#SF Poet Laureate

[cinader]

s3e3 From Olympic Gold Medalist to Children’s Author, Billy Mills’ Journey to Heal a Nation

"reading the Doctrine of Discovery, without anger... saying: my voice is going to be heard...Indigenous people, people of color, the diversity of America can create and mature this incredible democratic experiment to the sacredness that we all seek." Billy Mills - Listen & Be Heard s3e3

s3e3 From Olympic Gold Medalist to Children’s Author, Billy Mills’ Journey to Heal a Nation BIlly MIlls, Blagovesta Momchedjikova, Alejandro Murguía, Makeda – Queen of Sheba s3e3-LBH Podcast-Release Date February 6, 2025 [link to transcript] s3e3February 6, 2025 1964 Olympics champion and children’s author, Billy Mills,  speaks about his book, Wings of an Eagle, and Diversity, Equity and…

[fandom-space-princess]

Best Things I Read This Year

per the title. I made it through more than one book a week this year with time to spare! in no particular order, here are the ones I enjoyed the most:

SFF&Horror:

Linghun - Ai Jiang. novella, fantasy-horror, ghost story.

The Butcher of the Forest, The Siege of Burning Grass - Premee Mohamed. fantasy and science-fantasy. her work continues to impress me. Burning Grass in particular was excellent (it was a finalist for the Ursula K. Le Guin prize this year) and imo not nearly enough people read it. bleak as hell, but an incredible examination of the effects of war on the vulnerable, and what it takes to hold true to pacifist convictions in the face of unrelenting violence.

The Voice That Murmurs In the Darkness - James Tiptree Jr. aka Alice Sheldon. scifi, short story collection. classics.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune, When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, Into the Riverlands, Mammoths at the Gates, The Brides of High Hill - Nghi Vo. fantasy. these are technically a "series" but you can truly read them in any order. and you should. they're wonderful.

The Bog Wife - Kay Chronister. gothic horror. kind of understated for my tastes, but not bad.

Good Night, Sleep Tight - Brian Evenson. horror, short story collection. occasionally as clever as it thinks it is.

Road to Ruin - Hana Lee. science-fantasy a la Mad Max. this one was just kind of a bop. I'm not normally here for this much romance and/or pining, but the setting was so much fun. I was into it. excited to see where the next book goes.

All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy, Fugitive Telemetry, Network Effect, System Collapse - Martha Wells. scifi. oh murderbot, my beloved murderbot. i binged all the way through these twice and then read NE a third time for good measure. my LIFE for the anxiety-riddled asexual aromantic robot that just wants to watch its shows in peace. and every one of its ridiculous friends.

The Wings Upon Her Back - Samantha Mills. science-fantasy. young girl gets recruited into her city's militia in service to her mecha god. parallel narrative: the same woman, much older, experiencing social rejection and cult deprogramming. this one was also slept on by too many people, it was great.

Jewel Box - E. Lily Yu. fantasy, short story collection. banger after banger in here.

Jamaica Ginger and Other Concoctions - Nalo Hopkinson. sf&f, short story collection. everything she writes is a gift.

Fiction:

We the Animals - Justin Torres. I can't believe it took me so long to get around to this.

Grand Slam Romance vol 1 & 2 - Ollie Hicks, Emma Oosterhous. graphic novels. magical girl softball teams experience intercontinental dyke drama. i am so happy i read these. they are SO SILLY and i needed that.

Nonfiction:

Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right - Jordan S. Carroll. this is less a book than a hundred-page bound academic paper, but it was incredibly worthwhile. discusses the ways in which sff is historically and currently used as a battleground to determine who gets to imagine the future, and who that future is built to include. the footnotes gave me a ton of further reading suggestions which i hope to get around to next year.

The Jewel-Hinged Jaw: Notes on the Language of Science Fiction - Samuel R. Delany. this book was critical in establishing SF as a meaningful subject of academic criticism in the 70s. 10/10 no notes. i am forever grateful for the fact that I live in a world with Samuel Delany in it.

