just the day before they meant to leave for the airport the travel ban was put in place she liked them although they were the new folks on the block they fit it right in she always felt lucky to live on this block from the first day that she had moved in over 20 years ago and was the new folks on the block she sat up and walked towards him as he snipped snipped snipped the jasmine to have almost a face-to-face conversation are you sure you don't want me to cut it from this side of the fence it might be easier no it's okay they answered in unison then laughed we're clearing the garden um sorry we're clearing the garden a bit so that we can put the tent up he added they had decided that they couldn't go on honeymoon and they had to stay at home they would give themselves the gift of mini home adventures this weekend they would put up the tent make s'mores on their barbecue sleep under the stars and pretend to be in a far off desert island she smiled to herself as she turned to walk away thinking i hope they don't mind that the busy hubbub these gardens become at night when night time falls a warren of wildlife her phone vibrated at the same time singing out by the seaside a reminder that lunchtime is over back to work she gathered up her things from where they sat on the grass and she walked up the stairs back inside to the temporary desk that she had set up sorry i've just dropped the last picture that she set up the temporary desk that she had set up in the kitchen away from the not so quiet solitude of the garden to the virtual reality this new world that she found herself in beautiful thank you thank you for reading and um i just wanted to um um congratulate all of our readers you guys are doing a great job and um we have some uh i i just posted the next uh sort of batch of readers and just so get everyone knows what to expect um and um while you were reading i got a text from my cousin who lives in a different state who's like we've been snowed in we're trapped inside i was like you should tune in to youtube s of public library your whole family can watch um dispatches from quarantine so hopefully my cousin my cousin's name is also yorgos um just like our next reader so serendipity um uh so hopefully yorgos you're listening and um and our next reader is yorgos an agnostu um let me read a little bit about him yorgos an agnostu is a professor at the Ohio state university he is the author of two poetry collections experimenting with the greek and english bilingualism without further ado yorgos an agnostu thank you for having me i will be reading an essay which i wrote in the summer of 2020 and the essay tries to bring together two urgencies of that period the pandemic and the quest for racial justice the perspective is one from uh an immigrant from europe and an aging person who is classified as particularly vulnerable to the pandemic i will be sharing the text i with you so you will have both the written word and the voice so i will be doing this and here we go so those of us the other day asked for a collective there are those of us who immigrated to this country with next to nothing and now find ourselves accomplished the american dream is imprinted on our bodies the endless labor the immense overtime the never-ending exhaustion the sacrifices in our relentless all-consuming investment in the work ethic those of us who arrived with almost nothing and have experienced socioeconomic mobility the benefits that the social structure extended to us we intimately know we were largely spared the specter of discrimination the norm the normative ones with minor scratches mostly granted privileges exclusively reserved from immigrants from europe no one speaks about the multiple breaks we received our collective secret and those of us successful immigrants the fellow immigrants who achieved alternatively we recognize highly qualified professionals who opted to live modestly rather than partake in cutthroat and ethical practices rather than play the game hard-working individuals excluded even expelled from the ruthless labor market devoted instead to non-glamorous underpaid jobs independent researchers free lunch writers artists caregivers those of us we acknowledge fellow immigrants both those of the past and our contemporaries whose work ethic parallel hours together successes were derailed by the political and the corporate establishment by speaking up against social injustices pioneers in defending democratic political principles they paid dearly for rocking the boat some with our lives we honor louis ticas others marginalized outcasts we remember those persecuted by McCarthyism and those by a less sanctioned but nevertheless insidious system those of us who had nothing yet accomplished something we whisper among ourselves about those things we so well know our failures all these great failures we dare not confess even to ourselves our triumphs our silences our quiet dreams those of us the post 1970s greek-american immigrants aging in the suburbs aging period what what was it all about we ask in the age of the pandemic when questions of mortality press the question forces itself what was it all about there is no ethnic story to represent us no diaspora identity story either in the age of heritage sugar coated ethnic stories outrage us the pride in struggling success exhaust us ages us so tiring infuriating in its inattention on its refusal in fact to recognize how it harms people who have been struggling struggling generation after generation with an eye on the price to only be stepped on degraded killed by insidious systems what to do our wrinkles look at each other knowingly us what is next next to us and far away others who made it differently others the dissidents others who resisted others who were destroyed others who were destroyed others alternatives others the forgotten people non-normative others greek-americans of various colors accents styles shades here in Greece in other diasporas with those who are dehumanized unfairly persecuted in solidarity us what is next we know to name not an identity not a culture but to assert a position speak historically about us about others about those in the past and those in the present this speaking makes a collective animates the other diaspora collective an alliance of relevance they work for this accomplishment our words our public stance our directive this doing i would call a matter of substance a badge of pride there are those of us others thank you thank you yorgos an agnostic i'm sorry i said your name with the wrong pronunciation the one greek on the actually there's two greeks on here the the i and i mispronounced your last name i apologize but yorgos an agnostic beautiful writing and beautiful essay about the diaspora i think a lot of us are thinking about diasporas right now and especially Greece is having its own not related to this essay because it happened later but the it's having its own me too movement right now which is hitting the press with the in their own entertainment