Tony Press tries to pay attention and sometimes he does. He enjoys reading and writing, whether poetry or fiction, and has had both published in many fine places. He’d be thrilled if you purchased his 2016 story collection, Crossing the Lines (Big Table). It’s available via independent bookstores, directly from him, or even from that Amazon place. He lives near the San Francisco Bay and has two Pushcart nominations, yet not one website.

Poems on Belonging

ON MORI POINT

Surfboards on a fence
the sea is calm today
and thus, so are we

We sit, backs cradled by the bench
and talk of tonight, and tomorrow,
but not of yesterday

We are not ready
to speak of yesterday

Copyright © by Tony Press. This poem originally appeared in Trailer Park Quarterly. Used with permission of the author.

NOT FAR AT ALL

In my little town it is only just
around the corner
from the teen club on San Bruno
to the senior center on Visitación.

Copyright © by Tony Press. This poem originally appeared in One Sentence Poems. Used with permission of the author.

COLMA WALK

We walked by the graveyard today
Father’s Day
And saw a group of five, sitting on the grass,
On blankets, and wrapped, too, in blankets, this breezy Sunday.
Each person sitting within three or four yards of the same tombstone

We continued walking
Father’s Day
The five appeared, though we could not say for certain
Appeared to be a family
Perhaps a mother and four children, two of them in their twenties,
Two younger

But perhaps not, perhaps a mother-grandmother, her child, her child’s spouse
And two children.
Or not, to be sure, for it could have been five friends, companions, aunts, uncles
We had no way to know, and no need
This Father’s Day

We walked on, reached the corner, debated quickly:
“Shall we do the whole path, or just go back toward the mountain?”
We chose the shorter way, turned around, and began the uphill route.
Except for the group of five, we had seen exactly two people, both groundskeepers,
(one raking, one driving a green cart), those two, plus six squirrels
Six squirrels and two large crows

Approaching the group, we saw them now standing, circling the grave
Standing and holding hands.
We could not yet hear, but wondered if they were praying, as we could
See lips moving, bodies swaying.
We kept walking – it’s what we do.

Closer still, we realized they were singing, singing quite well, in fact,
Without a boombox or any musical instrument, just their voices
Carrying down the slope toward our waiting ears
At first, we both thought we recognized the song, and whispered the title
To each other – the same title – but almost as quickly knew we were wrong

We did not know this song, our hearts told us, but we wanted to, so we sat,
Sat on a bench a mere twenty yards from the singers.
If they noticed us, they made no sign. They sang.
They sang, we listened. They sang, we marveled, and we wondered.
They sang, we listened, we held hands – held hands before we knew we were holding hands.

We had come to the cemetery to walk, to talk a little, to be by each other’s side
We had come this Father’s Day to remember our fathers.
We had come to this place
This place neither city nor country,
This place for the living
This place for the dead
This place like no other place,
This place no different from any other place.
All places the same place.

This place.
This Father’s Day.
This group singing this song
A song we did not know
Yet would never forget

A song we did not know
Yet would never forget

Copyright © by Tony Press. This poem originally appeared in Digging Through the Fat. Used with permission of the author.

Find Tony’s book in the library!

Crossing the Lines (2016)

Civic Engagement

Tony was part of Immigrants Rising’s Educator Action Group from 2010 to 2012, and has edited numerous publications, served as a mentor to students, and been a supporter ever since.

Mia Ayumi Malhotra is the author of Notes from the Birth Year, winner of the Bateau Press BOOM Chapbook Contest, and Isako Isako, a California Book Award finalist and winner of the Alice James Award, the Nautilus Gold Award, a National Indie Excellence Award, and a Maine Literary Award. She is the recipient of the Hawker Prize for Southeast Asian Poetry and the Singapore Poetry Prize, and her poems have been published in numerous journals and anthologies, including The Yale Review, Indiana Review, and The World I Leave You: Asian American Poets on Faith and Spirit. She teaches and lives in San Mateo County.