Notes From An Island - Tove Jansson, with paintings by Tuulikki Pietilä. delightful.

Poetry:

You Bury the Birds In My Pelvis - Kelly Weber

Philomath - Devon Walker-Figueroa

Forest of Noise - Mosab Abu Toha

Calling a Wolf a Wolf - Kaveh Akbar

Can You Sign My Tentacle? - Brandon O'Brien (who has been named poet laureate for Woldcon in Seattle next year. I'm REALLY hoping I get to hear him speak more extensively while I'm there.)

We Contain Landscapes - Patrycja Humienik (this one isn't out for a few months yet but if you have the opportunity to pick it up once it's available it's worth your time.)

The Kingdom of Surfaces - Sally Wen Mao. listen. listen. SWM is maybe my favorite modern poet. this collection was stunningly well conceived, cohesive, lovely, painful. i have her book of short stories on my "tbr++" pile and I can't wait to get to it.

[michaelwarr-creativework]

Soak in the soul-stirring words of these poetic visionaries at the exhibition opening for #TarotInPandemicAndRevolution this Sat, 3/25.The TIP&R deck is a unique and holistic piece of art that combines striking visual images with stimulating poetry. Each of the 81 cards in the deck has its own corresponding poem, adding depth and nuance to the already moving imagery. 

Tongo Eisen-Martin is a radical poet and educator whose work is grounded in the struggle for social justice and liberation. His latest book, "Blood on the Fog: Blood on the Fog: Pocket Poets Series No. 62" is a searing indictment of systemic racism and violence in America. 

devorah major is a prolific poet and novelist, known for her captivating and honest portrayals of Black existence. Her latest collection, "Califia's Daughters," is described as “a book of wisdom and whimsy, of mythology sprinkled with stardust. Every poem is a journey into a new desire fleshed out of history’s nightmares and our ancestors’ dreams” by author Toni Asante Lightfoot. 

Michael Warr is a renowned poet, editor, and community organizer who has just been selected again as an SF Public Library Library Laureate for his book, “Of Poetry & Protest: From Emmett Til to Trayvon Marvin”. Warr’s most recent project is one he edited called, "Of Poetry & Protest: From Emmett Till to Trayvon," which addresses the unjust killings of Black boys and men, similar to his contribution to the Tarot anthology.…just to name a few. 

To check out the rest of the lineup of poets, visit: bit.ly/tipr-mapTarot In Pandemic & RevolutionCurated by Adrián Arias DATE: Saturday, March 25th TIME: 12-4PM LOCATION: #447Minna & The Parks 5M San FranciscoFREE RSVP bit.ly/tipr-0325Presented by CAST in collaboration with Baldocchi Projects, a fiscally sponsored project of Intersection for the Arts With generous support by #StartSmall and First Republic Foundation. : Christopher Michael : Bob Fischer : Paz Zamora

[finishinglinepress]

FLP CHAPBOOK OF THE DAY: collective madness by adrienne danyelle oliver

TO ORDER GO TO: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/collective-madness-by-adrienne-danyelle-oliver/ RESERVE YOUR COPY TODAY

adrienne danyelle oliver is a poet-educator, hip-hop scholar from Little Rock, AR currently based in the SF Bay Area. Her previous work has appeared in Storytelling, Self & Society (Wayne State University Press 2018), Patrice Lumumba: An Anthology of Writers on Black Liberation (Nomadic Press, 2021) and Write Now! SF Bay’s Anthology Essential Truths: The Bay Area in Color (Pease Press, 2021). Some of Adrienne’s favorite authors include Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison. When she is not writing, Adrienne is reading or watching documentaries. She also leads a monthly healing writing circle for Black women.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR collective madness by adrienne danyelle oliver

collective madness is an ecosystem cross-examining the architecture of colonialism, western medicine, and the construction of race. A testament to resiliency, tone choreographs light so that death is a letting go of / I in exchange for we. Undertones of Sonia, Ntozake, and Lucille, adrienne blossoms in this collection. She emerges as the innovative Black poet; she divinely is writing to her/ our people. Ashé.