and theater and arts industry it's interesting that's another interesting thing to notice okay our next reader without further ado is holly hardy let me find my bios i've navigated away from them here they are holly hardy is a poet educator and award-winning author of how to take a bullet and other survival poems she's also an instructor for san francisco creative writing institute and she runs the popular writing series saturday night special without further ado holly hardy thank you alexandra it's a pleasure to be here with all these amazing luminary writers i'm going to read three poems the first two are dispatch number 37 from dispatches from quarantine a murmuration of starlings in the city's protesters break quarantine and windows expressing moral outrage like a choreographed ballet at 45 your mother asks you to move home so she can keep you safe i take all day to summon the courage to swim across the river where the late afternoon sun warms the rocks a mother's job is to worry because we cannot escape the river we cannot escape the president his omnipotent lies and beguiling teeth gleam like wolves in the twitter light harks the darkening view from my apartment television blue skyline rearranging a racial hierarchy at hospitals dressed in death water is stronger than rocks times carving knife ripples and recedes in its own image patient a river shaped handprint at midnight the landlord has summoned to clean up mountains of cardboard boxes so they cannot be burned by protesters like us we enjoy the sight of his labors from behind closed shades today a rocket launches two astronauts into space escaping gravity but not quarantine on the ground a handsome reporter tears up and turns away in another life i wonder what kind of bird i might be built for speed or distance solitary or gregarious i want to join a migration a murmuration of starlings an acrobatic aerial display on the drive to the river we play i'm going on a trip you bring an andel and a parachute because the laws of attraction supersedes the laws of physics in the morning the scent of you coffee and earth the promise of rain the weight of your body next to mine means you are still here means i am not alone slow motion upon a pallid landscape days slide nameless into weeks tuesday tantamount to saturday we wake up in fragments hours later than we meant the sound of hammering is loud at the epicenter of change we linger in dreams follow kinks in the hose pick fruits and flowers that don't belong to us happiness resembles a fickle flitting bird because quarantine is equivalent to quagmire we build a new vocabulary for togetherness a private lexicon for latchkey adults a grist of sodium chloride we eat chocolate at midnight because feelings are so emotional we learn to breathe in protest through our own homemade voluntary bindings but forget to hydrate we let wind quench our thirst cooling and tangling everywhere light lands lush with texture along the forbidden trail waves burst around us around rocks like wings poison oak blooms at our elbows but we will not be warned we have come to build this last one was from the very beginning of the pandemic and it was published in migozine staying home i dreamt i was packing a bag the names of all the things and all the people i had lost the names were scrawled on scraps of paper scattered across the floor and the bag was already too heavy to carry awake in the hammer of storm we cannot experience wetness only hot and cold only pressure i motion you closer and our collective apocalypse we can't help reaching for comfort we can't stop touching our faces streets are quarantine empty a new kind of winter or maybe they're just lonely i read a study says sometimes people think they are lonely when really they're just cold so we devise a blanket dry for the broken hearted while i wait my eyes are getting old and so are my hands my hair my skin maybe my american dream doesn't have a house or kids maybe this bridge is enough this bridge and these writers this community these friends in this rent control department this weather for motorcycles this motorcycle and you blackbirds burst across a silver skyline like musical notes golden melody of melted sunlight city silent in silhouette skyscrapers still break the horizon soft haze mutes the low slum sun like a lampshade i keep trying to capture this bridge like a butterfly migration like gratitude what we prioritize is what we manifest i scroll your name on a scrap of paper i keep trying to keep you closer for a moment i pack a bag motion of wings and wishing i keep trying to define what home means place or person with animal bones and ash carapace or carcass apotheosis of city city heartbeat city girl thanks beautiful um okay we're going to take a brief intermission um very brief um and we'll come back at three but in that time um i'd like you to think about um what you want to write i want you to write your dispatch write your poem um what was the thing that um kept you from uh what did what kept you from going insane during the pandemic um what's your solace what um what is the thing that keeps you going what is the thing that makes you angry what is the thing um i don't know you decide right whatever you want about the pandemic if um if you want or if not use the time to get a get a get a drink stretch and then um we'll come back at three and i'll um take us take over from there and read my piece and then we've got a really great lineup um and coming up um sort of holly is taking us into the poetry sort of section which is we've got a lot of poets coming up who are also amazing so i hope you'll stay tuned um and so um i'm going to uh post a prompt just uh write about the pandemic what's keeping you sane through the pandemic and feel free to share it in the chat as well hi welcome back um i've been at yorgos texted me or i think you direct message me and said what's been keeping him sane is reading writing daily walks the pre-covid routine now in a radically different emotional state of mind yes i know me too um uh i also i think that someone was calling it their their daily sanity walk i think it's a blog i read that the writer was calling it their daily sanity wrote walk and i think that that is helping taking walks and um can you guys hear me okay all right um i'm alexandra costulus this is dispatches from quarantine based on our blog dispatches from quarantine dot co it's a project of the san francisco creative writing institute and um we're being broadcast on youtube live through the sf public library page i'm here to introduce us to the second half um i decided i would start off the second half because it's as easy as to introduce oneself in such a way um i'm alexandra i'm the founder of sf creative writing institute and the editor of dispatches from quarantine um thank you for sticking around um i'm going to read you uh my second dispatch and i wrote it in april april ninth i didn't know that what this would be i just sort of was writing into the night so here it is um