Greenbuild SF 2012

I just got back from a whirlwind trip to the Bay Area. By chance, or fate I was invited as a guest performing artist for the annual Greenbuild, and this year it took place in my hometown and on my birthday (Nov 14th)! I had to say yes!

Posted below are TWO new(ish) poems that I performed for the conference. One to READ about Hurricane Sandy (among other things), and one to WATCH about redefining beauty. But first, some back ground….

Greenbuild is an annual conference and expo put on by the US Green Building Counsel. It host around 30,000 “Green” minded architects, contractors, manufacturers, policy makers, urban planners, and a poet or two.

What, you may ask, does poetry have to do with “Green” architecture?

Well… I guess it depends on your perspective.

I first performed at Greenbuild in Chicago in 2007 as a winner of the first annual Brave New Voices Speak Green competition. It was a small event nestled inside the international teen poetry slam festival, that invited young poets to dialogue about the burgeoning “Green movement.” At that time we were still entrenched in the “Bush” era of American politics, not many (in the mainstream) knew what “Green” even meant, let alone that it might become a “movement”. But I had grown up in rural Northern California where these ideas were are part of my every day, and had a unique perspective on both the potential and the pitfalls of organizing for “environmental justice.” You can check out an early version of the original poem I wrote, Space To Breath, on youtube.

This year performed at 5 events throughout the conference! For the Women in Green Power Breakfast, I did an update of a poem I had written for the Americans for UNFPA Celebration in honor of Yvette Mulongo in 2011. The poem is called “Skin Deep,” and I just recorded a short video of it with the wonderful Dimitri Moore! Please watch and share:

And if you liked that, there’s ONE MORE POEM below!

The folks of Greenbuild also asked me to write something in support of their newest philanthropic endeavor, Project Haiti. I will be honest in saying that my feelings about this were, and are, complex. I had many ideas floating through my mind that might have become a poem, and then hurricane Sandy hit New York just 2 weeks before Greenbuild. I was at home in Brooklyn for what New York’s M.T.A. Chair, Joseph Lhota has called “the worst disaster” in the systems 108 year history. After the storm cleared the poem pretty much wrote itself, and below is the final result.

It is still rough. There is a lot more, or maybe a lot less I can and should have said. But it feels important and urgent enough to share with the world as it is. At the very least I hope it starts some conversations:

Rising Above

“a rotting smell
where the school once stood
a hungry shrill
where the guava tree grew
last night before the earth
ate port-au-prince
a bleeding orphan
was somebody’s baby ”

-Lenelle Moïse
“because john doe is not a haitian name” 2011

Last thursday
I woke to the sound of water
the leak
neglected for 15 months by my building’s managers
now spread from bathroom
to kitchen
to the ceiling above my bed
It has saturated the walls around our electrical sockets
poured out our light fixtures
cracked dry wall and plaster
now threatening to cave in above me
while I sleep

Over a year
I have wrestled
verbally with my management company,
made complaints to city government,
and contacted legal consult
And still
I wake up countless mornings
with standing water at my feet

446 Ocean Ave, Brooklyn is
a Leed certified nightmare apartment complex

And yet
I have made myself a home here
beside my neighbors
Families,
immigrants, mostly Haitian
working people who
remind me of the city I was born in
Oakland CA
3,000 miles away

We are not the kind of neighbors who know each other by name
but we help one another carry heavy loads up 3 flights of stairs
share commiserating glances behind our super’s back
and though it’s never spoken out loud
we hold between us a memory
of home shattered by earthquake

Just past the 12year anniversary
of the World Series Quake of 89

Nearly 3 years since a 7point on the Richter scale
cracked the back of Haiti
and shock waves of a broken infrastructure wracked by debt
still cripples the landscape

The disaster, still
so much a part of the daily lives of Haitians
has earned a nickname
As the Black Plague of Europe became
the children’s game “Ring around the Rosie”
Haiti’s devastation is now known locally as
Goudougoudou
an “affectionate monicker” more
easily woven into casual conversation
Goudougoudou
It is onomatopoeia; the sound a building makes
when the ground trembles beneath it
Goudougoudou
the rhythmic beat of quake before crumble
Goudougoudou
Goudougoudou