–Thea Matthews, poet and author of Unearth [The Flowers]

As lyricist and great spirit, adrienne danyelle oliver guides a raft made of her bones in an incredible feat of poetry and invocation. Challenging with investigation the grotesque dances of America, the personal is political revelation in this beautiful work. To know real pain and return with literary ascension. Meditations on fury, painting what epoch comes next.

–Tongo Eisen-Martin, San Francisco Poet Laureate

As author of possibly the first and only memoir on Black women and fibroids, I’m delighted to welcome collective madness, adrienne danyelle oliver’s new poetry collection about her fibroid journey, into this necessary conversation. These poems speak with raw urgency and generational wisdom to an aspect of Black women’s experience that is both shockingly widespread and shockingly neglected by the medical establishment, mainstream society, and literature. With lyricism and a light touch, oliver places the Black female body within the larger context of disruption, displacement, historic trauma and institutional neglect. In its invitation to decolonize the physical body/the body politic and heal physical/psychic wounds, this slim, essential volume is as intimate as it is ambitious.

–Faith Adiele, Author, The Nigerian Nordic Girl’s Guide to Lady Problems and Meeting Faith

Unflinching in their intimate testimony and social critique, the poems in collective madness lay bare the various ways historical trauma manifests in the Black woman’s body. Through her speaker’s ongoing battle with fibroids that both fill and render her empty, adrienne danyelle oliver makes the haunting claim that “this womb remembers / cargo of bodies / waiting to be crucified / or set free.” The journey of this collection is heartbreaking, infuriating, and absolutely essential.

–Lauren K. Alleyne, author of Honeyfish and Difficult Fruit

Please share/please repost [PROMO] #flpauthor #preorder #AwesomeCoverArt #poetry

[fuckyeahpoetryslam]

The Poet Laureate of San Francisco Selects a different poem every day to share via the SF Public Library website!  Some writers prevviously featured on this blog have been included!  It’s a delightful way to see new read new poetry :) 

[ottermeat]

There Goes the Neighborhood - Yard Work, Race, and Class

The bar for yard work in Berkeley is exceedingly low. It's practically a sin to water you lawn here. Front and back yards tend to be small and evenings (especially in the summer) are cool/cold so people don't spend a lot of time outdoors on their own lawn. Plus, this is a fairly Jewish town (book Jews, not money Jews) and for whatever reason the tenets of Judaism don't line up well with yard work. I say this after living in a multi-unit house and sharing a yard for 15 years with six Jews.

If anyone's yard in Berkeley looks halfway decent, the house is either for sale or the owners hired 1) Guatamalans who's names they'll never know; 2) some old hippie who is still living in one of the last remaining Berkeley boarding houses; or 3) some young hipster who is trying to convince his/her parents that professional gardening is a viable career choice after a $240,000 liberal arts degree. It's a marker of status in this town to say that Poet Laureate Robert Hass' son Luke is your gardener. It's almost as good as saying you shop at the same food store as Michael Pollan.

The exception to the rule of yard work in Berkeley are old black people. I live in a formerly red-lined neighborhood that has been slowly gentrifying for a generation. (Full disclosure: I'm part of that problem.) When we moved in four years ago, two of the three properties adjoining ours were owned by old black families and the yards were immaculate. The grass and the shrubs went to the same barber and not a blade or leaf was ever out of place. Doug (next door) moved out soon after we moved in and Ms. Lena (out back) died at age 92 and her family sold the 1,100 sf 2BR house last year for $1.2M to a white family - the Director of Business Operations for Ub*r and his non-profit executive director wife and their two kids.