dispatch two we knew something was up when things were starting to get weird at the grocery store this line keeps popping into my head or a variant of it like someday i'm going to be old an old grandma telling my grandchildren about this time and they will listen to my storytelling mouths gait thinking what a strange and distant era their crazy old yaya came from i don't know why the scenario keeps popping into my head but it does my own yaya yaya in greek was a survivor of the 1918 flu epidemic born in 1911 her parents for greek immigrants from the rough craggy mountains of the peloponnes region of southern greece right by calamata where the olives came from and sparta where the spartans came from her own father was an immigrant a young man at the time and he was a cook at the garrison inn in newberry port massachusetts and her mother ana was a clam shucker uh when you go to newberry port uh they have a historical store but none of the greek immigrants are written into the history it's just smiling white anglo-saxon protestants like the pilgrims and the plymouth rock type things um you can buy scrimshaw there it used to be on real whale bone but now it they make it on plastic um because uh of the ecological reasons my grandmother and her younger sister worked at a textile and shoe factory before child labor laws were in effect um except my grandmother was too slow so she started a business of selling candy bars to the factory workers probably other children for nickle apiece she ended up getting off the factory line and expanding her business but that's another story i take after my grandmother in temperament i am also too slow and i am also physically quite delicate um being an adjunct professor at several schools at the same time almost broke me when i was doing it i had a terrible fall down some stairs in my early thirties and it took me 18 months to recover and i decided after that to take a break somewhere in that time i started my own creative writing school and from the institute it's like the candy bar business like my grandmother started as a child in a lot of ways and i haven't really understood that until now um now it's two small children i don't know if i could go back to teaching composition or esl like i did especially in the in the pandemic i don't know if i have it in me i respect the work though you never know um trying to build my stamina back up bit by bit this whole stay at home mom thing was never something i imagined i would be doing it's so freaking hard the quarantine just makes it harder in some ways i keep wondering when i will fully slip into my life as a writer now that i finally know how to write i decided that once my oldest started preschool in the fall would be my time that my career would really soar but we were rejected from the fancy preschool near our house in the neighborhood that my family has lived in for 50 years all of my fantasies of pushing the stroller there and walking home with a fancy latte in the cup holder in luxe exercise pants and a crispy pea coat to sit at the local cafe at a computer and write my novel into the fog until three p.m have been dashed it was a great and fun fantasy though i don't have any fancy exercise pants by the way i just have the eight-year-old target ones but in my fancy fantasy they were fancy by the way that those target ones have been the most comfortable of the pandemic i have to say i i love them after getting rejected from the preschool i went to watch the sunset at ocean beach in my car and listened to the news of the coming pandemic and i cried which i don't do very easily i'm pretty stoic and then i was crying as i took a picture of the sunset and i posted it to facebook and talked about how disappointed i was about the preschool and one of my childhood friends a mom who was walking away from a difficult marriage comforted me she basically said that everything happens for a reason and that i wouldn't want my kid at that fancy school anyway if they didn't want me and i would see in why this is good in the long run in fact many moms comforted me the moms all knew what it meant to not have your kid in preschool what it means to not have your kid in school what it means for one's career but two weeks later the city shut down due to coronavirus all of my mom friends are being expected to work from home and take care of their kids at the same time all the burden is falling on the moms oh yeah and they're supposed to still pay for their expensive preschools and daycare centers during the epidemic in order to hold their spots what kind of shit is that i'm the only one who can say it now because i don't have a spot to hold on to fuck that there i said it what everyone is thinking right as the shelter in place happened one of my writing clients a midwife and an amazing poet had these homemade tinctures and teas that she was selling to her clients i saw her advertising them on instagram i bought one it's a reishi mushroom tincture and it has antiviral properties and antiviral tea she left them for me and i went and picked them up i paid her online because social distancing when i took them home i got a flash in my mind of my grandmother the story that was passed down to me is that she survived the 1918 flu epidemic because her poor immigrant parents had these tinctures that her father made tinctures full of special herbs my great grandfather was a medicine man a healer his mother was a doctor his wife my great grandmother was a midwife they made these tinctures for wellness or i think they called them tonics my grandmother was a small child at the time the eldest of five sisters the story goes that her father gave the tinctures to all the Greek immigrants in newb report and the surrounding areas and they all survived the flu epidemic because of the tinctures that my great grandfather made the main sand the main the main sadness of his life was that he never got them up to north to main to his sister and she fell ill and died and he died also later in an accident at the factory tragically my great grandmother lived to 97 though and my grandmother to 99 i hope to live a long time this first weekend of the quarantine i found out that my husband had been exposed to the coronavirus at work we found this out after i picked up the tincture i spent the first two weeks of quarantines silently shitting a brick drinking the tincture and the antiviral tea making avgolemi no soup and bracing myself just in case any of us got sick so far nobody in my family has gotten it luckily we are all okay last week i found out that somebody who works at the Whole Foods in SF has it glad we don't shop there because that parking lot is too aggressive on a regular day let alone in COVID times as the social fabric breaks down a bit like the women two and three generations before me i realize i'm falling back on folklore and family i'm falling back on my roots i'm falling back on stories and at the end of the day stories are what is settling me and i am still here spry in the middle