 Hello, good evening. Welcome, everyone. Thanks for coming to this month's poem jam. I'm John Smully, a librarian at the main library here, General Collections, where most of our poetry lives. While I'm waiting for one or two more people to arrive, I want to take a moment to acknowledge our community. On behalf of the Public Library, we wish to welcome you to the unceded ancestral homeland of the Rama Tushaloni, who are the original inhabitants of this San Francisco peninsula. As the indigenous stewards, in an accordance with their traditions, the Rama Tush have never ceded, lost, nor forgotten their responsibilities as caretakers of this place. As guests, we who live and reside in their traditional homeland recognize that we benefit from living there. We wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the Rama Tush community and by affirming their sovereign rights as First Peoples. If anyone's here for the first time, I just want to let you know that we do meet the second Thursday of each month. This evening is a very special evening. There's a lot of great readers. If you come next month in March, you will have the opportunity to meet Lee Herrick, the California Lauret, poet Lauret. And this series is curated by Kim Shuck. And I think without further ado, one last thing. We just had a late, last-minute arrival of the new edition of the Poem Jam Pin. This is the Poem Jam series. You can pick up a pin on the table. There's also flyers, if you want to read about more events. We have an all-star, a full month, a poetry event in April, national poetry month. And there's coughing cookies. All right, that's it. Please give a warm welcome to Kim Shuck. I am seriously looking forward to this reading. I need it. I earned it. I deserve it. The Manifest Destiny Project is made up of 19 writers and 19 visual artists. The art show that's resulted from it is currently up at the Minnesota Street Project. And I'm sitting the gallery on some of the Tuesdays. So if that's of interest to people, you can check with me about which ones those are. Come keep me company. We have six incredible poets here to share with you tonight. This is the fourth reading in this series. And it's been really funny, because there have been some people who were not really familiar with Poetics in the Bay Area before this project that I was working with. And folks kept saying things like, wow, I don't usually like poetry. I'm like, I did really skim cream off the top. This is not a random group of people. But actually, the San Francisco Bay Area has a deep, deep bench of really great poets. So even our open mics around the Bay are really incredible. Next Saturday at Clarion Music Center. Is it next Saturday? It is next Saturday at Clarion. It's Devora Major and Nellie Wong. Thank you. I was having a rain fart. I was like, my neighbor, the woman who lives down the street from me. What is her name? I'm Nellie Wong, both of whom are incredible. Devora was the third poet laureate of San Francisco. And Nellie's been nominated a number of times. And they're really great. It's worth going to the Clarion Music Center shows, not just the poetry, but all of the things. And another event I was going to name. But I really, really need to hear poetry right now. So I'm going to introduce Lauren Ito. Lauren and I met at an event at the Mechanics Institute where I was reading with Tonka Weiss and Martin. And she was pretty much there to meet him and talk to him about poetry. And then we became really good friends. And she takes incredibly good care of me when I'm in a long event and is like, you need to drink water. She takes really good care of me. I basically forced her to do her first open mic reading in a maneuver that ticked off somebody else in the room. But I think she's taken to it quite well. And as you'll hear as an amazing poet, please welcome to the microphone Lauren Ito. Oh, wow. I see they calibrated it for our height. Thank you, Kim, for this beautiful event and space. And it's always a joy to read around you a little closer. OK. So we're going to get into it with some poems. And this first one is called Bicane. Sugarcane fields have sliced me open time and time and time again. Poetry a salve to quench the thirst of crackling palms, mangled toes, bunion feet, eyes parched from longing until they forgot how to cry. We are hollow caverns of heartbeats fueled by sighs. We tip sunburnt faces to the sea. Gaze's yarn for trade winds to carry a haiku from the homeland. Congee to kiss, that delicate dip between nose and lip, the last supple place on this cane ravaged body. This is a short one. It's called a home aching. Daylight falls in heavy palpitations, singed skin, blistered heartache, eyes crusted with tears, these hands reach to the sun, aching for a warmth that one can hold on to. So this next poem is inspired by another incredible San Francisco laureate, Janice Mircatani, the late Janice Mircatani. And she has this beautiful poem titled Why Preparing Fish is a Political Act. If you are not familiar with that poem, it is a gift to read. And so this poem is inspired by hers. And it's titled Why Writing My Grandfather's Obituary is a Political Act. Interned, incarcerated, cited in academia American concentration camp. Spoken over Ochazuke at dinner camp. Minidoka, 442, Sansei, Nike, would he have even wanted an American flag at his service? Red, white, and brazen, the tore, and ripped, and bombed, and pummeled, and took, and took, and took, bloating our bellies with propagandized terms to soften each blow until our own articulations of body and story, and who to hold to account, a stained battle of words splattered across this page. Interned, incarcerated, American concentration camp. Camp, Minidoka, 442, Sansei, Nike, firstborn son. Makoto, Jack, grandpa, survived by us. This poem is titled Lessons in Love, and it's currently on the wall at the Minnesota Street Project. So please go visit Kim and the works of so many lovely poets. Grandma, what was it like during the war? Silence. Do you remember where you were that day of Pearl Harbor? Silence. When did you and grandpa know you didn't belong? Silence. My grandmother taught me that sometimes love sounds like silence, the craft of forgetting a language of practiced protection. Let me love you until this pain only rattles in your marrow without seeping into skin. Let me love you until chosen stories evaporate from the mouths of your sons and daughters. Let me love you until you won't be torn