Now the house next door is a rental unit for Cal grad students owned by a needy Persian lady who only asks for favors.  We had to have a talk last week about the condition of her front yard and somehow I ended up mowing it.  Ms. Lena's yard? Well, that's the photo you see. A 92-year old bed-ridden woman on a fixed income was able to keep the yard mowed for half a century. Not any more.

[raisboneza]

POETRY FOR HAITI BENEFIT RESCHEDULED

POETRY FOR HAITI BENEFIT RESCHEDULED

  Poetry for Haiti has been rescheduled to July 31st due to its scheduling conflict with the memorial for beloved brother Terry Collins. This is a great opportunity to support the democratic movement in Haiti. If you’ve already registered, there is no need to re-register. Join Haiti Action Committee for a spectacular afternoon of poetry with SF former poet laureate devorah major, SF current poet…

[gardencourtsf]

"Bringing home the bacon: Poet laureate, Sir John Betjeman––'not a great poet, but a lovely, enjoyable one, the suburb-befriending bard, a wit with a bedside manner towards royalty like a slightly camp family doctor' - takes part in a Radio 4 Poetry Prom in 1975, when the theme was animals." . . . . . #johnbetjeman #omersaleatherpig #omersa #1975 #sirjohnbetjeman #radio4 #poetryprom #pig #leather #britishdesign #dimitriomersa #omersa #omersafootstool #leatherstool #abercrombie #abercrombieandfitch #AF #leatheranimals #interiordesign #interiordesignideas #sanfrancisco #sf #midcenturydesign #bohochic #maximalism source @omersaleatheranimals (at Garden Court Antiques) https://www.instagram.com/p/COtGQJ9M2tM/?igshid=1m7jwbr3tg3gm

[ideasconcorbata]

Mission District, San Francisco on edge. A Latino investigator sifting through the suspicious circumstances of a fatal fire in a residential hotel finds himself face to face with greed, corruption and his own personal demons. A SF Noir Films Production, produced by Louis F. Dematteis and Dante Betteo, adapted by Dante Betteo from a short story by San Francisco Poet Laureate Alejandro Murguia. Additional original material by Richard Montoya, directed by Dante Betteo. Starring Richard Montoya, Veronica Valencia, Geoff Hoyle, Pearl Wong, Vincent Calvarese, Brian J. Patterson, James Hiser, Melinna Bobadilla, Sean San Jose, Christopher White, Don Lacy, Michael Torres and David Klein. Filmed entirely in San Francisco and San Mateo counties, California, USA. 2014.

[forumliterarymagazine]

Forum Fall 2018 Launch Party

Forum Fall 2018 Launch Party

Forum announces the launch of its Fall 2018 edition!!

Thursday, December 20th, 2018 at 6:00pm-8:30pm.

Alley Cat Books, 3036 24th Street, San Francisco, Ca (near Harrison Street).

Fall Forum 2018 Cover Art by Meredith Brown.

Readings from our Fall 2018 featured poet MK Chavez, SF Poet Laureate Kim Shuck, California Book Award Winner Tongo Eisen-Martin, poet/authors Cassandra Dallett, Jennifer…

[nomadicpress]

TONIGHT, 7-9, at The Lab in SF: Black Steel Magnolias in the Hour of Chaos Theory, James Cagney's first full-length collection of poetry, is headed to The Lab in San Francisco! Join us on Saturday for the SF release of this magical, hard-hitting interrogation of identity, family, loneliness, and the expectations of masculinity with readings by Tongo Eisen-Martin, Kim Shuck (San Francisco Poet Laureate), Vanessa Rochelle Lewis, Tureeda Mikell, Thea Matthews, and of course, the star of the evening, James Cagney. Books will be available for purchase and there will be a signing following the event ($15 each). Hope to see you there! (at The Lab) https://www.instagram.com/p/BqlEkHJHJLo/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=2w3yfojy1p1o

[aois21]

November 25, 2017

Here is the top literary news of the week:

Nation Newsplex wins fact-checking award

Daniel Beer wins $75k Cundill History Prize

SF librarian, blinded by nanny, inspired registry for child care workers

The most popular Kindle books of all time are mostly written by women

WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM MULTIPLE TRANSLATIONS OF THE SAME POEM

Booksellers Prep for Small Business Saturday

Scotland launches single library card pilot

Middle school names library after Code Talker

'It's crazy fun': U of C librarian fired up as massive EMI music collection arrives in Calgary

A Bible museum is a good idea. The one that's opening is not.