of the of the night drinking my chai to renew tea at the kitchen table and stealing the time to write the end thank you for listening um okay um and introduce our next reader for dispatches from quarantine next reader is nicole hanaris nicole is an english teacher at a sf high school and she has a phd candidate in women's spirituality at the california institute of integral studies nicole hanaris take it away hey so wait am i still muted okay good it's an interesting time to be a high school teacher especially at the high school i teach at so this one's called looking for light how do we find light when there seems like there is no light to create from how can we unsee what we have seen men carrying the confederate flag on capital hill wearing t-shirts that boasted oschwitz death camp don't tell me how even the swatch store in union square was looted last summer don't mock why anyone would want to steal a swatch why not james baldwin tells us the devil found his work long ago sound by it after sound by image after image 1989 still haunts me the same year do the right thing was banned in all movie theaters in monterey county except for one on a tuesday night and i couldn't see it because i had school the next day what did ever happen to a dream deferred what did we expect i knew i tried my best i worried is not enough it will never be enough i have been exploding too the photos from last summer's looting showed teenage girls arms filled stepping out from shattered windows because sometimes glass needs to be broken because we all also saw an orange tick-tock goblin goblin with a horned comb over fire tear gas and rubber bullets on peaceful protesters to have a photo op with a bible in front of a church he rarely intends because we all also saw the children in cages just like we all heard him say grab him by the pussy we all saw we all heard what are the numbers of how many unemployed what are the numbers of how many unable to pay rent or mortgages much less provide food for their families the youth needed us yesterday and now they are exploding teaching us because it is the same same old basquiat showed us 40 years ago when he was a teenager hiv was not the gay cancer just like covid-19 is just not not just the flu 400 000 are dead oops 500 000 it hasn't even been a year i did not need to watch the eight minute video of george floyd's murder i knew what happened what always has happened i have read the transcript of what he said while he was dying in my office as a giant frame poster of lingston hughes all summer i asked him what he thought about things today is january a new year my students and i listened to amanda gorman read her poem about looking for light while climbing that hill for homework i've asked them to tell me what they think fine i dedicate that poem for jenny limb who came in and talked to my students and kept it real a couple weeks ago and it was really awesome that's beautiful thank you for reading it really good job i'm just gonna post the next group in the chat just so everyone sees and if if fisa abbas if you're here please make yourself known i don't see you in in the reading but you're in this group and i know you're logging in from far away but our next reader is kim shook kim shook is the seventh poet laureate of san francisco america which means she was the recent poet laureate and her term just ended she has published seven poetry books and she also runs the series the fire thieves and without further ado kim shook she's been doing tons of quarantine poems i think one a day so i'm looking forward to hosting you and hearing some thank you for having me during the first of all this is a month of phones for my people where we sort of come over memory and there's been an event that's been taking place since quarantine started in various places and it's called the um socially distanced pow out because there are ceremonies that have to take place that they can't really take place because you can go out and dance together that's part of what appears in this building water from first principle we've called the bones called a song another song the ravens from up the hill dropped pieces of evergreen they arranged the joyful things in every corner of this is the cautious edge we stand where the redwoods were where the roots spoke one and another and as the singing begins our neighbor child spends so bubbles up the street the raven the raven winds along the twisting way knife tip catches just under the skin i can hear the voices outside trying to solve the world like a puzzle a fabric of counterfactual musings and fear the feral cat comes when i call him runs eagerly across the street he doesn't eat the food i put out just stands next to the heater vent paws meeting the floor because scar tissue is tough the knife tips catches the drum rattle bells the way of singing singing to the universe with speed with smoke with community hearts who vanished this week i'm a drumhead made of scars the first front step shifts underfoot my neighbor runs shapeshifted in the night the water runs under the sidewalk under the street dances a west coast prayer to the scars that run like water under my skin this looks a little more correct i need a hug we're six feet apart and mask you are as often a self-folding model you are as often for the looking we don't hug we are eight feet apart and mask walking we don't hug we are 1500 miles apart you have no electricity no water you are out of food i begin to panic but i don't mention thank you for having that's beautiful i'm sorry for the person 1500 miles away with no no water and food and thank you for reading you're an amazing reader and if anyone wants to follow kim shook she has been publishing on her facebook i believe her poet facebook page a quarantine poem every single day she's got like hundreds of them and they're all beautiful um if someone finds it the link please post it in the chat um our next reader um is adriana messias oh no sorry andres cordobis i skipped you i apologize it's andres cordoba um andres cordoba welcome um he's a massachusetts born poet he likes charles simick and thinks he is a human right um a perfect segue without further ado adres cordoba welcome uh hi i don't know if i can i can't see myself so i hope i'm being seen let's let me remove my spotlight so i can um there we go um okay i just want to say thank you first off um for dispatches for publishing one of my poems um which i won't be reading today but um it's a very very nice opportunity it's a very big honor um yeah it's very cool uh so i'll be reading two poems uh they're called time they're called a time theft and when a cop eats the food is nostalgic for the outside so here's the first one time theft our god sits in the cosmic diner facing the bell door and every time the bell rings it flinches a dirty city bird seizes a wall street savant whistles on down from the top floor these things flow two ways towards and away it all depends on whether you're willing to follow whether you have the wherewithal