Poem on Belonging

SHELTERING
                     with lines by Louise Glück

Ready or not, here we are. We’ve been lost and found,
            gone underground. We’ve raised cardboard cities,
pounded owers to pulp. Danced like seeds, sprouting.
            We’ve been Stuck in the Mud, traced ourselves
in chalk, watched our bodies turn to brilliant dust.
            Around us, the death toll rises. Something comes
into the world calling disorder, disorder—
            Ordered home, we’re baking. You peer
into the oven. I don’t know how much longer, I say—
            lost, too, in this interminable landscape.
Somewhere in the desert, my great-grandfather lifts
            a stone from a dry creek bed. Sui meaning water,
seki meaning stone—suiseki as in viewing stones,
            naturally formed. For days, he contemplates
its dimensions. A desolate island, perhaps—blueprint
            of some past or future grief.
How many times have we made life from dust?
            First strawberries, then carnations. Roses,
by trial and error. Unearthed, we’ve found the white
            of bones, wet of saliva, sound of singing—
at the end of my suffering there was a door.
            One day we will reenter the house of the living.
A local store texts: OPEN NOW! FACE MASKS
            AND GLOVES FOR SALE! You chant rhymes,
write your name for the first time. You’re learning
            the names of things. Yeast. Virus. Oxalis.
You call it the pandemonium. Enculturation,
            they say, bringing a child into language—
from raw and unformed to browned. Friday,
            we knead dough. Monday, you push stones
into place, form the letters “Y,” “X.” We touch
            the rough, chiseled edges. Count the days.
Outside, fever rages. It’s spring again. You pick
            wild irises with gold veins, bellowers
with red and yellow striations. Your bodies—
            so beloved, sometimes I mistake one
for the other—climb into bed beside me.
            The hours stretch. Dusk lengthens over the trees.
From my window, I can see the neighbors’ lit A-frame.
            I was once afraid—I still am, but every night
the sun sets, and in the gloaming, a star—or is it
            the light from a plane—blinks on—

Copyright © 2020 by Mia Ayumi Malhotra. This poem originally appeared in MiGoZine Winter 2020. Used with permission of the author.

Find Mia’s book in the library!

Isako Isako (2018)

Kevin Madrigal Galindo is a food justice advocate who is reimagining health with ancestral Mexican cooking. He is a first-generation Chicano hijo de su chingada madre from South San Francisco by way of Zapopan, Jalisco. Kevin’s work has been featured in The Boiler, Bozalta, The San Franciscan, & Edible East Bay. His first chapbook Hell/a Mexican is out now(!) with Nomadic Press.

Kevin shines light on the comunidad whose work supports countless American lives. In his free time, you can find him feeling his feelings to highly curated R&B playlists.

In 2022, Redwood City Public Library hosted a reading to celebrate the release of Kevin’s book, Hell/a Mexican.

Poem on Belonging

GUALMAR

after Terrance Hayes

I come from a long line of code-switching enunciations
Gualmar, Cosco, Estánfor, & Piksa Hoot all in my neighborhood
& matter of fact all of my gente work there.
I come from a thousand laps ran with Payless kicks
legally counterfeit backward swooshes y mas barato
I am three parts pan dulce, two parts la chancla
scars and one part communion wine.
I’m from “hijos de su chingada madre” straight out
the hocico of mi chingada madre. Phrases as sacred, aftermath not
calculated till A+’s in algebra & English teacher scolded parents
nuisance & unfocused & illiterate & diction deficient
“hijo qué dijo tu maestra” y “nada, no te preocupes” translating signs
from English to Spanish soon as I learned to breathe. CA my home
they say it’s empathy’s fault that causes these quakes. My ancestors
whispered in my ear to unfinish degrees advised otherwise, true to blood
that circulates through these frijolero veins.
I’m from a technicality, youngest in my family
miscarried unmet sister would have beared a beautiful
first communion dress, instead it was me. My search history reeks
of fermented agave & missing names + obituary. South City &
Zapopan raised me. Dutch crunch sandwiches & tortas ahogadas would test positive
in my curly hair, if my culture was considered a drug; a threat. Which it is. I come
blessed like the 15 Virgen de Guadalupes found in my home. They say I never stay put
& yet laid me in a crib. When the morning came I was out the door crawling,
walking, running & I haven’t stopped since.

Copyright © 2022 by Kevin Madrigal Galindo. This poem originally appeared in Hell/a Mexican (Nomadic Press, 2022). Used with permission of the author.

Find Kevin’s book in the library!

Hell/a Mexican (2022)

Civic Engagement

Co-Founder, Farming Hope, a non-profit organization dedicated to the therapy, skill training, and personal development for unhoused, low-income people, and segments of the population facing discrimination regarding employment acceptance.