*‘Jack-of-all-trades, master of none’: Why Mashable flamed out

Over 400 of the World's Most Popular Websites Record Your Every Keystroke, Princeton Researchers Find

Roald Dahl Estate partners with audio player start-up

NOT YOUR GRANDMA’S LIBRARY: HOW MODERN STORYTIME DEVELOPS EARLY LITERACY

HOW FORGOTTEN TRAILBLAZER MARJORIE HILLIS HELPED WOMEN LIVE ALONE

Video: An Archives Thanksgiving (at Yale University’s Beinecke Library)

Facebook and Google strangle media

New Digital Collections: British Library Launches Bilingual Website Showcasing 1,300 Hebrew Manuscript Treasures

TOURNAMENT OF BOOKS LONG LIST ANNOUNCED

Amazon opens Black Friday pop-up shop in Soho

Who’s gonna buy Rolling Stone?

Science fiction triggers 'poorer reading', study finds

Dawson and Davies triumph at SLA Award

Special Events: “Star Wars Day: The Library Strikes Back” Coming Soon to the Calgary Public Library

The Questionable Category of “Native American Literature”

A WEEKEND AT WORDSTOCK, PORTLAND’S WONDERFUL LIT FEST

100 Notable Books of 2017

Historically, men translated the Odyssey. Here’s what happened when a woman took the job.

Darwin's annotated copy of On the Origin of Species goes to auction

Susan Orlean joins Banff Centre as literary journalism chair

Web archive to preserve official Scottish sites for future reference

WHY EXACTLY IS THIS BOOK OBSCENE?  (SKIP TO THE DIRTY BITS)

Kindle: a decade of publishing's game-changer

Charlie Rose's Journalism Awards Rescinded Amid Sexual Harassment Claims

Three win BAMB's #OneInAMillion competition

Poets wanted: Vancouver seeks nominations for poet laureate from local First Nations

Putin Signs Law Allowing Russia to List Foreign Media Outlets as 'Foreign Agents'

AMERICANS ARE READING A LOT OF POETRY RIGHT NOW, IF YOU COUNT “INSTAGRAM POETRY”

This episode is brought to you by Whiskey Sharp: Unraveled by New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Lauren Dane. Coming this January and available to preorder today on Amazon. 

It is also sponsored by the Indiegogo campaign to bring Michael B. Judkins poetry to the stage. Visit Indiegogo.com to pledge your support and help fulfill Michael’s vision.

It is also brought to you by American Presidents at War by Thomas P. Athridge. Now available in eBook, paperback, and hardcover from the aois21 market and Lulu.com with more sites coming soon! Visit events.aois21.com to learn about this week’s launch event at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.

Literally This Week is available on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher Radio, Google Play, TuneIn, Podomatic, and audio.aois21.com.

For news during the week, follow @aois21 on Twitter.

You can now support this podcast either by buying an ad through Advertisecast, or on the aois21 page on Patreon.

If there’s a story we missed, tweet to us with the #literallythisweek and we’ll check it out.

[finishinglinepress]

FLP CHAPBOOK OF THE DAY:What the Body Already Knows –2021 NWVS WINNERby K.E. Ogden

TO ORDER GO TO: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/what-the-body-already-knows-by-k-e-ogden-nwvs-164-2021-nwvs-winner/

RESERVE YOUR COPY TODAY

In this award-winning, debut chapbook, K.E. Ogden turns our gaze to mapping grief as a transformative journey of resilience. These are songs of devotion to mud, bird shit, dead bodies, hot biscuits, a cat’s torn ear, shovels, and sawdust. Each poem translates tragedy into gateways for metamorphosis, inviting readers to make new worlds in changed landscapes, to see beauty in dark, shark-infested waters, and to find elation and joy in being alive.

