Speak Poetry in San Mateo County

Eva Chen

Eva Chen is a 16-year-old poet, photographer and social justice activist. Her writing has been recognized in the Scholastic Arts and Writing Competition and published in The Weight Journal, Catcher Zine, and Cathartic Literary Magazine. She co-founded Footprints on Jupiter, a teen literary magazine, to raise funds for the World Literacy Foundation.

In the summer of 2021, she volunteered at the California State Treasurer’s Office and conducted independent research on current issues and public policy in California. She has authored a four-page analysis paper on The Street Medicine Act (AB 369) and gave presentations on ways to address ongoing state problems through legislation.

As a Burlingame Public Library Teen Advisory Board Member, she helps organize activities catered to youth and teens. Some of her projects include writing workshops and a poetry slam for United Against Hate Week. Through Letters Against Depression, she volunteers online to write letters to those battling mental health issues.

In May 2022, Eva was named the San Mateo County Young Woman of Excellence Awardee, and was the first youth poet to be inducted into the Women’s Hall of Fame. The Women’s Hall of Fame was the first of its kind in the State of California, conceived by Congresswoman Anna Eshoo in 1984 to recognize outstanding women for their achievements and contributions to the overall wellbeing of our County.

In September 2022, Eva Chen was appointed Youth Poet-in-Residence of the City of Burlingame.

Poem on Belonging

RETRACING

I am from dusty red envelopes,
from too-sweet tangerines and steaming pork buns,
I am from the backstreets of a Chinatown alleyway,
(Dark, but never unforgotten, and always
reverating against the strums of a pipa violin)
I am from oak woods & minted cedar,
from pine needles so sharp they pull against your skin -
I am from kitchen conversations & too-wide gummy smiles,
from the loudest table across the restaurant,
from the smell of smoked bacon paired with sunny-side eggs.
From “Stand straight!” and “Stop Slouching!”
I’m from praying to full-moons in Mid-Autumn
to wishing good health on every doorstep.
I’m from the golden limbs of California,
to the copper valleys of rice fields, from
sugar rock crystals, and baked cornbread on a
Saturday morning. From the immigration
journey of my parents, to the home we left
in San Francisco, behind the living room
cabinets sits a little time machine, journaling
the remnants of our past on stained yellow
pages — I am from the fadeness of these photos
left behind to develop behind a chalky film,
forever growing, strung to the place where I began,

Read Eva Chen’s ecopoem, “decompose”.

Keiki Leni Ward

“My name is Keiki Leni Ward. I’m a spoken word poet and former student at Ravenswood Middle School. I write about my history and heritage, my environment, my community, and my hopes as a young woman of color. I have entered different poetry contests and have had my work featured by the Ravenswood Education Foundation as part of their Giving Tuesday campaign. My poem, “Mirroring Sea,” about sea level rise and its impact on East Palo Alto, is featured in the San Mateo County Youth Ecopoetry Project.”

Ecopoem

MIRRORING SEA

Please don’t forget us. As the tides rise over our islands and wipe away our emotions and drown our throats.

Please don’t forget us. My ancestors speak in their native language that sounds like water and their sandy voices that engrave themselves into the sand and build the foundation of our land.

Don’t forget us as the stars slowly disappear, leaving us lost at sea looking for our home.

Our ancestors spoke to the sky and blessed the land.

In the sky the sun would open up like a refreshing window for the soul and the stars would open up to us like the eyes of our own spirituality.

Yet the ocean spoke to us in a surrounding crowd of whispers and danced around as many different truths we had to face.

A true reflection of ourselves that we are blind to.

As the water rises and hides my tears, drowning my overlooked throat. I pray that the stars may reach out to me and guide me home.

I pray that my ancestors can teach me.

I pray that my lost language will find me and soften my tongue bearing the language of freedom and the sweet sappy fruit of knowledge.

I pray that I will still be able to go home.

The ocean that brought us here, wishes to take us back now. Slowly the ocean takes her hand over my people and pulls us back, she is taking back what is hers.

The blurring reflection of us all, that we took too much and now the ocean wishes to take back.

The ocean isn’t just a reflection of ourselves but rather the confrontation of human limits and certain moral greed.

She holds us close and the ocean kisses our foreheads as she carries our ancestors away, and our home day by day.

The stars comfort us and the moon carries us into another lifetime, this time where the ocean speaks to us in the voices of our people and allows us to stay.

Come back for me as the stars and the moon.

I wish for my people to come back to me. I wish for my home to come back to me and I pray that the ocean may allow us the chance to understand her and ourselves.

