Neal Tayco is a second-year MFA in Writing grad student at the University of San Francisco, where he is the associate poetry editor for the program’s student-run literary journal, Invisible City. Originally from Subic Bay, he is currently based in the Bay Area where he also works as a Filipino translator/proofreader for the County of San Mateo. Neal can be found online at @nealtayco on both Twitter and Instagram, where he habitually overshares aspects of his life with internet strangers. Neal’s writing can also be found published in The San Franciscan.
Poem on Belonging
IN OLONGAPO CITY
the Apo’s head is statued on the rotunda,
his eyes toward here,
his repaved homeland—
Home is a place named after this
beheading. I do not know my ancestors.
They have always been watching
me. Home was the largest overseas
US military installation.
There, we learned to worship
above the waters of warship wreckages,
all the American frigates
we could not repair.
We fucked the sailors,
and we mended their broken ships.
Under our care, what we could salvage
we took to open auction—and when the wars
finally ended, the rest we turned into museums
commemorating a victory against
ourselves. We were rich off the offal,
so we bought our own exit
wounds: I cannot now write about home without
the visa.
I, too, cannot be a whole body:
doomed to survey those prior worlds,
these chief parts of mine, stuck seeking
my childhood home. In California,
weather is the kind of warmth we have
no language for. I have never lived far from the sea,
a bad pursuit this body
refuses to break.
Jane Kuo is a Chinese and Taiwanese American writer who grew up in Los Angeles. She is an author, a nurse, and a nurse practitioner. Jane graduated with a degree in English Literature from UC Berkeley, where she studied under Bharati Mukherjee, Ishmael Reed, and Robert Hass. Also, she once borrowed a pencil from Maxine Hong Kingston.
Jane lives in California with her husband and two kids. Her first novel, In the Beautiful Country, is inspired by the events of her childhood.
Ayodele Nzinga is the founding producing director of the Lower Bottom Playaz, Inc., Oakland’s oldest North American Theater Company. Nzinga is a multi-disciplined creative force; a brilliant actress, producing director, playwright, poet, dramaturg, performance consultant, educator, and community advocate. She is the founder of Lower Bottom Playaz Summer Theater Day Camp, established in 2007, a performance-based Literacy through the Arts day camp that provides enrichment activity for youth 5-18.
She is the founding Director of the Black Arts Movement Business District Community Development Corporation, Oakland, (BAMBD CDC); and founding producer of BAMBDFEST an annual international month-long arts and cultural festival celebrating and hosted by the Black Arts Movement and Business District in Oakland CA.
Nzinga holds an MFA in Writing and Consciousness; a Ph.D. in Transformative Education & Change; is a Cal-Shakes Artist Investigator Alumni; a Helen Crocker Russell Arts Leadership Fellow; a member of the Alameda County Women’s Hall of Fame; recognized by Theater Bay Area as one of the 40 faces in the Bay Area that changed the face of theater in the Bay Area; is recognized by the August Wilson House as the only director in the world to direct the complete August Wilson Century Cycle in chronological order. Nzinga’s work for the stage has been reviewed internationally.
Tshaka Campbell began writing poetry long before performing it in an attempt to find his own voice and point of view within the art form. As a performer, he is recognized as an accomplished artist internationally and performance accolades include not only being a member of the Nuyorican national poetry slam team and the Da Poetry Lounge (DPL) slam team, but also earning the Grand Champion title in San Francisco and Hollywood. In 2010, he was also honored with the UK Unsigned Artist award in poetry.
Tshaka has toured a number of US cities and across the globe, featuring at venues such as the legendary Apollo Theatre and the O2 in London England.
He continues to be inspired by the struggle of life, the uncertain certainty of the universe and what it chooses to hand you. His wife and daughter show him the way daily, as well as so many authors and poets such as Octavia Butler, Ben Okri, Rumi, Baldwin, and countless others who spin language like silk.
He currently resides in San Jose where he serves as Santa Clara County Poet Laureate and continues to ask the world to listen different.