K.E. Ogden is a poet, essayist, book artist and educator. Kirsten grew up in Honolulu, Hawai’i and the SF Bay Area, and she spent almost every summer of her teen and twenty-something years in East Louisiana roaming the backroads with her grandmother. She loves writing on porches and still uses a typewriter for most things. A poet laureate of Gambier, Ohio, she teaches in Gambier each summer with the Kenyon Review Young Writer workshops and is one of the founding bloggers for KRO: Kenyon Review Online. A two-time judge for the Flannery O’Connor short fiction prize, Kirsten is also a former recipient of a Poetry Fellowship to Changsha, China from the CSULA Center for Contemporary Poetry & Poetics and a winner of the 2019 Academy of American Poets Henri Coulette Memorial Award for her poem “My Atoms Come from Those Stars.” Her essays, poetry, and fiction have been published in Brevity, KRO: Kenyon Review Online, Louisiana Literature, Streetlight Magazine, Windhover, andberbo and elsewhere. Her digital quilt piece “My President: A Politics of Hope” was published at UnstitchedStates.com as part of a project curated by writer Gretchen Henderson. Kirsten is a certified Narrative Therapist and chairs the Creative Writing Committee at Pasadena City College. She believes that writing and poetry have the power to heal and to change the world. To learn more,

visit her website at kirstenogden.com

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR What the Body Already Knows by K.E. Ogden – NWVS #164 – 2021 NWVS WINNER

K. E. Ogden‘s stunning chapbook, “What the Body Already Knows,” is a journey through grief for a father who “hung the sun” and a troubled mother who lives in memory as “fingerprints in the tops of all those biscuits.” Every poem is rooted in the world of the body—of those we love, of the earth, and of the sea, where the poet surprises herself by “singing underwater,” a perfect metaphor for what Ogden’s poetry accomplishes: a music all her own, rising, above all odds, from sorrow’s depths.

–Rebecca McClanahan, author of In the Key of New York City and The Tribal Knot

Every once in a precious while, a book comes into my life that shakes me out of my long days and worries, one that offers me honesty and real connection to its author. K.E. Ogden‘s new collection of poetry, What the Body Already Knows, is exactly that kind of book. These poems provide an atlas of loss, both to it and away from it, line by line. Whether telling the story of a mother lost in her sleep, a day lost to rumination over the corpse of a deer, or an entire year lost to loss itself, these poems show a way through it all. Yes, there is pain here, and fear, hospital rooms, and heavy memories from hard days, but these poems are much more than specimens lined up as examples of troubles in a drawer. They are alive, and colorful, and covered in all manner of beauty to render life’s real value.

–Jack B. Bedell, author of Color All Maps New, Poet Laureate, State of Louisiana, 2017-2019

K. E. Ogden‘s What the Body Already Knows begins with a father highlighting for his daughter the way out. Of course there is no way out. This collection chronicles the “year of forgot to breathe,” the year both parents die. In a pastoral scene, we see the pond filled with tires and truck parts, the pond where they throw in a dead deer on the count of three. These harsh, beautiful poems stun us with honesty, grit, and transformation.

–Peggy Shumaker, author of CAIRN and Gnawed Bones

K.E. Ogden‘s “What the Body Already Knows” manifests the circular and cyclical nature of grief with stunning directness and clarity. These poems are “muckings of primordial mud,” yet amazingly they give words to what cannot be said. Ogden examines the wreckage of loss, and these parts are “scooped up to make a new world.” I have never thought of loss as a mirror before reading these poems, but grief in this collection becomes a way of seeing the self in a world forever changed.