The children in my building play hard
sun up to sundown
run laps
around the 15ft cement walk of our oblong courtyard
crumble and grind chalk into the walls
they are hard on structure
and harder on each other
8 and 9 years old
fluent in curses in the language of their parents
French Patois and creole
remnant flavors of a country they have never been to
but hold on their tongues like
daily bread

Flatbush, Brooklyn may be their home
but Haiti is their body and blood

Goudougoudou
Goudougoudou

As many as 2 million Haitian children were orphaned by the earthquake
An estimated 3hundred and 90thousand Haitian citizens remain homeless since 2010
many lack basic necessities such as electricity, clean water and shelter
There is real threat of cholera outbreak
“Every time it rains in Haiti, somebody is praying”

Goudougoudou
Goudougoudou
Goudougoudou

New York’s pulse is metered by her trains
842 miles of track
artery and vein threading
beneath her bustling streets
24 hours a day 7 days a week
It’s true what they say after all
She is the city that never sleeps
and her heart beats like constant rumble
Goudougoudou; Goudougoudou; Goudougoudou; Goudougoudou; Goudougoudou; Goudougoudou

On October 29th
In New York City
surging storm waters flooded
7 of 14 subway tunnels to their gates
Before the winds pulled trees up by their roots
and tore transformers from sides of buildings
We heard the silence
downtown Manhattan sank into darkness
and coastal flooding gave way to fire
Our heart stopped
and New York City held it’s breath

Goudougoudou

Hurricane Sandy hit Haiti first
Half a week before she carved her way through the tri state area
she came from the south
and took the island by surprise
left at least 51 dead, another 200,000 displaced

In the Northern provinces of Nord and Nippes
among the dead were
four teenage boys
two little girls
three boys between ages 1 and 10,
and the mother of a family

Goudougoudou

On Staten Island,
Glenda Moore
left her stalled SUV on a flooded throughway
Afraid she and her two young sons
would drown, she ran
to a nearby house for help
But owner refused open his door to her
because she was a stranger
Glenda clung to the roots of an overturned tree just yards from his house
as the tide rose a hungry mouth of water
took Brendan age 2 and Connor age 4 into it’s throat
and swallowed them whole

Goudougoudou
Goudougoudou
Goudougoudou

When the storm broke
The children in my building did not come outside to play
there were no trains
to take their parents to work
No money was sent home
to grand-mére and grand-pére
for a week
I sat at home
and watched the news
Milk spoiled in the refrigerator
and the water came down through my ceilings
like the rain

Sandy
sounds like
a brochure adjective for vacation rentals
a sweet girl with pigtails
playing “Ring Around the Rosie” in her school yard

“Ashes, ashes, we all fall down”
Goudougoudou
Goudougoudou

New York is recovering
unevenly
No heat and water still
on the coastlines of Brooklyn and New Jersey
Still, ground
saturated on the along coasts of Haiti
Desperately vulnerable
in the wake of rain to come

I am lucky
And privileged
I live in a rundown apartment now
A student subsisting on loans
who can fly across a country
to read a poem

When we are called
to reach across an ocean
­to help each other
let us not be afraid to open our doors
Where ever we extend our hands
let it reflect the care
with which we ground our feet

What cannot be contained

Since I relocated across the 48 contiguous states in August life has been pretty good to me. I moved into an AWESOME apartment in Flatbush just two blocks south of Prospect Park where I run at least 3 times a week.

Yep. I live here.

(I just joined Black Girls Run! NYC and I’ve been inspired to do my first race in February!)

At the end of the summer was awarded the Honorable Mention in Poetry by the Astraea Lesbian Writer’s Fund, and got to feature at their 20th anniversary party.

Writers Lenelle Moïse and Kirya Traber share their words at Writeous! Celebrating the Astraea Lesbian Writer's Fund

Though I’m enrolled in the Acting program at my school, I was selected for a special playwriting opportunity for the Spring 12 semester! I’m performing regularly, writing new work, making friends, and staying warm in 18 degree temperatures. For a Cali girl in NYC I think I’m adjusting pretty well. But I can’t say I’ve been without my struggles.

My first semester of graduate school has been challenging.

Shocking, I know.