to know moving after alongside something can leave you and it forever parallel god is a tweaker or maybe god is withdrawals or maybe god is a leathered face missing their child no matter though it is eye bagged and its cup is empty its shirt is ill-fitting and it has been waiting on a sandwich for eternity it cradles its brutal head in its palm and tears sugar packets small and when it pours them every which way someone you never knew dies slowly and without mercy and what we call a blizzard god calls it a reason to tip extra it keeps its hard hat on the table for luck because even it is superstitious humble in its motions like the desperate house guest it has stayed too long it has a job to get to there will be consequences and waiting to be fed but god must stay if not out of hunger then just for the muted warmth that watching to cook at the grill gives it work both the cheapest thing in the entire universe and the entirety of a moment everything from the task of wood being chopped to the axe that kills the laborer it sees work and all its permutations believes rest to be an act that is sacred our god sits in the cosmic diner flinching filtering free cups of coffee facing the exit it is loitering for this eternity it is hoping that it can just outweigh this storm that it can then return that if it just watches sits here real still and real low then no one will remember that it is everything and everything forever disappearing like a tired head being pulled free from a work shirt collar like the everything that fills the growing slow unfolding heart of a crumpled dollar little earn glories blessings we send ourselves the ways we make do while we await this divine order all right says the first poem and this is the second poem uh when a cop eats the food is nostalgic for the outside i think cops grasp their shoulders strutting stiff-legged and spit-lip because they believe they are captains captains are or were men of light fingers legend claims they could rest two tips that are coming surf and raise them up without even a divot i've never seen that but sometimes i see holes in the city and i wonder if they are born from destruction or purpose watch man declare himself vacuum and then watch vacuum declare itself man i think cops want love in the same way cows dream of the beyond that is to say a cow can know its fears but it can never learn its song in new york we don't say thank you for your service we open subway gates for the homeless there are no handouts unless you want one and if you want one you're given lustrous little metal to place your bad days into and a stupid little smirk that you hold or a scream would otherwise go time a fat round thing has blood and veins and the dust is its flesh since learning i lived in a living thing i learned better than to expect simple order there are many beasts holding many long smudges and their churning bowels and when i get too high from the smell of fall i began to see how i'm more river than man i am a sea of still wrong named color and i float in from a great expanse so great that it felt like an illusion when i first bloomed how we never truly leave once we enter a room i think cops sleep at night by imagining exhaustion as they're burdened they retell themselves stories never written they chew drugs hard and the taste is bitter like it is for us all when a cop dreams he is not just right he is gospel when a cop eats the food is nostalgic for the outside when a cop is he is lonely and he looks to other cops and asks are you lonely and the other cops ask why the long thought maybe he says i don't know as a boy i saw a man once and he was tall and now no one is tall anymore everyone is small and i hate the way they look at me thanks so uh yeah thank you for the opportunity um i i these readers have been great and it's been a pleasure to be being alongside them wow are you in massachusetts right now or new york uh new york oh you beautiful poet i send us more it's you have beautiful work and um i gave me chills i i loved your work and um thank you for reading next line okay and and if you look in the chat for people who are logged into the zoom there's a lot of favorite lines um uh uh and now no one is tall anymore it felt like an illusion when i first bloomed um uh great okay um okay our next reader is adriana massias adriana massias is an educator and writer who lives in the east bay um east san francisco bay with her family welcome adriana thank you i feel really uh humbled to be reading with everyone here um i'm just going to read my submission to dispatch us it's called the language of books and i hope you'll enjoy it carmen woke up in a bad mood today and spent the rest of the day finding some fault in everything and everyone the shelter in place policy in our county has caused drastic changes in my four-year-olds life i spent half the day dealing with tantrums i had to put her in multiple timeouts in order to give her time to adjust her behavior also i needed to give myself some space before i said or did something i might regret no hugging her grandparents no holding hands with her best friend these changes have not been easy carmen often tells me i feel lost and i have too many thoughts and feelings mama i don't know what to say or do these feelings and thoughts are ever well mean enough for an adult how can i expect an observant four-year-old to deal with these emotions it drives me crazy i can't give her what she needs during those hard moments to prevent frustrations escalating into tantrums but now it's bedtime i love you for always and i like you always mama says carmen as she snuggles hard against my chest i feel the warmth of her breath as she rubs her face into my body it feels as if she is almost pleading for my body to envelop her tears well up in my eyes as i recognize her words from robert munch's love you forever i have always encouraged carmen to try and describe her emotions or thoughts to me as best as she can this way i can help her understand what she's feeling and try to help work through them over time i gleaned why this book always brought out tears or heart snuggles after the book was finished she fears being alone especially since shelter in policies took effect carmen has become really attached to me being with mama brings her the reassurance she craves mama is her constant in a world that seems confusing and scary she believes the love mother and child demonstrate to each other and munch's book is like the love we share together love you forever gave her the language to express how she feels at this moment the fact she used these words to express her feelings to me brings me close to tears i stroke her back gently as i fight back the tears rocking us in the rocking chair knowing this will give her comfort i like you for always i'll love you for always forever my baby you'll be i reply i can feel carmen's body relax as she hears these words i hear her let out a deep sigh of relief as the tension leaves her body relief washes over me the weight