Read Keiki Leni’s poem on identity, “Petunia”.

Read other poems featured in the Youth & Ecopoetry project.

Flo Oy Wong

Flo Oy Wong, artist/poet/educator, and a daughter of Chinese immigrants, was born and raised in Oakland California’s Chinatown. Becoming aware of poetry at the age of 9 she later attended the University of California, Berkeley as an English major. When she graduated, she became an elementary school teacher. At the age of 40, she began her career as a visual artist. During her art career she received 3 National Endowment for the Arts Awards. In the year 2000, she worked with Kearny Street Workshop (KSW) of San Francisco to present made in usa: Angel Island Shhh, to tell the immigration story of her parents, Gee Seow Hong and Gee Suey Ting, and other immigrants from China. The exhibit was later exhibited at the Ellis Island Immigration Museum in 2004.

At the age of 75, she began studying poetry in earnest. When she turned 80 in 2018 she published her first art and poetry book, Dreaming of Glistening Pomelos. Currently, she is a member of The Last Hoisan Poets, with Genny Lim and Nellie Wong, who read their original poetry in Hoisan-wa, the dialect of their ancestors, and in English. The Last Hoisan Poets collaborate with the Del Sol String Quartet, a musical community which champions the work of living composers. A co-founder of the San Francisco-based Asian American Women Artists Association (AAWAA), Flo resides in Sunnyvale, California with her husband, Edward K. Wong. She is currently an active member of the South Bay poetry community, including the Cupertino Poet Laureate Program, the Cupertino Poetry Circle, and the Euphrat Museum’s 1^st Thursday Open Mic Program.

Poem on Belonging

HAW THLIM HEE, HAW THLIM HEE

Baba, Mama,
Coy see haw thlim hee.
Jin geh haw thlim hee.
Gheong gai ah?
Gheong gai ah?
Yin wee ngnoy thlai goy nin see,
Hai ook kee gong Hoisan-wa.
Ghee song gong Hoisan-wa ah.

		Coy see ngnoy bock thlai how fot lah.
		Mahn mahn haung gai lah.
		Gow yin look sip nin lah.
		Law Gung ghee haw ah.
		Sahng geh neuy.
		Sahng geh doy.	
		Yu thlom geh thloon.
			Leong geh hai thloon doy.	
			Yit nip geh thloon neuy.
			Aw law haw heong gow, heong wah.
			Ahn hai mmm woy gong Hoisan wa.

Mmm gin yell, mmm gin yell.

Baba, Mama,
Now very heart happy.
Really very heart happy.
Why?
Why?
Because at time I small,
At home talk Hoisan-wa.
Such joy talk Hoisan-wa.

	Now hair all white.
	Walk slowly slowly on street.
	Marry for sixty years.
	Husband - very very good.
	Have daughter.
	Have son.
	Have three grandchildren.
		Two grandsons.
		One granddaughter.
		All respectful.
		All no talk Hoisan-wa.

Does not matter. Does not matter.

Author photo by Edward K. Wong

Eva Chen

In March 2022, Eva was named the San Mateo County Young Woman of Excellence Awardee, and will be the first youth poet to be inducted into the Women’s Hall of Fame in May. The Women’s Hall of Fame is the first of its kind in the State of California, conceived by Congresswoman Anna Eshoo in 1984 to recognize outstanding women for their achievements and contributions to the overall wellbeing of our County.

In September 2022, Eva Chen was appointed as the City of Burlingame’s Youth Poet-in-Residence.

Ecopoem

DECOMPOSE

Every year, 18,000 tonnes of pumpkins are thrown away as landfill. These pumpkins go on to decompose and are then emitted as methane, which is 20 times more harmful than carbon.

this is what happens to 
the orange corpse: 

first, the shell crumbles 
into the ground, seeds 
pouring into the dampened 
dirt. next, 

it’s organs seep into the roots 
of earth, green coils
pulled by swollen worms. 

finally, when it is dissected
& grey, body numb like a plum,
it will sit under the heaps of soil & 

slowly roll into a tiny ball
of heat, four molecules stringing 
like beads to rise up to the surface 
& swallow us whole.

Read Eva Chen’s poem on identity, “Retracing”.

Read other poems featured in the Youth & Ecopoetry project.

Clifford Hunt

Clifford Hunt is a husband, father, poet, writer, editor, and teacher in Half Moon Bay, California. He’s lived and worked in Bethel, San Francisco, Seattle, Arcata, San Diego, and Beirut, Lebanon.