into by a country that never learned how to reciprocate love. Her stubborn tongue loved, and loved, and loved through our questions until her last breath. Rewriting our creation stories, I excavate love languages from crusted riverbeds. Weave poems from the fossils. Artifacts must be inherited. Thank you. This poem was part of San Francisco Public Library's Poem of the Day, a beautiful series curated by Kim. And so if you would like another source for beautiful poetry, that is a lovely place to go. Infinite definitions of birthright. Is it place, or people, or textures, or graves, or lullabies caressing cheek or afterthought, or contorted masks in shapes we can't bring ourselves to recognize anymore? I hitchhike towards mirages, count mile markers in what grows beside the road, who destroys it, how invasive species are named, where resilient blooms atop fault lines keep extinction at bay, and poetry becomes wills only some can inherit. Tucking affirmations beneath toes at each bend, I ground prayers for cocooned comfort and given skin, as if we were destined to belong here after all. So this is a new one on my paper. I have new-ish phone poems, smiley face. And this one is untitled. Between rock and stone, embers, and floorboard ash, we are learning the meaning of fire, how mending sings of possibility, intangible at times, like the promise of a green flash of sunset, yet I believe healing lies beyond my greatest self-criticisms. The snarl of wounds calcified begins to soften, water and salts, and the tinkle of sand under sea, ever changing, a reminder to ride the tides, even as the sky burns. And this last one is also inspired by the incredible Janice Mira Katani, when she asked me to try to write towards the light. And so this poem is in that spirit to close. Arrival as we, thousands of women hum in my blood, forced to play God, cradled their knives with a gentle hand, lifted gazes to the horizon and summoned air, tucked it into laugh lines, a teacup, a birthmark, a prayer for generations yet to unfurl knowing breath is never promised, always, especially these days, always, always. Remember this, inhaling sunrise and birdsong, we never arrive alone. Thank you. It gets better every time. Usually I have to ask her that, Lauren, if you're ever wondering how well you're doing. I mean, honestly, if that doesn't raise the hair on your arms, I don't know what will. Beautiful work. Prifalupe Nyomitolu. Yes, indeed, whoop. We met working on a show for this library that was groundbreaking. This woman's a gift as a friend. I really appreciate. All of the times that I've spent with you and does anybody else feel like the COVID situation really interrupted a lot of nascent friendships? I feel like we'd have spent more time together if it hadn't been interrupted by that, but we're doing it now. And it's a beautiful heart. Please welcome Fui up to the mic. Thank you so much, Kim. Wow. You know how the great late Toni Morrison says, you know, she says, it's one of her advice that she gives to young people in academia. She says, you know, when you finally get that job, you know, the one that you work so hard for, and please forgive me, relatives, for just summing it out. But she says, you know, when you finally get that job, the one that you worked so hard for, that you and your whole family, your community, you worked so hard for, what you do at that moment, instead of doing what the U.S. Southern colonial world might do is sit and celebrate with yourself your great accomplishment. She says, what you do is that you stand aside and you open that door wider so that those behind you can come through. Relatives, I say this actually, I was just thinking about this as I came to the library today when I thought about the great Kim Shak. I just really, you know my heart is so filled really with so much humility as my people, as Tongans we would say, You know, You know, You know, You know, You know, You know, You know, You know, Thank you for really when you get that great job, you know, That you work so hard for that your ancestors You know, You know, That you work so hard for that your ancestors That you work so hard for that your ancestors And put every seed into the land So that one day, one of the granddaughters would grow up and become a poet. And more than that, more than just a great poet and a great storyteller, there would actually become a poet laureate in the great city of San Francisco. And what they would do with that great moment, with that dream coming true, is that they would stand aside and open the doors for so many, for hundreds and thousands. And I say hundreds and thousands of people, because relatives, we as indigenous people, we know that we don't just come as ourselves. We come with our whole families. And Kim, that's what you did. That's what you did. And relatives, of course, the humility is also to be here, a rumitush alone land, unceded land. And also, I really want to thank our little sister, really a little sister who just read today. I mean, goodness, when I listen to the poems, just as a witness, I must say, I just thought to myself, that's what poetry is. That's what the fuck poetry is, boy. You go to a place just like Kim Shack does. You open the doors so that people can open their hearts. And so just for once, just for once with that one moment, then maybe there is a moment that we can connect, that we can create an intimacy. And that's what you did. And I want to say thank you so much. And please forgive me, relatives. You know, I know I'm doing a tongue-in-thing here. It's horrible, right? I know. I can't get to the poems about just the gratitudes. It's just also to my sister, my sister-in-law, who's taught me, since we were children, growing up in a violent family of a beloved mother and a father who grew up under so many boarding schools, who also grew up in poverty and the migration to the United States. Violence was a language we both knew, right, Laura? And sometimes we thought it was the only language, but was looking at you and your courage to tell the story, that you showed us that there were so many other ways to be Italian. So I love you so much. And also our sister, our great sister over here is also Poet Laureate, who's also just given so much love to our communities. Aline, it's just please forgive me for just forgetting the name at this very moment. Aline, we follow your work, and we just have so much respect for you. So it's a great honor to be here. And please, relatives, forgive