K.R. Morrison is a San Francisco based poet, drummer, and high school teacher who has been teaching English and Creative Writing for 18 years. Her first chapbook Cauldrons was recently published by Paper Press Books, within which “Her Altar” received a Pushcart nomination. Apart from reading at curations in New Orleans, Los Angeles, and New York, Morrison has featured throughout several Bay Area readings. Her work can be found in Switchback, Quiet Lightning, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Gasconade Review, Great Weather for Media, Spartan Press, the Lake County Bloom, and the Cooch Behar Anthology.
Morrison featured on two popular Bay Area’s podcasts, Bitchtalk and Storied: San Francisco about being an educator, musician, and writer in a city that’s rapidly changing. Most recently, Morrison’s poetry was featured with NPR affiliate, “KALW’s New Arrivals” with Lisa Morehouse, the “Social Yet Distanced” podcast, the “Rooted in Poetry” podcast, and the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal’s poetry podcast.
On Facebook: K.R. Morrison
On Instagram: @krmorrisonpoet
Poems on Belonging
CHARLOTTE ANN
today I walk barefoot for you
I harbor homemade tortillas
in my heart I never
did taste, I bleed out
this world loaded with a .38
like mother—like daughter
I never know
what waterbeds or polluted men
need a lesson
from a drifting bullet
today I tell your stories
who knows what’s true
from the fiction your scars harbor
for a fallen woman’s final justice
the poet in me thinks that just like you
make-believe and memory
can make a homemade meal in 20 minutes
to feed double shift mothers
to nourish street sons, bruised daughters
your ever evicted stove
of legacies dancing
in lard laden frying pans
today I walk barefoot
and the souls of my feet bleed
so I walk stronger, I smile
remembering a little girl you enlisted
to rub your pirate black feet
I walk barefoot on the bones of your words—
you’re good, Babygirl. But your sister,
she has those softball hands.
She can rub some feet.
so I worked harder
on your soles harboring whiskied men, fists
and marbled in the madness, so much
broken glass mixed with moonstone
so much soul and sadness
Funny what a mother can do.
She can return to smiles
set the tone, salvage
love inside knee scabs
while she loses raising you
HER BURDEN
In one week, a woman
can grow life
shoot a rapist bleed out
the last word
while he leaks red hell
on car fenders she waxes
when she isn't waning
In one week, a woman
can talk tears off suicidal bridges
while she bridges
words to new days
dressed in smiles preparing
breakfast mixed with messages
self discovery over easy
pancakes that make pain too, pass
In one week, a woman can become
an armed robber or she can
nurse bottles and beers
(and in the same week)
bring freedom to kids she never raised
but carries
While vacuuming others’ mess, a woman
can write a poem
on hallways she architects
inside her head
that always she revises
surveillances
She can burn
down the world
with flammable honesty
then discover fire
extinguishers
while men
cough, choke, drop
for cover
New York, NY (January 27, 2022)— The Academy of American Poets, the originator of National Poetry Month—now a worldwide celebration—invites students in grades five through twelve to participate in Dear Poet 2022, an annual multimedia education project featuring videos of award-winning poets reading their work, including poets who serve on the Academy of American Poets Board of Chancellors and who have received Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowships. Students are encouraged to watch the 26 newly-released Dear Poet videos, write letters in response to the poems, and submit their letters during National Poetry Month this April. Selected letters will be published on Poets.org, one of the most visited sites for poetry on the web, and shared on social media. Each year, the Dear Poet videos are viewed by tens of thousands of students across the country and more than 3,600 students from 35 states participate by sending in letters.
The 26 award-winning poets participating in Dear Poet this year include Academy of American Poets Chancellors Ellen Bass, Marilyn Chin, Kwame Dawes, Forrest Gander, Marie Howe, Dorianne Laux, David St. John, as well as Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellows Marcus Amaker, Semaj Brown, Aileen Cassinetto, Leslie Contreras Schwartz, Magdalena Gómez, Georgina Marie Guardado, Chasity Gunn, Kari Gunter-Seymour, Luisa A. Igloria, Dasha Kelly Hamilton, Melissa Kwasny, Debra Marquart, Trapeta B. Mayson, Anis Mojgani, Chelsea Rathburn, Lloyd Schwartz, M. Bartley Seigel, M.L. Smoker, and Brian Sonia-Wallace.