He and Tim Badger are co-founders, editors, and publishers of Just Press; small press publishers of poems, poetics, art, and ideas.

Clifford’s publications include The ⊄omplications, Chapter Ø, Outside & Elsewhere, 36 Days in Bethel, The Weekly, Dispatches from the Field, and You Amuse Yourself You Amass Yourself (1983, with Tim Badger).

Poems on Belonging

TIME

Nights go by; the moon, planets, stars.
I walk on this bluff, look at this sky.
Sometimes I see the west and everything
that isn't tied to this coast. Sometimes
I see another shore, peopled with monkeys
and folks who have more of a clue than I do,
who dance to music few of us hear.

These waves make me think,
and I think. I dance with you
around a fire nobody sees,
under light from a moon this love
defines. No night goes by without
knowing tonight; tonight just
these stars, planets, the moon, 
and wave after wave
wanting you in my arms.

LOVE IS

Tonight Venus makes perfect sense -
this is February after all. Tonight
everything else in the sky draughts 
to the might of that planet. Love
makes certain the planet outshines
whatever is around it. Tonight Venus
lets us know we're only here
as long as we know love. And the 
light that planet throws across
our short attention span insists
we pay attention. Love makes sense.

PUT IT ON THE CALENDAR

We all fill our days thinking of something
	- love, joy, God, pleasure, reflection,
	  the Devil, or regret.
We fill our days with what we imagine
we’ll get done today, or maybe tomorrow.
We think we have all the time in the world.

But the day slips by, like days before,
and the days before that, when we managed
to avoid whatever we needed to do.
Right now a nap seems right, between
August and September, when weather changes
and we’ll have different chores to do
before we wake up and remember what
we all forgot to do. For now, just rest.

@ WINTER SOLSTICE

How spectacularly morning rises
out of night, and leaves us here
with each other. How today differs
from yesterday, and all the days
before. Maybe the pain we've suffered
will bear fruit, and we can just
fall in love, turn to one another
and notice what's really going on.
Maybe this morning means more 
than anything we've known, and 
brings hope out of the cold, long 
night’s moon; hope to cherish this 
morning, this day, more than
the sum of all the days before.

OCTOBER SOMETHING

We were all on the side of the road
when the girl walks up half-clothed
and confused. Training tells us
be cautious and we are, all of us.

She asks for food, directions,
and something to cover her.

We're all looking for something,
we just might not know how it looks
or what it’s called.

Eileen Malone

Eileen Malone is the author of The Complete Guide to Writers Groups, Conferences and Workshops (Wiley), the award-winning collection Letters with Taloned Claws (Poet’s Corner Press), and poetry books: I Should Have Given Them Water (Ragged Sky Press) as well as It Could Be Me, Although Unsure (Kelsay Press). Her poetry and stories have been published in over 500 literary journals and anthologies, many of which have earned prizes and citations, i.e., four Pushcart nominations.

Eileen taught K-12 with the California Poets in the Schools Program and creative writing workshops for the California Community College System. She hosted and co-produced an interview show for San Francisco Access Television which can now be viewed online. She is a voting member of the Northern California Book Reviewers, and as a mental health activist, sits on the Program Advisory Committee of Caminar. Eileen is Founder and Director of the Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition, and a past Poet Laureate for Broadmoor Village.

Poems on Belonging

EXMOOR PONY

After our cream tea followed by a stop
at the pub for a pint and cheddar
the short, dark-skinned man of powerful
legs and smooth stride leads me on our walk
into loam flavored air, faint drizzle
gleaming wind, my heritage

lighter, louder than damp turned earth
a patterned mare stands in southwest drizzle
a clean beauty of wet sea-pebbles
her sure, smooth eyes surrounded by rings
of light colored hair

a wild Exmoor Pony, he tells me, prehistoric
fashioned by nature, not breeders, survivors
like him, he goes on, here before the Picts
before the Celts, the Romans, before the tundra
gave way to birch forests and grassland

he talks and his eyes, brown, ancient, native steady
as soft rain on mud allow me to link brightly
into all that is sturdy, hardy, ample of bloodlines
—and, he winks, all that has endured.