me. You know, we also have a great elder here in our communities, Mary Jean. OK, I will get now to my poems. And please, I know I have 15 minutes. Please look. Can you just tell me when I'm done? And thank you so much. To those of you who are also here, I want to acknowledge your ancestors. And I want to say thank you so much for being part of this great program that Kim and Megan and other wonderful people helped to organize. So the first poem is, I actually just want to skip down. It's The Baptism Dress. So Laura and I, we grew up Mormons. And so that's how we came to the United States. Most of our community is either Mormon or we come through actually through the militaries. And so Laura and I came through the Mormon Church. Our family did. The Baptism Dress. I am an eight-year-old girl at my Mormon baptism in a small chapel in Maofangatonga, a new coming-of-age ceremony. My tongue and girl body is marked, disciplined to fit the dress, long and white, feminine but modest, shunning lace or opulence, restricting any tendencies for unlawful, unlawful thoughts. Moldled after a dress worn by a London Christian missionaries young daughter in the 19th century before she left back to London to marry. She left the dress in Tonga, a sacrifice on her part, they said. Her dress kept at Lotoa, the Tongan royal palace in Nukualofa, shown at meetings with dignitaries, church services, women's conferences. The dress held up to educate Tongan women and girls the boundaries of dreams, limitations. Eyes pointed forward, reminded us unceasingly, achingly, of our failing, burdensome, young, brown Tongan bodies. The past, we must heart-breaking leave behind. And then I think because of my time relatives, I just want to read a poem that, thanks so much, thanks so much. And I want to read a poem I was listening to the beautiful poem to that was read before, that there was part of the poem for the week and for that Kim did. And actually, I go to a poem, this is what I mean by when I talk about how important Kim was in my life. Writing has been the most difficult thing in the world for me. It has. And it was actually this poem. And now I'm able to write again and working on a book manuscript. But I tell you relatives, how I came back to writing and how I was able to see myself as a writer again after that memory was, I feel that memory was gone because of trauma was actually through Kim. And this was a project that she helped to me. I mean, she helped to me for many weeks and stayed with me so that I could write this poem. And I want to share it. It's called From the West Berkeley Shell Mound to Moana Nui. The West Berkeley Shell Mound is the Eloni, the Lichon Eloni, Corina Gold, Trouble Share, Corina Gold, is working with her tribe and her family to try to say this is one of the last and actually from what they talk about, the historians talk about it, it's one of the, excuse me, oldest sacred sites, burial sites here in the Bay Area. And they're fighting for it not to be devolved. And so story number one, the desecration. The desecration of the sacred violence against her native woman body persistent upon his arrival. He brought out all the instruments of progress, conversion, baptism, and renamed her after him. He called her Berkeley. Under him, her body was submerged. He is heavy and unrelenting as empire. Her plaited black hair, he wrangled into platitudes, singed the iridescent strands to silence. He is the weight of asphalt, a lonely cold parking lot. His ownership of her, his ownership of her, he terms as quote unquote freedom. Story number two, the Tongan Mormon baptism ceremony. Relatives, I am an eight year old girl at my Mormon baptism ceremony in a small chapel in Maofangatonga. My hair plaited and split into divisions of space so inconsolable. My mother tenderly tied the wounds with bright white ribbons to mark this moment, the missionaries termed as quote, the coming of the light. Under a leaning breadford tree outside of the Mormon chapel, hungry dogs mate, irrespectively of the piety inside. His priesthood authority is intrusive, like the bleach of baptismal water surrounds me, my black hair contorted in their nets, severing the cycles of memories until I am no longer able to discern my breath from drowning. He renames me declaring the moana on behalf of his gods, bounded my feet with ropes made from woven human hair, lined with spears of white bone and with knotted fowl, baptized and converted me into a carcass of an obedient daughter and wife. And then the last part of the poem, story number two, hashtag, we are still here. The West Berkeley shell mound, her native woman body rests under asphalt, luminous mana, silenced by a parking lot, man-made and mundane. She is their private property owned by a white settler family who refused to negotiate with Indians. Relatives, remember, on the battlegrounds in Hu Chen, and Hu Chen is the name, the indigenous name for the place that's now known as the land that's now known as the East Bay. On the battlegrounds in Hu Chen and in Wee Ha, Wee Ha is in Dong Ha, that's in our island homeland, Dong Ha. Under the hands of missionaries and mercenaries, our children's bones hung from trees like decomposed fakekika fruit. The flagrant sour taste on our tongues, when we thought all was lost. When we thought all was lost, the sacred was there. She picked up our memories, ancestors left for dead, fed our mouths with the flesh of sweet acorn, and saltwater, and from her breasts we grew strong, we grew fearless. She weaves the circuitess dance of death and birth into her long black hair, dream times exchanged through collective breaths from our Moana Nui to Hu Chen. She coughs origin stories, birthed before his arrival. Immeasurable constellations, they grow in our altars, like flowing yellow poor garlands in our hair. Yes, yes, she is survivor, creation, creator, always here. We remember, yes, we remember the stories of us after the missionary and the mercenary are gone. Thank you so much, relative. I do less of opening doors than breaking locks, but there we are, our next reader. It's probably a character flaw. Our next reader is Manaz Badihan, who I'm pretty sure we met through Jack Hirschman. And I always love hearing her read, particularly in Farsi. But also, it was really important to have her be part of this project, because there is a real theme running through some of the art about the situation in Iran. And anyway, welcome to Manaz, who is spectacular. Thank you very much for everyone coming here tonight. And thank you to Kim Shah. You're doing a wonderful job for poetry in this city. You actually introduced many young people in this city. Actually, I invited two of them that I just met through your events to come read on March 9th, an event that me and my friend and Karen Melinda Magum organized in North Beach Library. So everyone, welcome to come and listen to us. I'm going to read three poems, one of them in Farsi and English. Farsi is my mother tongue. And I speak that fluently. I know it's literature, and I speak it fluently. My poem isn't a magic to feed the hungry. It can't quench the thirst of the trees. My poem isn't rain nor is it the sun to shine upon war-torn lands. My poem isn't a morsel of bread to place upon mouth of hungry. My poem isn't a cloak for the poor. My poem is a cry, a cry of protest, protest for war, poetry, and hunger. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. My second poem is about my mother. February is a very special month for my family because my mother died on February of 2000. She was only 64. She got some complications of heart surgery. So this is kind of about her, called Life. Life was a narrow road filled with gravel, facing us to walk with pain slower and slower. On this rough, uncertain road, we were on your own, the one who never surrounded, the one who overcame sorrow, staying strong, refusing to be domestic bird. You are still tall and brave, just like a cypress tree, as tall as the mountains, resilient and divine. Thank you. Thank you. But this last poem got a few selection, or it was given a little bit of price. It was included in, I think, 2019, San Francisco Writers' conference booklet, book that they selected some poems. So it is a very special poem. I wrote this poem in 1980 when I just came to this country and I was looking for job in Johns Hopkins University in Maryland. Because when I came to this country, I moved from Maryland to Pennsylvania to Delaware to Iowa. And eventually, I found San Francisco so close to my heart. This is a city of poetry and art, and that's what I am. I've been writing poetry since very young age and doing painting since very young age. So this poem called DNA. It was Monday morning, and I was passing the big statue in the lobby of Johns Hopkins University, searching for Room 202, the first interview with Mrs. Willis. She had a kind smile on her lips. Her hands were wrinkled with red nail polish. Mrs. Willis looked me in the eyes. How do I pronounce your name, dear? I said, Manaz. The exact same way it is written. Mrs. Willis, with her master degree, said, I will try. Manaz, Manuz, Mahanuz, then gently she changed her voice and said, can I call you Mary? Mary, Mary, Moody, echoed in my head. I felt like evaporating morning dew, like a branch of a tree under heavy rain. Like fruit just fallen from a tree. I looked Mrs. Willis in the eyes and said, but my name is the charm of the moon. Because M-A-H means moon and A-Z means charm. But my name is the charm of the moon. The name I was called by my mother. And by the man with black hair, dark mustache, and brown eyes. Mrs. Willis was looking at me with wide open eyes. I said, Mrs. Willis, is my name more difficult than deoxyned ribonucleic acid? Manaz is thinking about it. There are a lot of people on this bill tonight who get mispronounced a lot, so I'm almost tempted to do it right now, but I'm not going to. The next poet is a good friend, a dear human. I love her heart, too. I'm really happy tonight. This is healing for me. And I think Castaneda was the poet laureate of San Mateo County, and just a phenomenal poet coming up. Thank you, Kim. You know, Kim was one of the first poets laureate to be awarded an Academy of American Poets Fellowship. And her project was titled Seeds. And she doesn't only plant them, she nourishes them. And tonight, I am just so humbled. Knowing that my story now connects with all of yours, and I just want to thank Kim and Megan Wilson for their vision and the whole team for bringing us together. This was a project I didn't know I needed. And you know, at 84 Lions, this is one of my longest works to date, and I was telling Kim I have things to say. So let me call you sweetheart. The power that rules the Pacific, therefore, is the power that rules the world. And with the Philippines, that power is and will forever be the American Republic. Albert Jeremiah Beverage, United States Senator, 1899 to 1911. Nobody asked what we wanted. We were entangled in the fate of empires as one falls and another rises. And we stood ravaged, squatted like our mothers over guava leaves and steaming water, moist heat, soothing the perennial wound of childing, fruit and spice mixed with blood, now clotting, jelly-like and metallic. Sweetheart, say, Sinta. The stress is on the second syllable, almost like a serenade or a slight movement, cesaris and so dear. Let me hear you whisper. Honey is thicker than blood, is thicker than water. What to make of the slaughter in a time of cholera just before the St. Louis World's Fair, where our kin were made to put on a show of butchering and eating dogs 20 or more each week in the name of empire. A baptism of fire. How do you like your dinuguan? Soupy and smooth and savory. Our mother's mothers made it with awful, but the secret is in the pig's blood. Add a little vinegar before cooking. Add more when simmering, but never boiling. Keep the love light glowing. Keep the water bubbling, then let it rest. Add guava leaves and honey, I'm talking about tea. A remedy for cholera, malady of war, a mastery of paired movements like populations and their afflictions. How much of might is metal? What is the measure of an age? At Manila Bay, we buried one empire and birth another. Before the century ended, we were a colony twice over. An archipelago of blood and ash. What is the color of empire as it sits on the Pacific with all the might of an age? Where lies its heart and undoing? First order of business was to quash the rebellion and impose English as the language of chance and circumstance, mind-addiction and maladdictions. The irony was that McKinley didn't even want us, could not have told where our darned islands were within 2,000 miles, his words. But moral obligation is a force that bests the burdens of annexation as does having a foothold in Asia. All told Hemha, McKinley could not let go. When I next realized the Philippines had dropped into our laps, I confess, I did not know what to do with