There’s the work load: sometimes 5 or 6 texts to be memorized at once, papers, performances, presentations, and juries all stacked on top of each other, and there’s ALWAYS another play to read.

There’s the sleep deprivation: 8 hours of class, 4 hours of rehearsal, an hour commute, up at 6am, home by 12am, repeat.

There’s the emotional strain, the physical fatigue, the self doubt, the homesickness, the recurrent waves of “I just need a fucking drink and it’s only Tuesday.”

You know. Grad school.

Though in my case it looks a bit more like this…

Pictographic line memorization technique (patent pending)

Or this…

"Cramming"

But then there’s the other stuff. The equally universal, but not as easy to talk about stuff. The stuff that can’t be fixed by better time management, or just “digging in.” The racism, institutional and inter-personal. The sexism, institutional and inter-personal. The crushing weight of hetero-normative cultural norms that not only isolate and oppress me, but also deprive me of a shared language to communicate my trauma.

You know. Grad school.

I’m not naive. I expected all of this going into the program, and yet somehow you can never really be prepared. By midterm I felt a bit like I was underwater, and I couldn’t even begin to find my way out.

Over Thanksgiving break, I made the “mistake” of reading some Nikki Giovanni:

“The African slave bereft of his gods, his language, his drums searched his heart for a new voice. Under the sun and lash the African sought meaning in life on earth and the possibility of life hereafter. They shuffled their feet, clapped their hands, gathered a collective audible breath to release the rhythms of the heart. We affirmed in those dark days of chattel through the White Knights of Emancipation that all we had was a human voice to guide us and a human voice to answer the call.”

-Nikki Giovanni, Sacred Cows…and Other Edibles

Her words stirred inside me an aching that I had suppressed for the last 3 months. I was famished and this small helping of nourishment only further confused and angered my ravenous hunger. It was not until I watched the footage of the National Book Awards ceremony that the precise nature of this deficit began to untangle itself.

I have been a fan of Cave Canem faculty member, Nikky Finney, since I read The World is Round as an undergrad at San Francisco State University. My moment of revelation occurred just before Finney began to deliver her now renowned acceptance speech. It was the applause that erupted in the ceremony room as she was announced the winner, an unbridled jubilance normally reserved for athletic feats and pop-celebrity idols, that shook me. I cannot watch this video without welling over with tears.

I can only clumsily describe this feeling as a moment of vindication perhaps, or restitution, or eureka, but I don’t know if it can ever be contained by a single word. Like Finney, and so many who dare to call themselves poets, I claim the written word as my salvation.

I discovered verse in the midst of a childhood marked by poverty and prejudice, and bloomed in the small hours of the morning clutching tightly to a pen. These first words eventually found their footing on the stage, through spoken word, and now acting, but I will always be a poet first. My work as a professional artist can be described as matured presentation of these initially private explorations.

photo by Mia Nakano: mianakano.com/ visibilityproject.org

It was not until November 16th 2011, hearing the audience react to Finney’s award, that I realized how integral this is to my identity as an artist. This process of exploration, of discovery, and eventually of radical articulation is precisely what my life’s work must be.

As Giovanni and Finney so eloquently expressed, being a Black woman makes me part of a legacy, by blood and struggle, of a people whose expressions have been deliberately and systematically silenced. In breaking that silence, I have become aware that my every deliberate utterance holds weight. I am interested in the arts as a means of amplifying these utterances. And herein lies the conflict.

My graduate program asks that I sacrifice so much of myself while starving me of the impetus that brought me to the arts in the first place. Nowhere in my curriculum have I found my own history and identities reflected. Instead we are learning from a history text that unselfconsciously asserts performance traditions outside of the “Western” legacy as mere “primitive ritual.” Racist and sexist tropes run rampant through our performance exercises and we dialogue about staging and props. We are given professional development workshops that encourage us to play into our “types” as defined by mainstream media without even a tacit acknowledgement of the oppressive stereotypes they are modeled after. All of this in the name of “succeeding” as a professional artist.

I know now, that I will never be the kind of artist satisfied by mere acclaim. Instead, I seek the roar of a righteous applause for work that has wrestled with its history and found its way into the light.