Antonio de Jesús López has received scholarships to attend the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, Tin House, the Vermont Studio Center, and Bread Loaf. He is a proud member of the Macondo Writers Workshop and a CantoMundo Fellow. He holds degrees from Duke University, Rutgers-Newark, the University of Oxford, and Stanford University. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in PEN/America, Insider Higher Education, Palette Poetry, The New Republic, Tin House, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. His debut poetry collection, Gentefication, was selected by Gregory Pardlo as the winner of the 2019 Levis Prize in Poetry. Between 2020 and 2024, he served as councilmember for the City of East Palo Alto. He was appointed San Mateo County’s 5th Poet Laureate in April 2025, and is expected to receive his PhD in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford University in June.

Visit the Official Poet Laureate page for more information about the Poet Laureate program.

Find Antonio’s book in the library!

Gentefication (2021)

Ida J. Lewenstein is a retired English-as-a-Second-Language instructor of some 22 years who wears several hats. She has written many poems, chants and rhymes to reinforce, in a fun way, the structures she was teaching. Some of these have worked their way into imaginative story poems for children. She is a long-standing member of the California Writers Club (CWC) San Francisco Peninsula Branch, and some of her poems and stories appear in their anthologies. She also belongs to the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), and is the author of several children’s books. Ida attended the University of Washington, Seattle, and San Francisco State University.

Poem

SUPPOSE… SUPPOSE

Do you have a wiggle inside of you?
What does it do…?
Just what does it do?

Suppose…suppose…
You wiggle your toes
And the wiggle inside
Wiggles up to your nose.

Suppose…suppose…
You then wiggle your nose
And the wiggle wiggles
Right back to your toes!

Up to your nose
And down to your toes
Up and down
Uh…oh! There it goes!

Suppose…suppose…
You say to this wiggle –
STOP RIGHT NOW!
You’re making me wriggle
And when I wriggle
I start to GIGGLE!

WRIGGLING and GIGGLING
Is all I do –
It’s bothering my Mama
And my Daddy, too.
Can’t you find
Something else
To do?

But a wiggle is just a wiggle
And you can talk ‘til you’re blue
After all, wiggles must wiggle
What else can they do?

Copyright © 2019 by Ida J. Lewenstein. This poem originally appeared in Speak Poetry Vol. 2. Used with permission of the author.

Monica Korde is the Poet Laureate of Belmont, California and currently hosts the monthly open mic series Belmont Poetry Night. She has been one of the three judges for the Fourth Annual San Mateo County Poetry Out Loud competition and has also co-judged the First Annual WordSlam Youth Poetry Contest. Her poetry has appeared online in The New Verse News, Filoli Winter Haiku, San Francisco Public Library’s Poem-of-the-Day and in the Speak Poetry anthology. Her readings have appeared on KKUP Radio, on social media and her poems have also been awarded prizes at locally held poetry contests. She has worked with local poets to organize and host poetry events to amplify youth voices and has been co-hosting Poets Night, a bi-monthly open mic. She has a Master’s degree in English and a Diploma in French language. Born and raised in India, Monica is a former educator and continues being a community service volunteer, a calligrapher, and a motorcycle enthusiast.

Poem on Belonging

TRACING MY ROOTS

I can’t trace myself to kings or queens
nor can I tell you if I come from
a family of war heroes or saints.

What if I say I come from a root word?
Having my own existence but yielding
and strong enough, to shape a language,
to create new meanings. If I could tell
my younger self something, I’d tell her
she doesn’t need to be any one thing.

What if I say I come from an ancestral
manuscript? An old story preserving
pieces of history, waiting to be
restored, to be rewritten, to be translated.
Waiting to bring back to life
a voice buried deep.

What if I say I come from a heritage
of poetry my mother makes, poems I taught myself
to write, and poems I have grown up reading?
From Tagore to Frost, from Dickinson to Angelou
I have found myself again in Mary Oliver
and Nye, in Harjo and in Tishani Doshi.

I am retracing myself to my art. Writing,
and rising with Poets Laureate of the bay
and now I take up the torch.

What if I say this is the lineage I call back upon.
This is the tradition I build upon today. And I feel
healed in knowing I am not only a word on a page
but a voice alive in this time, in this place
and everything that I come from
is only guiding me forward.

Copyright © 2022 by Monica Korde. Used with permission of the author.

Poet Laureate Projects

Appointed by the Council of the City of Belmont in 2021, Monica Korde will serve as Belmont Poet Laureate through 2024.