them. We could not give them back to Spain. That would be cowardly and dishonorable. We could not turn them over to France and Germany. That would be bad business and discreditable. We could not leave them to themselves. They were unfit for self-government. But one day I promise you my people will board a ship, split the ocean, walk on water, scorch the earth, lose our continent, all to show how well we speak in English, the kind no one wants to hear. We have lost more than what is bearable, devoted our days to finding a habitable language, to building a dwelling of sea water and ash. How much of it is ours? How much to keep? How much to let slip? Let me call you sweetheart. Let me find a way to start over, stay closer, one island to another. Here lies our heart and undoing. Say, Sinta, shelter and shutter some of our struggles. We are more than our history, our manifest destiny. We are a love story older than the sea. Sweetheart, ask me what I want as I tread wildly. Feel the belly of green turtles and gentle giants, citizens of the great Philippine sea. Thank you. What kept happening with this project is that people sent me poems and there's nothing like it. I'd come home and there'd be a bunch of messages from the poets involved in this project and I got to open them and read them. The next poet used to really dislike the way I introduced her, so I'm not gonna do it that way. I will say something that she did for me. The first time I heard her, not the first time I heard her, it was probably the second time I heard her read. She spoke in Polish and it's not a language I get to hear very often. She made me cry. Our next poet is Clarice, who is remarkable and you will love her. I don't remember my Polish anymore. I decided to read happy poems. These are all occasion poems written for my friends and most of the time, for their birthday. I am with a group of women and we call ourselves the Grand Avenue Follies and I'm the baby of the family. I'm 67 and the rest of them are in there. A lot of them in the 70s and then the oldest one is 88 years old. We go out, we dance, we sing, we perform for senior homes and senior homes and different places, so we're having a lot of fun and I wrote these poems to honor them and usually give it to them on their birthday. So the first one is Emily. I have a friend named Emily. She is cordial, wise and motherly, but wait, she's sexy and lovely too. Just watch her sway and we sailed on her wave, a wink, a kiss, she blows you away with her chocolate cakes and puddings and tarts. She pampers us with sweetness that comes from her heart. This friend of mine, this Emily, you want to have her in your family. The second one is Avis. I wrote it on her 80th birthday, I think she's 81 now. Eight is a lucky number, very lucky. And for the next 10 years, luck will grow as you move your hip to the right, to the left, doing the figure eight. Okay, next one. Next one is for Colleen. Colleen is a couture designer and she had come a couple of times to Clarion where I work and she gave sewing workshops for my students, Colleen. Let drop the pin round and piercing. Let stir the silken laughter, dark eyes. Pose rainbow into a birdhouse. Boils herbs in an earthen pot. Trims paper into wings. Levi in alteration. Levi, it's her pet dog. Okay, so the next one. The next one is a flower sculptor. Her name is Louise. A celestial scatters flowers from heaven. Angels trumpet, decorates forests and fields with colors for the unenlightened. The girl in the red chamber gathers the paddles, the little wheat that weeps and buries them with her breaking heart to repay her guardian's kindness. You hold each blossom in your hand, lilacs and marigolds, feels it's being pulsates, moss and ferns. And in one breath you place icky in time and space, banner, the glory of creation and the human imagination. Thank you. So the next one is for my friend Patnish and it was for her 70th birthday. So I wrote seven lines that has seven in it and 10 lines that has 10 in it. Fortune bestows on seven hills with seven oxen in a circle dance. Seven birthday candles lit, seven muses sing the song of seven verses night till dawn. Drink the potion of seven loves, go proudly through the seventh gate at the tender age of 70. Time is but a tenuous thread, is tender long, is tenor uncertain. Stuff it in a tenebrous cave, guard with tentacles and all, for the tenants is to rage with tenacity and greed for life, there is no pretense. Let's not give up till 110. Okay, so this is for the leader of the group, her name is Cynthia. Gentle Empress of the moon, cast a soft, sorry, let me try again. Gentle Empress of the moon, cast a soft glow wherever she goes. On her neck, she wears the time, disc and gears rotating spirals, turning her silk fan flutters like petals that have been kissed by love. In full circle, the year has concluded, it's time to bring out the panacea, cure the sleepers who are oblivious to the joy of dancing, the magic of giving, quicken the bitter fools who shun fellowship that brings life meaning. Each dose she gives with a silver spoon, Cynthia Empress of the moon. Okay, and the next one is Kobe Yee. Kobe was not one of the follies, but she was the last, she was the last burlesque artist in from the nightclub, the Chinatown nightclub era. And she was the last owner of the Forbidden City Nightclub. She was 93 when she passed and she did her last performance at the Clarion. This is titled The Woman Who Ate French Rice. Food was not complicated for a woman who had fully tasted life, who loved to dance, dance to love, set fire, stoke desire. With fingers rolled down, a shoulder strap, the pieces fell, the crowd went wild. Hunger was fed, pride was stripped, nature was celebrated in sequence and flash. Wink, you wink and you too. A final shimmy, the house came down. Oh, what thunderous sound. With utmost care, Stephen held all 93 years of her off the stage. Behind the curtain, she demurely nibbled on her French fries. Okay. So this is a poem for the oldest in our group. Her name is Patchin, but we call her Lady Lita. The world is theater for Lady Lita. She keeps her mind sharp on things that matter, like makeup, like money, and stuff that glitters. A good-natured rouser swings in a golden cape, it's char siu gyun fun when shelters in place. We raise our chopsticks on your birthday and click our tea cups to your luminous rays. You are unstoppable, un-top-able. Step on the gas, take us to Vegas. She still drives, amazing. So we