Kara Walker uses "cartoonish" cut-paper silhouettes to "elaborate on racial stereotypes that are reductions of humans." “The work is two parts research, and one part paranoid hysteria." Contemporary Art and Artists: Arts 1001 Blog http://tinyurl.com/86dacmd

If and when such radical artistry does exist within the institution it will not be quietly assigned between Shakespeare and Baudelaire. I am reminded through my greatest idols, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Angela Davis, Giovanni, and Finney (who have each at some point found success within the institution) that the space for this kind of work must be shaped, forged, and forced when necessary, even where it seems most unlikely to be accommodated.

Thankfully, I am not alone. With my folks back in the Bay, here in my new Brooklyn home, and in a few life-saving allies in my program I have begun to create the kind of community that I have always longed for. An extended family of artists and organizers who, like myself, will give all that they have for 40 seconds of raucous cheering in the name of poetry.

Come Hell or High Water

Of course I would arrive in New York just in time for historic natural disasters. First a rare earthquake, and now a hurricane wandering farther north than usual. Growing up in California, and largely the Bay Area, I’ve become accustomed to the occasional tremor. I lived through the ’89 quake as a kindergartener in Berkeley, and I still remember it vividly.

I was downstairs at Washington Elementary where the after school day care was held. Iamuel’s mother had come to pick her up and was talking with a teacher as we drew pictures at the low kids table.

It's a wonder no one knew I was gay

When shaking first began I thought it was one of my classmates who couldn’t sit still at the table like a civilized person. I was about to turn around and chastise the closest hyperactive boy when someone shouted “earthquake!” By this point we’d already begun routine drills and were well prepared with an action plan. The doorframe was too far, so under the table we dashed, twelve or so elementary school kids and my friend’s mom. The thing you must know, however, is that this was a child-sized table in an elementary school playroom. It couldn’t have come any higher than an adult’s knee, a tight squeeze even for us little ones, and Iamuel’s mother was no small woman. She managed to get her head and torso beneath the tabletop but her large behind was stuck out in the open for the duration of the tremor. The classroom erupted in laughter, mama included. There we were, a mismatched baker’s dozen under a tiny table, shaking more from the quake of our own giggles than from seismic activity.

That pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter. When I tell people I’m from California and they ask “What do you do about earthquakes?!” I say, get under something sturdy and make sure you ass fits. It’s that simple.

I won’t say that earthquakes are not dangerous, or even disastrous. And I won’t pretend that I was unaffected. The collapse of the Bay Bridge was actually the first large-scale tragedy I could grasp as such a tender age. I immortalized the event on a fairly graphic tee-shirt drawing:

early political commentary

But 89 was just the first of many quakes I survived through, and even enjoyed in some part. For the thrill of science, adventure, and disruption to our daily monotony. When well prepared, a small quake is a good reminder to wake up and pay attention.

Now hurricanes. That’s another story.

I have never lived through a legitimate “hurricane.” I did grow up on the northwest during el Niño. I did live in a rural area where the river, roads, and my back yard would flood every year. The power would invariably go out for at least two weeks, and they would rarely cancel school. Felled trees were not acts of God, but products of the season, a cost effective way to keep the wood stove going in our one-bedroom house.

This one fell away from the house. That's what you call a "lucky break."

Flood bi-pass. Seasonal upgrade.

A particularly ferocious storm brought down 36 trees across my family’s single acre plot, and most of them on my uncle’s house. My cousin got stuck in the outbuilding in the middle of the night when the old cypress beside it decided to lay down for a nap, and the 12 foot root system kicked up the little shack and tossed it like a clump of mud on the toe of it’s boot. And did I mention our septic system would back up every year? I’ll just say the outhouse on my property was not decorative charm.

Post storm chores. My mama don't play.

So no, I’m not afraid of a little rough weather. But I am afraid of being trapped and out of my element. Here in the city, in any city, people are unaccustomed to changes in routine. Probably the most important skill to have in a natural disaster is patience, and that may be the one thing in New York that is in short supply. City folk expect fast paced convenience, and prepackaged goods, and when things come to a halt, people get crazy. I’ve survived 3 weeks of black out with two decks of cards and a marathon of double solitaire (which my grandma calls canfield for reasons I’ve never had explained), but an hour outage in a metropolitan area and people are rioting in the streets.