–Adam Clay, author of To Make Room for the Sea

Please share/please repost [PROMO] #flpauthor #preorder #AwesomeCoverArt #poetry

[catsynth-express]

KSW Presents Means of Exchange: Program Launch

We at CatSynth have a special place in our hearts for art about our home neighborhood in San Francisco, South of Market (SOMA). Means of Exchange is a new project presented by Kearny Street Workshop that teams up artists Weston Teruya and Kimberley Arteche with local businesses in the neighborhood to create storefront artworks that highlight the history and culture of the neighborhood.

SOMA has a rich and diverse history. Long a sprawling district of warehouses and working-class houses with large streets and small alleys, it became a mecca for artists, bars, and clubs. It was a thriving center of gay culture in the city and still includes the “Leather District.” It is a center for the Filipino diaspora in San Francisco, and includes the SoMa Pilipinas historic district. In the 1980s and 1990s some of its most run-down areas were turned into the Moscone Convention Center and a hub for several museums and cultural centers. And more recently, the neighborhood has become home to many large technology companies, as well as a proliferation of luxury high-rises and not-so-luxury-but-still-expensive apartment complexes. With so many different forces at work, the neighborhood means different things to different people, and tensions and conflicts inevitably have arisen between many of the longtime residents and institutions and newcomers.

The publicly viewable artworks will celebrate many of these aspects of the neighborhood. But the history, contradictions, and conflict were also highlighted by the readers and performances and the launch event this past Friday. The evening opened with a reading by Mary Claire Amable, a Filipino-American writer who was raised in SOMA and the adjacent Tenderloin neighborhood.

Amable reflected on her upbringing, including the struggles and challenges faced by her immigrant parents, the small apartments where she lived that are now threatened by redevelopment, and the increasing unaffordability of the neighborhood for many longtime residences, particularly immigrants and people of color. Her story provides a different perspective on places and streets I have come to know well.

Next was a reading by Tony Robles, a longtime poet and activist in San Francisco who was a short-list nominee for poet laureate of SF 2017.

Like Amable, Robles was born and raised in San Francisco, and his writing reflects on the changes in his hometown and the effect it has on his communities, on artists, and on those facing displacement. He spoke both nostalgically and somewhat cynically of San Francisco’s mythic past and of the struggles of people to survive here in the present; but he also shared writings from his visits to the Philippines, including a humorous piece about “The Province.” You can get a feel for his writing Maryam Farnaz Rostami, a San Francisco-based performance artist who has staged several solo and ensemble shows, including her latest Late Stage San Francisco.

Rostami also works as a designer in the architectural world, and her performance cleverly weaves that experience into laments about gentrification and displacement in the city. She decries the traditional “enforced cuteness” of San Francisco architecture, but also questions contemporary minimalism, as it applies both to design and life. She took us on a tour of The Battery, an exclusive club that popped up a few years ago and most of us loved to hate from the moment we heard about it. The descriptions of glass and metal contrast with the ugliness of the institution’s sensibilities and target clientele. But Rostami also offered notes of optimism and hope, such as ways we could organize the city more equitably and sustainability (e.g., more high-rises, but also a lot more natural space). And she did this with a heightened exaggerated style from her drag performances.

We had a large and appreciative audience for the event, full of familiar faces from the KSW community as well as newcomers. I look forward to seeing the full art project as it unfolds on the streets of my neighborhood.

KSW Presents Means of Exchange: Program Launch was originally published on CatSynth

[forumliterarymagazine]

Join us for the Fall 2017 FORUM Magazine Launch Party at Bird & Beckett Books & Records. Wednesday, Dec. 20th, 2017 7:30p to 9:30p. #CCSF #ForumCCSF Join us for the Fall 2017 FORUM Magazine Launch Party Wednesday, December 20th, 2017. Bird & Beckett Books & Records 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Featuring: Announcement of contest winners Readers by SF Poet Laureate Kim Shuck Accompaniment by CCSF Jazz Musicians Club