Current Host, Belmont Poetry Night

Project POETRY 360

Maurine Killough is a guided imagery practitioner and hypnotherapist, as well as an award-winning poet. Her publications include “Aparagraha” published on the Sonoma Fire Wall and poems in several editions of The Fault Zone, The Diploemat (2nd place in the Great War to End all War Contest), Poems from Conflicted Hearts by Tayen Lane Publishing 2014, Sandhill Press Fault Zone 2013, Loch Raven Review 2011, EskimoPi 2013, Volumes 1 and 2 of Carry the Light by Sandhill Press Review 2012 and 2013, and in SenSexual 2013 Anthology, Volume 1.

Poem

12 MILES

12 miles on a cracked rope road
from the trailer town
to mineral wells

12 miles between an 8-year old
and her halloween costume
so she might become cinderella,
a ballerina or casper the friendly ghost

he stiffly started the car up to make the 12 mile trip
clenching the steering wheel
with the grip of a victim
on a sinking life preserver

grim reaper seated between us
halloween candy anticipation for me
halloween hell, coming early for him

12 miles on a cracked rope road

dry breath wind, pinching his chest
anvil paralyzing my daddy’s heart
nothing for miles but the arcing ribbon of the road
on that palo painted crust-scape,

save for the one gas station
where our car slammed stop and he fell out
jack-in-the-box-fast, rolled on the grainy ground
daddy, a shrunken jack-o-lantern

12 miles on a cracked rope road

halloween hell beginning in earnest now
helpless 8-year old
waiting for adults to come to the rescue
as his cardiac failure proceeded
reaper at my side

12 miles of cracked rope
choking my life
cinderella dream and trick-or-treat candy
dead and buried

everything White…
the crusted plateaus, the gas station and the White car I see racing to our rescue on the tight-rope road
Mr. White with a shock of White hair and the grip of Mr. Clean
sweeps my crumpled father into the backseat
me in the front, taking over
as grown-up as i can be, answering a stream of questions:
yes, this is my daddy, no, my mother died, no, there is no one to call, yes, we live in palo pinto, i don’t know, i don’t know

12 miles achieved, at the end of that cracked rope
the last image i see are the electrodes on his leaping body
then the door closes

and i’m ushered to the nurse’s station
to doodle on a pad, swing my legs
and wait alone
for someone
anyone
to throw me a rope

Copyright © 2011 by Maurine Killough. Used with permission of the author.

Jasmeen Karan is a 33-year native of the Bay Area and was born and raised in San Mateo, California. The daughter of first-generation Indo-Fijian immigrants, (Asian and Pacific Islanders), Jasmeen is the descendant of indentured laborers from the Fiji Islands. A first-generation college graduate, she earned a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) from California State University, East Bay (CSUEB) and a Master of Health Administration (MHA) from University of Southern California (USC). She is also a volunteer advocate with the Alzheimer’s Association.

Jasmeen Karan writes creative poetry, gaining inspiration from personal experiences and life events. At the age of six (6), Jasmeen won third place in the Martin Luther King Jr. Essay, Poetry, and Art contest. She hasn’t stopped since and is excited to share her poetry with the world! Jasmeen featured in countywide poetry events, including Immigrant Heritage Month hosted by the San Mateo County Office of Community Affairs.

Poem on Belonging

BLUNT SURPRISE

Second-generation immigrant,
I must concurrently,
Balance two cultures,
Speak “Fiji-Hindi”, fluently.

American and Indo-Fijian,
Poet and professional,
A daughter and caregiver,
In a nutshell.

Funny to see reactions,
When strangers look at me.
I’m not usually,
Who they expect me to be.

They assume I’m uneducated,
And underestimate me.
Think I’ll have an accent,
So ignorantly.

But I’m beauty and brains,
Brown and bold,
Book- and street-smart,
With a heart of gold.

A blunt surprise,
Few get to see…
I proceed with caution,
Selectively.

Betrayal from friends,
Family and colleagues.
So, I built a wall,
Fifty feet around me.

Some say I’m “too young”,
To be a caregiver.
They think they know my life,
But, I share drops of a river.

Keep to myself,
Miss Mom, the old days…
Wondering why none help,
But have so much to say?

I’ve endured a lot,
Lost many I loved.
Remember in silence,
Trust the one above.

Generations of trauma,
So much tragedy.
Ancestors in Fiji,
Were victims of slavery.

Brought on ships from India,
Illiterate and poor.
Exploited, assaulted,
So much more…

Their sacrifices, I know,
I must forge ahead.
“Leave a mark”,
Is what Mom said.