The worst part is, I’m ALONE in my apartment this weekend. If living through quake and storm have taught me anything, it’s that more often then not the warning is bigger than the weather. I’m not worried about my pre-war brick building washing away. But while everyone else is using this city-wide shut down as an excuse to snuggle with family and loved ones (including my two roommates), I’m the new girl in town, trolling twitter for signs of affection until the lights go out.

I’m trying to make the most of it. It’s 5 hours before the heavy storm is set to hit, and I’m already bored. So I did what any good Swiss girl would:

I made Hurricane To Do List!

1) As long as electricity and internet sustain:
- Complete Star Trek TNG Season 6 and 7
- Catch up on blogs/friends writing/recreational reading before school starts
- Various internet chores from the necessary to the inane

2) If I feel like being productive
- Look up scholarships/grants/jobs (See item 1.3)
- Clean my bathroom from the light fixture flood that occurred two days ago (don’t ask)
-Tidy my room and other areas of the house

3) If I feel like being creative
-Become reacquainted with paper and pen as instruments of creativity
-Write letters and post cards to my friends on the west coast
-write at least one obligatory storm poem and an earth quake poem for extra credit
-Dust off my mother’s art supplies and make something unexpected

4) For human contact
-Facebook/twitter/skype/cell phone/text (See item 1)
-Get out the emergency bottle of rum and
-Visit with my cousin who also moved from Cali this month, and also ended up in Flatbush, on ocean avenue, literally down the block from me (might be a hurricane miracle)
-Visit with my new QPOC/community organizer/artist/all around bad-ass friends who live 8 blocks from me

5) For nourishment
- relish in my gas stove and cook to my hearts content
-OR in the event of a broken gas line, eat cold canned soup and tuna
- Make (eat) fruit salad before all this ish I bought goes bad
- Possibly soak said fruit salad in afore mentioned rum (See item 4.2)

6) For healing
- Rest and elevate my aching knees which have been yelling at me for the better part of a week to stop wearing high heels (Femme Problems)
-Play canfield until the lights go dim
-Sleep well

So there it is. A six point surival plan for the Cali Girl in NYC during her first hurricane. I think I’ll be alright.

Two Poems for Two Weeks in NYC

Greetings from the East coast! Just passed the 2 week-iversary of my transcontinental move!

To sum up how I’m feeling in general about living in NYC, I’ll just offer this picture:

Life is good

Much has happened in my short time here, not the least of which are two modest poems! I’ll let them speak for themselves.

This first one I wrote in a workshop with the incredible Roger Bonair Agard at an Urban Word (which may be my new poetic home here on the East, but that’s another post to come).

In the Pink
After Terrance Hayes “The Blue Terrance”

I loved a crescent wrench and a yellow Tonka trunk
and then a kitchen set
and a doll house
and a stuffed bear I never put down.
Of all my first loves only the bear
survived my 12 relocations
in so many years. I learned to hide things
to hold tight and tuck into my palms
into pockets I’d forget until I gathered the washing.
I was “tomboy” until I learned the word
and all the shame it carried.
I wanted babies of my own, like I was supposed to
but hated the color pink. I was teased
everyday, everyday, everyday for being best friends with a boy
and for the way my braids came undone. (White mama.)
And my clothes frayed, my food funny.
(Welfare mama.) And for speaking up too often.
I stayed late at school and at home by myself
and played jacks on the stairs until the screaming stopped
and it was quiet in the house again. And the dreams repeated themselves
the witches, the paralysis, the car that moves with no driver
the long tight tunnel that you have to believe leads to the surface
for the sake of your mother in tears behind you.
I stopped sleeping. I started writing.
I thought about kissing long before I tried it
practiced nightly, but always a said no
when asked. Thought about touching, and pressing and pushing
long before I was supposed to
but not before the hair came at five, tits at seven
not before I looked like a woman.
By 16 I felt ripe old maid.

I come from a concrete walk crumbling over a sea cliff
I come from a paved road leading to a dirt one.
I turned around and ran back to the
iron and rubber that made me.
I come from a man-child and a woman with poor boundaries.
I come from white immigrants and black revolutionaries
3 generations of atheists
and devout hypocrites.
I come from money
and destitution
education and mental illness
4 bloodlines soaked in liquor.
My flesh salted.
I bite my lips and tongue often enough
to know that it is no different
from any other tender meat.