created this space at a basement of Clarion called the Showgirl Magic Museum. And so this is a poem about the museum that holds a lot of the photographs and memorabilia of that era. How quaint the she-dragons wrap around the poles with long-eye lashes and painted nails. And the moon gate opens to a flood of light. Gold relieves upon crystals and pearls. On the walls flaunt long shapely lakes, quiescent smiles, and headdresses that once scraped the sky. Silently, they wait for the regal nod to bestow vigor and alchemy. The dance of dances, each dancer danced. Golden moon, crimson war, laughing Buddha, unbound. Okay. And this is for Mimi Chen, and we call her Fan Tan. And this poem is titled Top Ten. Fan Tan stops traffic on the streets of San Fran. She is an eye candy for women and men. When Fan Tan enters, the audience surrenders to her theatrical drama capricious like no other. From Empress to Berlesque, her poses are picturesque. Not for a moment to think you can seize a photo of faster than Fan Tan. Okay. I'm gonna end with myself. I wrote this poem for myself when I was 66. All right, a long sentence, as long as the tail of the wind that picks up stuff along the way. That unbearable alarm, that broken record, that solid anger, that shame, that guilt, that silly laugh, that cool cool down, the deep throat cat, that six and six, our old twin from the South China Sea that has nothing to do with anything except to keep going toward another moon rise, agreeing with the white jellyfish and the sentence that starts out windy, winds down into the first of a fern and dot, dots under the sun are everywhere and in front of the brick wall, the sign said, do not enter to end the sentence or to end anything at all. You must come to a full stop. Struggle, without it, there's no life. Thank you. My ex's uncle was kicked out of the Forbidden City. It was the first thing he ever told me about his family. And the funny thing is that when he said that, I thought he meant in China, the Forbidden City in China because I didn't know that that was a nightclub. But now I'm wondering what the heck Awad did to get himself kicked out of the Forbidden City. So a lot of people have said some things about the way I am with other poets and I just have to say, the next poet knows why because she was friends with my poetry mom, Caroly Sanchez, who did that and taught me that. And I always guess I just thought that making space for other voices was part of the job of being a poet and I would prefer not to get haunted by her. So Avacha probably doesn't need an introduction. So what I'm going to say is that she's spectacular and you should buy her book. And now we're going to arrange the mic and everything. But please welcome Avacha. No, two things. Well, this is a setting up, is it on? Yeah. One is I'm going to need somebody to walk me to the bot because there's some strange creatures out there. And then also, I don't know what happened. I put, I was talking on my phone to let Kim and a friend of mine know that I was on the way and then I put it in my pocket and all of a sudden it's not working. I don't know if I pushed something out of the way. So somebody knows something about these little computer things because I don't, I would like it if they would look at it. So, okay. And he mentioned, she mentioned rather Carolee Sanchez who is somebody who everybody should know of. She literally turned the poetry scene in the Bay Area inside out. Certain people thought that when they put her in charge of California poets in the schools, which was why there's a glass of milk before she got there, that she would keep that, you know, going. But she, because she was a pretty Indian girl, she surprised them though, because pretty Indian girls aren't supposed to stir up the stuff she stirred up. Well, she stirred it up. She hired what she considered, she told us the rowliest, loudest people of color. I was one of them. And to be in the schools. So if you have children that have taken poetry in the elementary schools from all the way up to the Canadian border down to the Mexican border, and they've had a person of color in the classroom, you can thank Carolee Sanchez because she literally changed it around. Some of us she would have never heard of before her life, Francisco Alacorn, you know, Opal Pamadisa, the Vora Major and a whole bunch of other folks I could think of, but a special woman. So I have two of her books with me if you wanna get them because they're hard to find these days. I have two of hers in some of mine. So I wanna read one of hers. I'd like to start with this one because we're too looking about this diabolical sickness called Manifest Destiny. I think this poem says it better than anything. Anyway, Carolee, and it's true, there's a wonderful Ethiopian Dicho that says your most dangerous adversary is an ancestor ignored. So I'm gonna make sure she doesn't get me. So, Carolee, this is for you. This is for us. This is so that we don't forget. This is from her book From Spirit to Matter. And they have disappeared me as they have done to all my ancestors before me. Are you watching? When I wear a modified version of the traditional dress of my Pueblo tribe, it is not familiar to those outside the Southwest, but it is real. Look close, I may vanish before your eyes. It is not a Pocahontas dress. I do not wear feathers or a headband or beaded moccasins because my tribe does not wear those things. Each tribe adapted various forms of European beads and ruffles and braids that became traditional ceremonial dress by the late 1700s, but they are Indian because we wear them because we put them together in a certain way. Are you watching? I may be disappearing right now. It keeps happening when I remind you who I am. And pretty soon, you don't see me anymore because I'm a leftover primitive. And you're supposed to feel sorry for me because I am poor and diseased and ignorant and alcoholic and suicidal. You see how it happens? What goes on in your mind when you see any of us wearing our ceremonial dress? We have not been terminated or exterminated. We are here all around you, but you disappear us every day. Are you watching? It's that same question. Are you watching? Yeah, really. So. So. So. So. So. Apparently was a monster, not only with getting poetry in the schools turned inside out and becoming a multicultural establishment. She had poetry things happening all over the Bay Area. And there's several series that still go on. There's one in the