of the day is melting away leaving a salon in the dark cozy room holding on to each other fears tears and sadness are gone i hear nothing but the sound of my child's breathing as i continue to rock us all that is left is my baby and me love you forever allowed us to say what we could not throughout the day i need to go to bed mama i look down to see a sleepy pair of eyes and warm smiles staring up at me okay i kiss her on the forehead when she is settled i cover her in the mountain of blankets she loves to sleep in i kiss her again and say i love you to the moon and back sam bratney's guess how much i love you is a perennial favorite for carmen she has always loved rabbits but something about a parent bunny with a baby bunny really appeals to her often she reenacts scenes of the book with me and her dad telling us we are the noop around here family carmen continues to smile and quietly replies mama i love you to the moon and back too good night little one i smile as i give her one last kiss on the forehead good night mama her eyes close slowly the language she has created from using books is a unique one that she will use to build a solid foundation to continue crafting more complex words to explain her thoughts more in depth to me sometimes it's the language of books that conveys our meaning when our own words fail us thank you beautiful and very nice to read at the library um since it's the business of books and the language books as well thank you adriana our next reader is akwila louis akwila is an award-winning poet author and journalist and artivist she uses poetry as a catalyst for healing she talks about personal topics such as homelessness religion identity women's empowerment and social justice and her poetry and her collection of stop hurting and dance is published by Pacino press um akwila take it away hello thank you so much my name is akwila louis ross and thank you for this opportunity to be able to share um all the different crazy things that i have been going through um i want to give a shout out to a fellow poet nico um hinaris who is actually there um i guess maybe two weeks before the quarantine shelter in place i needed somebody to to talk to and and uh and she was the first person to answer the phone when i was talking about my drama field trauma field experiences um and when i was in california um i'm going to share um i'm going to have to go off screen because my poems are in another area i'm going to share with you on some things some poems that the guest is dear and truths of the heart um i robot is the name i robot again is the name of the the poem my daughter is three years old as well and i wanted the poet that was right before me was talking about her experience with her baby um i'm three-year-old who likes to watch cartoons and there's a cartoon on pbs called pinkalicious and one of the characters were um i guess her name was a robot they were as a robot that was um malfunctioning and i guess when i was watching this episode this poem i guess came into my my heart my spirit so i'm glad you guys can't see me do these expressions beep beep powering up powering down beep beep you're not allowed six feet the command to practice social distancing you must shelter in place because touching anything might be the end of the race i risk it all to see my baby laugh and play at the neighborhood park but even parks are banned but we peek behind the curtains to see who's out we extrovert practice a new indoor sport creating schedules to have a valid routine i watch her scatter her toys over wooden floors and that's okay i wonder if god whispered to the birds the secret what the world needs now i wasn't taught how to love from afar i wasn't taught how to love at all so i remain stuck in desire longing to defy gravity longing to do what must be done this closing in isn't good for all those beaten black and blue some babies need space to grow away from the perps there isn't enough hand sanitizer lotions and brushes and blushes to cover sin thrice removed and they can't call 911 because there's not enough medical supplies to save us all who can save us god please save us will you save us we are rotten we've ruined our world and she's dying the levies can't hold the tears anymore let the enslaved be free be be be and this next one is called take your medicine take your medicine this time so you'll know what to do next time there's no time to panic this isn't that fake news you heard so much about the baby still needs to be fed he's watching how you move and groove within the times we are in her smile is proof you can rest assured that everything will be all right because you've been here before remember that fire you ran away from as it cleansed the earth displacing rebuilding and replacing plans you can't see it now but your blessing will come but for now it's a time for testing a race to prove who is really fit not all can make it across the finish line somehow folks have forgotten there's no negotiating your fate when your number is called you will answer it's a time for resting if you can the homeless and unhoused all your teachers ask them the babies are your leaders follow them because they know the answers the mama earth has the medicine to heal broken bodies broken hearts broken minds broken friends broken loves some will finally pick up the big book searching for what it says remember when you put it away on time out or for safekeeping there it was buried in piles of boxes you promised you'll come back to it someday well the time is finally here when the waters flood sickness rushes in demanding leading change disasters teach lessons helping remember what made you fall in love and what friendships and kindness really looks like so take your medicine rest and get ready because after this if there's a next time you'll know exactly what to do my name is Aquila Lewis Ross I am also a journalist and I'm posting to you my poems that have been also published within oaken voices you guys can follow my story along the way thank you guys so much and be well thank you Aquila Aquila Lewis Ross everyone our next reader Melissa Eleftherion is the author of field guide to autobiography and numerous chapbooks born and raised in brooklyn melissa lives in northern california where she manages the ukaya library curates the loba reading series and serves as the 2021 to 2023 poet laureate of ukaya melissa eleftherion you're up thank you so much alexandra for inviting me and thank you to all of the readers wow it's really an honor to be among such amazing poets and to hear everyone's perspectives on this strange time that we're all living through um and this is a great opportunity for us to reflect on um almost a year now right of this craziness where we're all part of I'm gonna read one poem that was the actually the poem that was published in dispatches from quarantine um because it's kind of a long one and it's um sort of a departure for um from the work that I typically do which tends to be shorter this is a list poem and I