If you believe the ends justify the means
then it’s a poem worth living.

I am a Black Queer Woman
just as I was once Biracial and Bisexual
Mixed and an only child
Capricorn ascending
hard hoofed, hollow horns,
aging backwards.

I moved 3,000 miles 15 days ago
sold all I could part with, and trashed the rest.
Now High Femme since I learned the word
and all it contradicts
I wear pink hoop earrings, and my hair out
everyday, everyday, everyday.

***********************************************************************

And this one I just wrote on a whim from a tweet I was trying to compose. You decide which you like better:

Tweet:

“Today I went running into a rainstorm. The sun edged out the clouds made prism of my of my soaked skin.”

Poem:

On Fate

Today I went running into a rainstorm.
The clouds broke in earnest as I hit the corner. Torrential
drops heavy around my feet, my lashes drowned,
my brow a curtain of water.

A summer storm floods
in an instant,
my route a pathway of ponds.

I ran
still. Past me,
the children all covered,
shrieking for the joy of echo,
lovers stranded on an island of root
exposed, the cyclist in the red dress
riding one hand
handling her umbrella.

We smiled, and wondered at each other
in passing. The sun and cloudbank
now sharing sky. My soaked skin a prism
alight with sweat and endorphin.

I circled back
at the lake in the crosswalk,
my half mile marker underwater.
Halted at the stoplight,
the rain and I, almost home.
The lovers hand in hand,
children jumping puddles,
cement drying on my doorstep.

How To Leave Your Heart In San Francisco Pt 1

Performed for Queeriosity last Friday
(This will most certainly NOT be the last word on the subject)

How to leave your heart in San Francisco:

I am the kind of woman who plants roots
set down in one place long enough
limbs extend
searching
for a bit of earth
to hold onto

Moved 5 times before the age of seven
10 houses in 20 years
learned to take up residence within
rubble, or rock face/ construct
shanty against all climates
inhospitable
always searching
for fertile soil

I have felt at home only
one place in my life
Here
in this city
where I have been illegally evicted
called a nigger
broke and starving
broken hearted and deathly ill
here I found my resting ground

Starring down the corseted tunnels
of her subways
came to know myself for the first time

Muni Metro Tunnel from Will and Jeremy's Photo Blog

Came to know this city
where every intersection reminds me of kisses
of calamity
of disaster
corners where 2 bodies once passed each other
and collided into embrace

find my tendrils snaking
beneath these borders
Lakeview to Bayview
Sunset to Mission
I am bound to this water locked metropolis
Hard to distinguish her fault lines
from the tremors of my own body

I have lived in San Francisco for 9 years
and in less than 45 days
I will catch a one-way flight
to New York City

I tell people
I am relocating to go to graduate school
to pursue my career as an artist
to become a Master of Fine Arts and be about my shit

In reality
I made the decision to move out of fear

In 2010
I was an ocean
A typhoon. Merciless torrent of water
a cyclone of tears
caught in the back spin
of falling in love
with enough force to think it might undo me
and then it did

Set my sights on New York City
as the farthest distance I could run

I have not stopped moving in over a year
have taken 6 flights, 8 long distance busses, and 500 subway rides
traveled more than 13000 miles in the last 9 months
Up till 5am on most nights
I don’t sleep anymore

My life a turbine of motion

I fear nothing more than stagnation
On the tongue tip of my memory
the years I thought I was immovable
my body/ a stone/ heavy
beyond reason
a landslide of genetic predispositions
too white in black skin
too queer
to ever gain momentum

This whirlwind now
more save haven
than all the anchors of my past

Within these tempestuous winds
now unbound and burgeoning
A high femme
an actress
an Oakland girl with an SF Address
A woman made up of daring, of glamour
of second chances

I’m in love again
and this time from the bones
A love that makes hymn and gospel of marrow
prayers whispered through tear ducts
every nerve ending threaded with laughter

Love for land and water
for young minds fumbling and righting themselves
Writing themselves
into existence
Love for all who held fast and
tethered me
when I thought I might blow away