Respect yourself,
The family name.
Always show up,
Through the pain.

Most will talk,
They don’t see,
The sacrifices,
The full journey.

But I handle things,
Effortlessly.
Trust my instincts,
Like a “G”.

Honor the fallen,
The ancestors.
True to my roots,
Humble in character.

Win some, lose some,
Life goes on.
Day in, day out,
I carry on.

Head up,
With courage and grace.
None like me,
In time and space.

Toughest soldiers,
Get toughest battles.
I’m built for it,
I can herd the cattle.

I change my perspective,
When handed tests.
Reprogram my mind,
God handles the rest.

A blunt surprise,
Most doubt me.
I prevail, though,
Because Bibi taught me.

Copyright © 2022 by Jasmeen Karan. Used with permission of the author.

Caroline Goodwin moved from Alaska to the San Francisco Area to attend Stanford as a Wallace Stegner Fellow in poetry. Her seven books of poetry are woven into the natural world. Her most recent collections are Old Snow, White Sun (JackLeg Press), Madrigals (Big Yes Press), and Matanuska (Aquifer Press, Wales, UK). She lives on the San Mateo coast with her daughters and teaches at the California College of the Arts. From 2014-2016, she served as the first Poet Laureate of San Mateo County.

Poem on Belonging

HORSEBACK

my daughter in the saddle the hills
not rising behind her not coming up not
jutting into the sky but rather
holding her like a couple
of large soft arms
as the animal turns
at the far end of the fence and heads
back toward me I am standing at the gate now
and I can sense the valves of my heart opening
and thumping shut steady as hooves unbeautiful
as a thing you’d find beneath a stump
something mysterious and unidentifiable
with jagged edges asymmetrical and perhaps a dark
purple maybe the size of a fist (like they say)
but so distinct from anything you’ve ever
seen before that you’re moved to invent
a new kingdom a realm untouched
by the physical world
where the need to name the shape
does not even exist
and nothing can be pinned
down or held as evidence and nobody
knows the code or holds the key

Copyright © 2019 by Caroline Goodwin. Used with permission of the author.

Find Caroline’s books in the library!

Matanuska (2022)
Madrigals (2022)
Old Snow, White Sun (2021)
Trapline (2013)

Poet Laureate Project

Appointed by the County of San Mateo Board of Supervisors in 2014, Caroline Goodwin served as the Inaugural Poet Laureate of San Mateo County through 2016.

“My community project was to promote and judge county-wide poetry campaigns and contests, all organized around a theme and culminating in an event at a different venue. With support from Carole Groom’s office and staff, and Warren Slocum’s office and staff, we promoted each campaign throughout the county. Our first event was “Poetry Is” and California Poet Laureate Emeritus Al Young featured at the Belmont Library with Lakiba Pittman, Kalamu Chache, and the winners I selected from the different age groups: Youth, Teen, Adult. Thereafter, we promoted such themes as “Poetry is Heritage,” “Poetry is Autumn,” “Poetry is Nature,” “Poetry is Love,” and “Poetry is Family”. We held one event at the Fair Oaks Community Center, and featured Santa Clara PL David Perez for Poetry is Heritage.”

—Caroline Goodwin, Inaugural San Mateo County Poet Laureate

Jeannine Gerkman, Author, Poet, Realtor, is the author of Spring (a sun-drenched picture book) and creator of numerous light-hearted poems. Her next project, Armadillos Amble, is an illustrated children’s picture book featuring 26 animals in alphabetical order doing things matching their letter (that rhymes!). Check her out at authorpoetrealtor.blog.

Poems

NAPTIME

Let’s snuggle together with some crackers and juice,
And turn the pages of my Dr. Seuss

We’ll read about creatures big and small,
Watch their antics and have a ball.

I’ve been reading since I was four,
We’ll read a little and then
Read some more.

About ships and spoons and
Cats and owls,
We’ll slide with verbs and
Skip with vowels.

We’ll play in water both wide and deep.
We’ll slosh and splash
And then drift to sleep.

MORNING

Bathed in sunshine
Glistening with dew
The morning has started
The day’s begun anew

Children are streaming
To take their place at school
My face is beaming
I’m grinning like a fool

The air is crisp and bracing
My steps sure and strong
Whatever I might be facing
Will never turn out wrong

Copyright © by Jeannine Gerkman. Used with permission of the author.

Find Jeannine’s books in the library!

San Mateo County Libraries