“As many students process their lives in our complicated time, The Dear Poet project is a great opportunity for them to interact with contemporary poems and poets who are confronting the same issues through their writing. Dear Poet provides students with an opportunity to learn about some of the leading poets writing today, to read their poems and respond by writing letters to the poets. Selected students will even receive a personal response from their poet!” said Dr. Madeleine Fuchs Holzer, the Academy of American Poets Educator in Residence.
An accompanying lesson plan will be available on the Dear Poet 2022 page in mid-February.
For additional resources to assist with the project, visit the Dear Poet 2021 lesson plan; read an essay about Dear Poet; check out one high school’s past participation in the project; and browse this Dear Poet teacher collaboration featuring video walk-throughs, writing prompts, and a short assignment. For some examples of student letters, visit last year’s Dear Poet page.
Founded in 1934, the Academy of American Poets is the nation’s leading champion of poets and poetry with supporters in all fifty states. The organization annually awards more funds to individual poets than any other organization through its prize program, giving a total of $1.25 million to more than 200 poets at various stages of their careers. The organization also produces Poets.org, the world’s largest publicly funded website for poets and poetry; organizes National Poetry Month; publishes the popular Poem-a-Day series and American Poets magazine; provides award-winning resources to K–12 educators, including the Teach This Poem series; hosts an annual series of poetry readings and special events; and coordinates a national Poetry Coalition working together to promote the value poets bring to our culture.
(San Mateo, Calif., April 1, 2022) It is National Poetry Month all over San Mateo County! The County of San Mateo and cities in the county are proclaiming April as National Poetry Month upon the request of San Mateo County Poet Laureate Aileen Cassinetto. Ms. Cassinetto is also spearheading several events to celebrate poetry and the work of poets in the county.
On April 1st, the “Speak Poetry in San Mateo County” banner was put up at the County Center in Redwood City, with support from the Offices of Supervisor Warren Slocum and Supervisor Carole Groom, the Office of Arts and Culture, and the county’s Public Works team. The Speak Poetry web archive was launched the same day featuring the bios, poems and civic engagements of over 70 poets from San Mateo County and the work of over 200 youth poets, as well as more than 70 poets from the greater Bay Area with ties to the county.
Following National Poetry Month proclamations by the County Supervisors and the mayors and councilmembers of the cities of Pacifica, Burlingame, San Mateo, Redwood City, Brisbane, Menlo Park, San Bruno, Belmont, Half Moon Bay, East Palo Alto, Daly City and the Midcoast Community Council, activities, readings and programs have been launched around the county celebrating local poets and the role of poetry in our communities, including a Makerspace Poetry Lab pilot project for all ages to promote STEAM and encourage various ways of looking at the world in terms of relationships and possibilities. Additionally, almost 200 trees have been planted in honor of San Mateo County’s poets and poetry advocates, individually and as a group, for their many ways of making and giving and paying it forward.
Launched by the Academy of American Poets in April 1996, National Poetry Month reminds the public that poets have an integral role to play in our culture and that poetry matters. Over the years, it has become the largest literary celebration in the world, with tens of millions of readers, students, K–12 teachers, librarians, booksellers, literary events curators, publishers, families, and, of course, poets, marking poetry’s important place in our lives.
Part cento, part sensory poem with lines from “all the good girls go to hell” by Billie Eilish, “Feels Like Summer” by Childish Gambino aka Donald Glover, and the UN Climate Report.
This collaborative poem was crafted during a workshop facilitated by San Mateo County Poet Laureate Aileen Cassinetto in partnership with Menlo Park Library, 14 April 2022, as part of the San Mateo County Youth Ecopoetry Project (2021-2022).
Dear Earth, Dear Billie Eilish
This is not fiction but a litany of broken climate promises, a yawning gap between climate pledges, and reality I'm hopin that this world will change I hear silence You can feel it in the streets changes to our lifestyles People care, and they’re engaged I see lights Birds were made for singing I feel plastic Slow Down We are at a crossroads I taste coffee It feels like summer I smell dust Hills burn in California It’s now or never progress towards net zero I make a wish My turn to ignore ya I hope for change Don't say I didn't warn ya I hear ya
Karen Poppy has work published in numerous literary journals, magazines, and anthologies. Her poetry chapbooks Crack Open/Emergency (2020), and Our Own Beautiful Brutality (2021) are both published by Finishing Line Press. Her poetry chapbook, Every Possible Thing, is published by Homestead Lighthouse Press (2020). Born in Burlingame, Karen Poppy grew up in Foster City and attended San Mateo High School. Now an attorney licensed in California and Texas, she lives in Marin County, but not before coming nearly full circle: she lived in Burlingame during her last year of law school, took a job at a San Mateo law firm once she passed the California Bar Exam, and one of her close friends is her former childhood nextdoor neighbor from Foster City, poet Julie Weiss.