decided to write it after um an exercise of uh trying my damnedest to write gratitudes every day um during the first six months of the pandemic and so this is a compilation of those gratitudes that I wrote in an effort to save off depression and frustration and anxiety while working full time um as the library branch manager at the library itself and then also raising our son uh who's almost 14 his name is phoenix gratitudes during a pandemic good air quality today a house and a job simplified hysteria kitten antics no fights today enough money to pay the bills right now warm bed glad I'm not a tool bureaucrat family blue sky no pressure to leave the house healthy now new faucet imaginal cells laughs with family I got the taxes done wrote a stanza good day at work I'm healing phoenix got some sleep Trudy gave us handmade masks danced to Hamilton protective nervous systems no housework thanks to my husband making warm milk for bedtime slept in phoenix saying breathe with me diagnostic relief hit my step goal hugs in a power walk having a calm down plan wild sky a handwritten letter from anthony Kevin put up the new patio lights making french toast attempts at letting go day off melatonin heldy sleeping under my dresses had 15 minutes alone Kevin killed a black widow five minutes of wilderness Minneapolis police department was disbanded 15 years together feasting hashtag no filter work talk family protest sign making today we marched dog belly drinking tea in the yard my back stopped hurting permission to put up the trampoline hiked by the river vietnamese takeout Baldwin sunset over the mountain Audrey lord grateful that nona died peacefully grateful without reopening the library yet my mom learning to play the ukulele taking a knee in solidarity teaching my son gratitude for the protesters in Portland hope and gratitude for fungi and my Celia vanilla milkshakes soft boiled eggs memories of my grandmother basic needs met can walk in my neighborhood without being perceived as a threat grace wisdom and grit stand-up comedy the cicadas that triggered me unemployment check family time and nachos liken gypsy of the forceful meow mutualistic symbiosis three-day weekend ahead making breakfast kevin dyeing my hair morning hike with phoenix perseverance redwoods we are safe at home tonight as fires ravage around us rose gelato poltergeist the musical survive the winding drive no headache today air quality improving end of the world birthday paletta being okay with failure everything is in everything thank you thank you beautiful um nice to remember gratitude in such a time and a good practice our our final reader um uh is tango isan martin uh tango isan martin is the lucky eight eighth curator of eight eighth poet laureate of san francisco and the um and the curator and publisher of the new black freighter press and um he has uh won a slew of poetry awards and published two books of poetry um won under city lights and uh welcome tango right on good to see everybody and hear everybody uh grip grip my tie uh grip my heart tighter lord help me write on this sleeve like listening to anena some all later in life the poet takes over for his former self the secret to writing poems is to not deflect if you do not know anything fretted about the color blue don't go calling yourself a child at heart if you never improvise an elevator ride don't go calling yourself in need of prayer grace beats a gang tattoo a Reagan meeting adjourns in modern plant life begins along with dry out of body insight strange fake force in a poor person's bird atrium bark around the mississippi mixtape a carceral state mythology of a factory's first black chaplain rotted food staring at a child the minor progressions of revolution drumming molotov fields three quarters in the floor staying staring as well white children selling a child i mean i was there the night that san francisco disappeared think of me when the sun dies half man on scratch paper and half pickpocket with flailing arms double-fisted alabama in my paris i'm an alcoholic in search of history books ruining the light rail in search of history books i'm limping to poetry along with the cast of haves adjacent the slave deck blossom sweet baby Easter blood maybe a loss of crossroad along with unprovable music theory the poem turns into absolute political failure ill not for nothing the way you all like to blame the devil for every fallen intellectual every repass fist fight for every 28 hours in hurricane america blaming for every ballot burning for every shallow pop pan and murder man for every government plant sloppy musician and federally flag artists for every floor plan of capitalist emotive geometry and private school private anthem for every kid in the cave the way you all blame him the devil must be in the sky too eyes lowered in the land of the blind and mumbling with the gun i am the worst of your weapons lord won't you put a space heater in my grave fast cash smuggled through my infant torso i arrive smiling call check cash and spy seal my eyes hearing voices but none of them sing to me i'm lucky to be a metaphor for no one washing my face with the memory of water my back to the edge of the chessboard i mean i'm settling into a petty arrest record with my face laid flat on an apartment kitchen table mississippi linoleum begins government plans braiding together breathing tubes of greek philosophy takes the path of each resistance the brine's corporation age dyes citizen council rest haven't culture but white nationalism in boardrooms they ask a county line skin can be churned directly in the cornflakes a senate special chain gang minds our neighborhood for evidence of continuity makes a mess of the word camp makes a war report out of a family secret court progression makes white people geniuses miss my freaks rehearse their show tunes in the courthouse walls they take from mirrors rehearse for a president's pat on the head a pat on the head they take for audience laughter a lot of surge in the soup a lot of speed treaty ink staying teeth write themselves a grin imperialist speech writer grins boil over in my ink riddle mind a non-future dripping with real people i mean real people not porn people a street with no service somehow soul singer somehow in the west constellation eternity or the poor man's fish order is half of the half of the spirit or husk of a messiah religious memorabilia made from the wood of a prison farm fence for sibling domestic colonies and not for profit Tuesday meltdowns we do straightforward time after every 28 hours the house dares the slave doesn't matter if he name a building do boys a thousand time system makes a psychic adjustment well really turns you into a sergeant mentioned turns you into a landslide of sirens lay out sketches past between deacons plot twist provided by white beggars in black city the fathers who reagan flit kicking garbage thinking about race of production notebooks dangling out of car windows we go the way of now extinct hand gestures Mediterranean