HIS BEAUTIFUL MOTHER

He would watch her, sit on the edge of her bed
the reflection of his barefoot boy-self
out of range in her dressing table mirror
watch his beautiful mother brush her blackly
beautiful hair, the kind of hair that begs to be
taken out dancing and when he thinks of dancing
he thinks of her step, light-ankled like wild Sika deer

he remembers how she brushed her hair
up from the mystery that was herself
catching it, twisting it into a Celtic knot
singing with blackbird voice, her throat whiter
than any lily wet with sun, but that was then
and this is now, before she banished him from
sitting on that same bed she took to, refused
to rise from, let the tangles wither in her hair
tossed in fever and deliriums and began to die
and die and die and die and all he wanted to do
was think about her hair, her hair, the black hair
found only on young Irish women, straight, silken
in its awful glamour of black, how he would sing
into the harp of it silvered with sheen and how
she would sing back, kiss him to sleep
her midnight black hair a halo of incessant scent
of daffodil breath, tea leaves, lily of the valley

sometimes when the boy becomes the man
he has to change the truth in order to remember
someone the way he wants to, sometimes
he has to turn the mirror to the wall.

Civic Engagement

Poet Laureate Emerita, Broadmoor Village

Educator, California Poets in the Schools Program and California Community College System

Host & Producer, San Francisco Access Television

Board member, Northern California Book Reviewers

Program Advisory Committee, Caminar

Founder and Director, Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition

Hilary King

Born and raised in Virginia, Hilary King has lived in Nashville, Atlanta and now the Bay Area of California.

She has been active in the arts for many years. In Atlanta, she created a website and cable show called “Arts in Atlanta” to showcase local artists.

She went on to co-found Atlanta Women in Theatre and the Atlanta Women’s Poetry Collective, and is a member of the Dramatist Guild.

Poem on Belonging

RECREATIONAL VEHICLE: POEM FOR THE BAY AREA

A sobering fact when it comes to making it in the Bay Area: People living in vehicles is a reality nearly 10,000 people wake up to each and every day, according to recent census data. (NBC Bay Area, 2020)

I imagine you must be
in the middle of a road trip,
that you parked here, by campus,
and hopped out to take a picture of the palm trees.

The way your RV wears dirt, the way
it sags against the curb, exhausted,
I decide it’s a long trip you’ve been on,
a grand adventure,

not at all a drastic measure.
I fill in your details:
cross country journey visiting
baseball fields or national parks,

a pilgrimage,
not an ordeal of layoffs and landlords
and which streets are friendly
and which neighborhoods want you

gone.
If I pretend hard enough,
maybe I will never see myself
behind that wheel.

Renee Aubuchon

“Poetry has been a part of my life since I wrote my first poem when I was five years old. I have published some poems in poetry journals and have taught creative writing. I taught creative writing to eighth graders on the Hoopa Reservation. Students read some of their poems over the local tribal radio station. We also published a journal of their poems and stories. When I was working in the Sierra foothills I taught creative writing to continuation school students. I created an author’s web page for each one of them on the internet with their picture, a bio, and a sample of their writing. During my long work career these projects brought me the most joy.”

Poem

BELONGING

When I close my eyes
And enter into the silence
I feel the one who watches
Who is always there observing.
This is where I belong.

When I realize that the place
Where I was before I was born
Is the same as where I go
After I die.
This is where I belong.

When I am alone in a forest
Listening to the tall trees whisper to me
That they know me.
That we are family.
This is where I belong.

When I look into your eyes
And I see the Holy essence.
When I feel your love and mine
Merge in ecstatic recognition.
This is where I belong.

When I feel the pulse of the stars
And yet am rooted upon the earth
I surrender to YES!
I know all life to be an eternal flame.
This is where I belong.

Civic Engagement

A retired Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT), Renee Aubuchon’s career in mental health services began in San Mateo County in 1970 when she started volunteering with a youth peer counseling program called Damien House. She is a graduate of the San Mateo County Citizens Academy and served for awhile on the County Mental Health Advisory Board.

She lived on the Hoopa Reservation in the 1980s, and was a volunteer with the Hoopa Health diabetic treatment team. She was also a volunteer DJ with tribal radio station KIDE, and taught poetry to middle schoolers and continuation school students. She collected her students’ poems in an anthology, and distributed copies locally on the reservation.

Eric Forgaard

Eric Forgaard moved to the SF Peninsula in 2002 after growing up in Santa Cruz and then logging decade-long stints in San Diego and Washington, D.C. He worked for 10 years as a systems manager, first for a scientific publishing firm and then for an accounting firm. After moving to the Peninsula, Eric served as administrative director at a job-focused nonprofit for seven years before taking his current position in communications for the County of San Mateo.

Eric earned a BA in Humanities from SF State University. He is the author of the poetry collection, Passages (1993), as well as several books of photography.