Poem on Belonging
My paternal grandmother Esther’s family was from Galicia (a giant, vital Jewish community on the border of what is now Ukraine and Poland), and a number of family members lived there, in Drohobycz (also spelled in English as Drohobych). All but one, a cousin, was murdered during the Holocaust. Before that, many family members and other members of the community had left at various points due to the progroms. My family ended up ultimately in Brooklyn.
Here is my poem about my cousin who survived the Holocaust by walking on bloodied feet from Ukraine to Russia. It was originally published in Blue Nib with three other, unrelated poems.
THE TRAIL HE MADE IN THE SNOW
The trail
He made
In the snow:
One long line
Of blood from
Drohobycz to
Russia.
Not those
Circular paths
He made
As a boy.
Clean and
White
Along with
Paw prints of
His dog,
By then,
Long dead.
His parents,
Young sisters,
Aunts, uncles,
Shot
Just before
He escaped.
In that forest,
Same spot
Below birch
Trees
He used to
Peel
Of their bark,
Of their skin.
Write love
Letters
On them
To an
Imaginary
Sweetheart,
Not knowing
Anyone real
To write to
In his small
World.
My grandmother,
Esther,
My father's mother,
Said to me,
“He had such a chip
On his shoulder!”
It shocked me.
“Grandma,
His whole family
Died and he
Walked on bloody
Feet all the way
To Russia.
He was forced
Into the Russian
Army.”
“It was my family
Too,” she said.
“Grandma,
My grandma,
Murdered!”
She cried,
And I,
I felt shame,
Red stained
Like that
Blood
In the snow,
But deeper
Because
I had also
Seen his sisters.
Somehow,
My mind
Brought them
To me.
Somehow,
Their memory
Is seared
Into my
Genetic code:
Clean and
White
Nightgowns.
Fear.
Men with
Shadowed
Cheeks
and shadowed
Eyes.
Cheekbones
Like razors.
Fiery torches.
Violence,
Tearing.
Their mother,
Screaming.
Their father,
I don't see him.
Pushed into
The forest.
My entire
Family there.
In the dark.
Except for
This cousin,
Who escaped,
Who etched
With his feet
Into snow
One long line
Of blood from
Drohobycz to
Russia.
Birch bark
Crumbles.
Snow melts
Away.
But all
That is
Written
Remains.
Hanna Docampo Pham is 14 years old and goes to Westmoor High School. They love writing poetry, writing stories, and creating art.
Poem on Belonging
BURIED SPRING
In dedication to Colma,
believed to mean Spring in Ohlone
what if we could stop the construction
because the hundreds of glittering windows
was less than the land under our feet?
what if you could put a price on the smile of a hundred
families of different homes under one roof,
of not building but sky?
what if we saw the depth of our roots
before weeds? if before we learned priceless not
meant useless, meant nothing on our soil.
what if for every breath lost
to beauty, we still overrepresented over
those lost to the scorn raining down
on us, unprotected by the reaching branches
of Mexican Lemon, Mandarin Clementine, Currants,
Prickly Pear Cactus, Avocado, Nectarine, 200+ trees
that we doubt will continue to see light here
if they cannot even be seen on the proposal.
because there is a loss of words for
–One of the most densely populatedcities in the United Statesof America & losing the only community garden–
we could not imagine,
i could not imagine,
that this is the plan.
must we say, we love:
the flowers in the air,
birds singing,
endless varieties growing,
land blooming.
Debbie Santiago,
“Everything you see and touch
in the garden is living and sacred”
look at the map:
promise of green space does not guarantee
our space &
we shouldn’t be counting the years
when they think we can handle it
when they think we will stand for this
and i must ask our people
to answer this.
Speak Poetry in San Mateo County 