East Bay. And I mean, her stuff is still around. So she's somebody that you need to keep her name alive and well, and there's a Yoruba Dicho says that the longer you say a person's name, you keep them alive. So I want everybody say Carolee Sanchez. Carolee Sanchez. Oh, I want a spirit here. Come on. Carolee Sanchez. Carolee Sanchez. All right. Yes. I, you know, we come to these things it's so hard to choose something. What do you do when you want to do everything and anything? And I have a lot to say on this subject because this thing is real sickness when our friend was talking about the Philippines, I think in the same day that the creatures came and took you guys, they took Puerto Rico and several other nations and what have you and everybody's supposed to be grateful. Everybody's supposed to be grateful for what? And this English only crap. English is a bastard language made up of five million other languages so that the English that's spoken here, the people in England do not consider this real English. You know, it's really disgusting. And Papa used to always say and when he refused to speak English that no language is sacred unless it's the language you cry in or dream in. And by that definition, all languages become sacred depending on who you happen to be. But I'm gonna do a couple of poems here. I lived for a while in an area of Oakland that originally was all black and then it became mostly Southeast Asian when all the boat people were coming and Mexican immigrants. And they had a section where the kids would hang out in the middle of the street, in the middle of the night and every city I've ever lived in, I don't care what we're in the world, you'll find a place like that where these kids, these young kids, nine, 10, 11 year old kids are out there three and four o'clock in the morning. I'm a musician, I get home late. And these babies are out there in the middle of the night and they're hungry and hungry people are dangerous. And here I come home, this old lady with hundreds of dollars worth of musical equipment and they eyeballing me real heavy. So I figured I better wind them over before they make me the sandwich on their meat on their meat on their sandwich. And I wrote a poem for them and I just wanted to wind them over so that they wouldn't knock me up inside the head and steal my stuff. But what happened was they changed my life and I wrote the poem and I gave each one of the kids there was like a laundry mat on the corner where they would hang out in the middle of the night. And I gave each one of them a copy of the poem. Well, these kids, these three kids are not just a bunch of little rabble rousers, they're very well organized. They have the street papers you see out there. These kids are writing in those papers and what have you. And they got the poem out there and wound up kids from youth speaks were doing it. And I got off the bar downtown San Francisco about a month later. And this little chubby, cute Chinese kid ran up to me and threw arms around my waist, grandma. I said, oh my God, the child has lost her mind. You know, but what she did, she blew me away. She changed me. She read the poem to me every single, the poem is in English, Spanish and Spanglish. She read the poem word for word. I wrote it, I have not memorized it. And she read it perfectly. And at one point in the poem, I mentioned lotus flowers, lotus blossoms. And I know most of you have heard the story about the lotus, but just in case you haven't, the lotus is a beautiful, beautiful flower that needs the nastiest sludge to grow in. Her name was Lotus in whatever Chinese language she spoke. And so she said the poem was written about her. And she says, you know, nobody ever talks to us. Thank you. And with those words, she changed my life because it made me think, you know, I was raised to believe that anybody who is the age to be your child is your child. And so these babies now, they can all call me grandma. Frankly, I don't care who they are, what color they are, what have you. And I'm grateful to be that little Chinese girl's grandmother and anybody else's grandmother or child. These children are children and we have forgotten it. People make jokes about these street kids. It's nothing funny about anybody who is out in the middle of the street two and three and four o'clock in the morning. Something is seriously wrong and they're children and they're desperate and they're hungry. And this poem won them over. After I wrote this poem, I didn't have to be afraid anymore. I couldn't get out of my car on Loma Vista with a loaf of bread without having the little 10 little gangsters coming to help me. And all I did was let them know that I love them, that I saw them. And so what I'm saying to you is you don't have to take them home. We can at least say hello and let them know that we recognize they are children. Anyway, so this is for them. It's in Spanglish, but I think you get the message. It's called street children of the night pa lo chiquitito de la noche en cualquier lugar. Black and brown children of the night que ya no saben nada jugar mis niñitos de la calle. Queridos more niños whose ideas and having fun got swallowed by the darkness if I could. I would wrap you in sunshine. I would hold you close and fold you in these arms and caress whatever's left of the child and you with lullabies. I would like to cover every inch of you with home cooked self-esteem as best as they sales by contests. I want to fill the hole that hurt Doug. Take my hand, I'd swim differently through the fires of hell for you and with you through the mugre of disrespect. I'm a hard-headed kind of lady and I just can't see myself giving up on you. Somo lo que somo you y pa nosotros somos todo lo que hay. We've been fused together by history por lo bonito y los sueños robados, like spiritually in the maze of our destiny orje. Mis negritos, mis pequeños callejeros, lo necesito. The truth is I know I need you y yo sin ti soy nada. And if I had a chance, I'd refuse to turn you loose to you of so in love with yourself that self-destruction would disintegrate under the pressure of your presence and you were so secure in my love for you and so sure of the splendor you had become that even the sun would slay aside its arrogance just to get a chance to reflect the brilliance of your essence and bask in the bold truth of your integrity and ti. Viviendo a verdad real y yo sin ti no existe ni un sendero de la esperanza o sé que le see you. My beautiful