Poem on Belonging

CHILDREN OF BELMONT

On Belmont’s eastern rim
near the sloughs of Redwood Shores
a Little Leaguer saunters to the plate
hoists the bat to his shoulder
and peers out from under a broad-brimmed helmet gone askew

Marina Field fans out before him and he waits
The pitcher leans in and feels for the proper grip
Traces of kicked dirt and mown bent grass spice the late spring breeze
Parents shift and murmur on the warm aluminum bleachers
Everyone luxuriates in the peculiar suspension of time

Elsewhere
below the high ridges of the western borderland
a meandering girl on Chaparral Trail brushes past a kaleidoscope of butterflies
perched on a spray of ferns
launching them into scattershot retreat

Later
in finespun reverie
she’ll recall their flit and hover and wobbly glide
Their shimmering flashes of color in the slanting light

Down the hill
curious readers pluck discoveries from library shelves
and sink into plush chairs
with tales of wiggly bugs and distant lands on their laps

Finally tiring of the playground
young ones toddle up the footpath at Twin Pines Park
on some cheerful quest
trailed by a parent roused off a wooden bench
Little shoes stamp at cottony clumps of sunlight sprinkled about
under the soaring eucalyptus
under wise oaks

All through the day
and into evening
the children of Belmont gather memories like dandelions

And after the sun slides off the boughs
after crickets take the night
from their bedsides the stories of kingdoms are whispered

Belonging Begins With Us

A community poetry project by San Mateo County Poet Laureate Aileen Cassinetto in partnership with the San Mateo County Office of Community Affairs as part of the Welcoming Week 2021 Program.

Belonging Begins With Us

A San Mateo County Community Poem

As you walk outside on your first morning here
put out seed, and see what comes near.

A dove, a rose, a redwood tree.
Gaze upon a new light

another wonderful adventure
a new welcoming page.

Sing songs in your mother tongue
We will play music to it. There is a place for you,

a wide window with a view toward the western hills:
needlegrass, monkeyflower, coast live oak, red tailed hawk.

Like a shooting star in the nighttime sky,
go ahead, make a wish.

You may long for home, but you will soon find
that home can also be here. We embrace you

and everything that you bring: your customs,
your food and music, your smiles, your heart.

Think not of the veins of this outstretched hand
as dead ends but as living rivers.

Before you arrived we thought we knew
who we were, but now we know

we are more than we dreamed.
Let me feel what you remember

and I will go the way you came.
I wait, my extended hand a poem, replete

with petals of love, stems of growth, vines of hope.
Would you like to eat lunch with me?

Would you like to join my family
for Thanksgiving celebration?

Sharing a meal is how we nurture
relationships, celebrate achievements,

mend conflicts and feel gratitude for life.
To the abuelita on 5th Avenue, you are

the building block of my community and corazón.
To my fellow neighbors: share your kindness,

share your support, and extend belonging
to those who only just arrived. Be the first

to provide dignity, safety, and grace
in these times of migration, disruption

and hard choices. We all know how it feels
to be excluded. We all have the power

to help others belong in our communities.
From the first day a new resident moves here,

they are part of our family.
Here, we shelter the poor, remember the forgotten.

Every stranger becomes a prospect for friendship.
Our tiny planet is but a small, swirling speck

of cosmic dust with even tinier occupants
bumping into each other, seeking shelter, better weather.

Kapwa ko, I give you harbor, armor, anchor.
Here is where you can start over. Belonging begins with us.

¿Qué ondas? Ya comiste?
Vamos a comer a mi casa.

Welcome, welcome home. Herete means to rejoice!
Staray Ma Shay. We’re glad to have you.

Shalom, Salam, Pas, Amani, Vrede, paco, peace.
Thank you for being here.

Please ask for anything you need.
May each bright dawn bring you peace, bring

family and memory, hummingbird, hawk. May
the surf be a heartbeat, steady as home.

Contributors:

Terry Adams, CSW/LGBTQ Commission Executive Director Tanya Beat, Marilu Bedolla, Megan Brown, Aileen Cassinetto, Eva Chen, Hilary Cruz Mejia, Portola Valley Councilmember Maryann Moise Derwin, Commissioner Terri Echelbarger, Paul Fericano, Caroline Goodwin, Colma Councilmember John Goodwin, Monica Korde, Vivian Le, Tatiana Lyulkin, Kevin Madrigal Galindo, Jescent Marcelino, Sujatha Marsden, Diane Lee Moomey, Cordelia Naumann, City of San Mateo Deputy Mayor Diane Papan, GraceAnn Stewart, Jefferson High School District Board of Trustees President Rosie Tejada, Rosemary Ybarra-Garcia, Peninsula Family Service, & Filoli