sandals and underground moves in tandem i mean whoever i am today is still your friend cooking cops and cooking news junkies i'm a dubialo is your mind on military science mario was the gang enhancement they could put on god if you turn down the television low enough you can hear san francisco begging for more war property we will not live forever when someone out there wants us to as mice point through an hourglass in Olympus Babylon or Babylon Olympus subway car smoke session making its way into an interrogation room maybe it's all just one room it's definitely all just one smoker live from your mouth via state toy collection poor people writing letters near books about Malcolm X ice picking the art new floor boards for watch prophecy pen twitching over scrap paper pen tweaking while smoothly a bus driver delivers incarcerated children the lord's door opens in all street life to a certain extent starts fair sometimes with a spiritual memory eating pre down so clap your father dying even maybe i pushed the city too far my sensitivities to landfill district thing and minstrel whistles white supremacists were feeding on westbound rail guards all overcome and re-authored by revolutionary violence that chose its own protagonist or muted stage of genius the garbage is growing voices condensed marxism for warrior depressives underpasses in their pockets because they just might be deities or decent dead on the panther name a merciful marxism is quiet at home like a metaphor for relaxing next to a person who was relaxing next to a gun i stared my father for a few seconds then returned to my upbringing and returned to the souls of Ohio black folk you know revolution down there pegging at this point do you know what the clown wants the respect of the ant wants to interpret pain only wants to pull a 28 out of a 38 out of a begging ball wants me to hurt my hand on his pen i'm not tired of these rooms just tired of the world to give them a relativity my only change of clothes prosecuted the government has finally learned how to write poems shoot out there briefly a line that make up a parable like white bodies are paid well white men even have leaders all white people are white men a rat pictures a river can almost taste a racial divide can almost roll of family members headed to a city hall legislative chamber knows who in this good book will fly all i do is practice lord he decided not to talk out of anger ever again man my wife at the same time i met new audience members for our pain we pass each other cigarettes and watch cops win a city gone uniquely linear Harlem of the west do a true universe i'll always remember you and fancy clothes my wife said so here i sit twisting and silk ideation rifle made a post bellum tar targets made of an honest language the san francisco poetry is how god knows that it's me wanting riding among the lesser respected wolves lesser observed militarization dixie list prison bookkeeping i mean the california great coast of coming lynch mob gossip and booze wild deck collection i mean it's tempted to change professions mere poem in a chicago briefing a white sergeant saying blank slate for all of us after this black organizer is dead standard academics toasting two buck wine at the tank for a bay of nothing more nuclear cobblestone's gunline athleticism in the last of the inherited asthma children giving white dolls to play with in fear facial expressions borrowed from rich people's shoestring i can hear hate and teach hate and call tools by people names and name people dead to themselves no one getting nationalized except feral legion some carmen the equator in the throat some sorry to make you relive all of this lord and all of this pre-diamond key friends putting up politician posters then snorting the remainder of the pace menstrual script shoveled into the walls by the elders my children sharpen their quarters on the city's edge but these audiences are projecting myself into a ghostlike state now for these gangsters i do the same every now and then take a nervous look east sleep becomes christ sleep starts growing a racial identity do you ever spiral lord has the gang age betrayers be patient with my pawns lord so much pain is a point of crime i mean it has to be a race traders come with it lord is that my revolver in your hand better presidents the needs of yonder cages have called us holy slaves fill the school libraries with cop documentaries baby i don't have money for food said i don't have a present moment at all it's beautiful it's beautiful i love the way that you you have i wrote it down because i was trying to formulate my thought about your work but i i i love the way that you mix surrealism the political and talking to god all together and also mythic mythology but i but especially how like every once in a while i love how tom goison martin puts in his like lord and then it goes on and then it goes into the poem and then it puts in the political and then it puts in the surreal i texted one of my students who's on the zoom and i said hey listen to this for example of surrealism and so while you were reading all to the risk of my soul though this i'm on a tightrope if i play if i play this wrong eternal damn nation oh it's good risking blasphemy well it's good stuff i don't know it's like it's kind of like its own prayer um it's but which i like and and and a stream of consciousness and i don't know if it counts as ecstatic because i'm not sure with the poetic forms but i think it might be ecstatic too um you guys will have to tell me teach me the other poets on the thread but prayer yeah it beautiful um and beautiful work everybody this is such a weird time and it's nice to see you so prolific um thank you for coming uh this is a become a project of the san francisco creative writing institute um you can check out our classes if you're listening to this and interested at our website sf as in san francisco uh writing dot institute and um also um you can check out dispatches from quarantine um dispatches from quarantine dot co um submit to us submit writing we will accept we accept all kinds of writing and we love to read yours we're a little behind um on publishing um i'd like to do a shout out a quick shout out to um uh the library uh john smalley and anisa um thank you um anisa i lost your last name but i remembered it at some point um thank you for uh for helping us and um and we love you guys thanks for having us and um also a shout out to margo callard who is helping me um with the back end of the website um uh getting the pictures and connecting them to to um the um the art the art and the poetry and then um paul corman robbers for helping me envision the different scenarios and um and uh and the different phases of the quarantine to try to um organize them and for britney delaney our grant writer to help us sort of develop this as a program thank you all um thank you for everyone for listening we appreciate you please send us more work and let's do it again soon all right signing off