wild lotus flowers, if I could. I'd bathe you in the sea of rose water, I'd convert your waves of pain into an ocean of pride and faith y yo te pillo dame yon chan. Say please, please, please let me in. I promise to do the very best I can even if I have to wake the dead and conjure up our ancestors' breath. I'm not too proud to act a fool, get down on my knees and holler and scream and beg all the spirits of goodness to intervene, to blow away the fog of dismay and distrusts by santificato lagrimas and dissipate the rage burning behind your eyes so together we could wash away the centuries of emasculating doubt and de-feminizing lies and have a little fun and learn to play a brand new game called demolishing walls of self-hate. Children of the night. Mis ninitos de la calle. I want the stubbornness of my love to help you turn all the lights inside your soul, tu y tu, tu eres mi sangre. I will not allow the streets of any city to steal you, you like a lotus blossoming in the night, mis queriditas alma de mi sustencia. I will not let the cesspool of full linger make a fast food, happy meal of your dreams. Chiquito de la esquina. You are our only wealth. You are the most beautiful part of me and I'm not about to let you go. I will not permit the hungry stupidity of greed to feed you to the streets without putting up a fight, a mostito pedido de la noche, if I could. I would pave your path with stardust and massage your mind with a steady diet of just how important you are. Know, know how important you are. Make sure you know you're too damn important to let the world just throw you away as my job to remind you on a daily basis, this crazy old lady is here to stay. I'm still here, staying and praying and praying and staying and staying and praying and praying and praying and praying and praying. You let me in, mi sialito negretito de la noche. I'm talking to you. Can you even hear me? It's our tomorrows that you're throwing away, I'm still waiting. A stubborn old lady with a heart full of love standing in the shadows and waiting on who you could be. Waiting for you to finally see me waiting to wrap you in a blanket of sunshine. Thank you. And I hope that you go out to see this exhibit in Oakland on Saturday. We're gonna be partying on Saturday. You did you give them all the information on that? I didn't. Oh, well, why don't you do it now? Well, I'm pulling it up. The thing you're doing Saturday, aren't we doing the thing with the exhibit is up? Okay, so there's a fence. I thought it was in San Francisco. I thought it was out there in Dogtown, no? No. Okay, I'm the wrong date then. Okay. Okay. Anyway, eventually you'll find it. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, this one here is called the We of Us. And I think it's a tradition that civilized people have forgotten and most people from so-called uncivilized civilizations, I will not call it what that creature called us all. What is it with the asshole companies or the shithole countries? Oh yeah, anyway. I'm probably one of the descendants of one of those places. But that concept about the We of Us, we've lost it. And that's why you'll see children on the streets at three and four o'clock in the morning who are hungry. That's why you will see. I mean, I lived in Denmark for a while. Denmark is a little tiny place. You will never see people on the streets. If you're there, even if you are not a resident, you have the right to a place to live. You have a right to eat. If you have no water, you have a right to water. You have a right to bath. I mean, there's no reason why this supposedly rich place could not have it, but you know, this is crazy that We of Us, we don't think about the We of Us anymore. It's about the me, I, me, I, who are you? So I wrote this basically to remind us about that. When I write, I dress yesterday's visions in today's rhythms and I tap dance all over the page with every poem and with every single word I write, I am reliving everything these culturalist cultures have tried their best to bury and replace with the sadness of their emptiness. And I continue to sing, keeping the ancestors alive by singing their songs, expanding tradition with new words and strange lands. I am the recognition of all the traditions the solace have tried to erase. But with a giant thank you in our hearts, we, I say, we joyfully climb out of the acceptable respectability of their passionless graveyards. And we are reborn in every poem we write. We sing to you through the rhythmic fire of Samba, every rumba reinstates your presence in our DNA. We cry the unashamed truth through the bluest of blues exploding like La Rumba in the face of colonial insanity and boldly fight the power with doo-wop, hip-hop, and jazz. I refuse to silently accept the unacceptable suicidal demise of our existence when every single day I can taste the we of us striving. We are more than just surviving. We are cultural alchemists and undeniable force of creativity and motion and who are creativity. We decolonize our legacy and free our minds and spirits. We are a whole lot more than you and me. It's all about the you in me, the me in you, the we of us writing our way out of the delusion of manifest destiny's self-righteous madness and reinvigorating the dreams our ancestors died for. I must say it again in case you didn't hear me. It's all about the you in me, the me in you, the we of us writing our way out of the delusion of manifest destiny's self-righteous madness and reinvigorating the dreams our ancestors died for. Thanks for listening to my words. If you want Carolee Sanchez's book, I've got some. And thank you. OK, so the rule about this room is we've got to be out of here in about four minutes, which means that Doug is going to want to take a photo. I want to thank all of our readers. I want to thank Lauren, and Klee, and Minaz, and Eileen, and Klaesu, and Avacha. I want to thank the library for hosting us and just never setting any limits on me. I'd like to thank Kenny and Mike for being. I don't see Kenny. But anyway, I'd like to thank Kenny and Mike for being the AV department and giving us great microphones and recording things. And John, for midwifing the whole project with me. And I really appreciate it. Manifests differently will be at the Minnesota Street Project for about a month and a half. And as I said, I'm going to be there some Tuesdays, so check it out. And give yourselves a hand for being an audience if you came as audience. Can't do it without you.