And in barely a month
I leave

My heart is heavy
I fear the sours of regret

but I know now
that I am not earthly stone
but meteor
born of light and propulsion
brilliant and unstoppable

Child of Bay and Breaker
San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland

I could not begin
to recount the mountains I have moved here
became more the woman I am meant to be
than I ever could have imagined

Know now
that I may just be strong enough
to learn to call this place my home
and then leave it
that home is a velocity within myself
I will never again have to search for

June is on FIRE (7 performances in 1 month)

It’s that time again! The Gayest (or in my case Queerest) time of the year. That’s right ladies, gentlemen, and gender warriors, it’s JUNE! This month marks the 42nd anniversary of the Stonwall Riots which is celebrated around the world as Gay Pride (day, week, or month depending on your region).

Then (1969)

Now (SF Parade is June 26th this year)

Here in SF we celebrate the entire MONTH of June with the National Queer Arts Festival. It’s an incredible line up of shows in every genre of art every day of the month, and multiple shows on every day. That means I get to WORK.

That’s right, More Kirya than you could ever ask for.

Seven shows in ONE month!
• Two festivals
• 3 multi-genre showcases
• a poetry feature
• a nude reading
• and a movie premiere!

Check out below for details!
(Short synopsis of each, followed by full descriptions lower down)

The Walls Project: Stories from the Crevices
Tuesday June 7th @ 8pm
African American Art & Culture Complex
762 Fulton St
San Francisco, CA
Price: $12-20 no one turned away for lack of funds
Pre-sale tickets available at: brownpapertickets.com

Poetry Mission: The New Sh!t Show
Viracocha 21st and Valencia SF
Thursday, June 9th · 7:00pm – 10:00pm
$7-9 donation

TOOTHBRUSH World Premiere
The 7th annual Queer Women of Color Film Festival!
JUNE 11th @ 3:30pm BRAVA Theater
FREE www.qwocmap.org

Naked Girls Reading: PRIDE!
Sunday, June 12 · 8:00pm – 10:30pm
The Center for Sex and Culture
1349 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA
$15.00 General Seating
$20.00 Front Row Seat
Discount Advanced Tickets: http://ngrsf.eventbrite.com/

Queeriosity: Living in Motion
Friday June 17th
The Rainbow Room @ The Center
1800 Market St. at Gough
FREE http://queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/QFest11/Queeriosity.html

Oaktown Indie Mayhem
Saturday, June 25 at 8:30pm- 1:00am
1320 9th St, Berkeley, CA
$12-15 sliding scale, including raffle tickets.
OAKTOWNINDIEMAYHEM.COM

Queer Rebels of the Harlem Renaissance
Friday AND Saturday July 1st + 2nd · 7:00pm – 10:00pm
African American Art & Culture Complex – Buriel Clay Theater
762 Fulton St @ Webster
San Francisco, CA
Tickets: $15 – $25 Brown Paper Tickets
Find out more:
www.queerrebels.com

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The Walls Project: Stories from the Crevices

What stories do city walls, border walls, and prison walls have to tell us? What stories are stuck inside bedroom walls, kitchen walls, and the walls that separate neighbors from each other? How do these walls mirror the ones we learned to build inside our own bodies? And what are consequences?

The Walls Project explores the physical and metaphorical significance of walls in our external landscapes as well as in our internal emotional and imaginal landscapes, daring to imagine what might happen when stories inside walls rise up through cracks and crevices to be heard and seen in the world.

The Walls Project brings together Bay Area poets, filmmakers, storytellers, dancers and spoken word artists in the cause of liberating the stories inside walls, calling them up and out from the crevices, and transforming walls into communal gathering places from which new stories might take root and grow.

Featuring Work By:

Mica Valdez
Celeste Chan
Moisés J. Nascimento & Tiffany Higgins
Kirya Traber
Vanessa Huang
Cherry Galette & Heaven Mousalem
Helen Klonaris
Amir Rabiyah

Price: $12-20 no one turned away for lack of funds

Pre-sale tickets available at

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/174179

FRAGRANCE FREE REQUEST. THANK YOU!!!!
***Please make preparations to ensure this event is accessible and
safe for people with chemical injury and environmental illness. We
request you refrain from wearing hair and body products with fragrance or clothing washed in detergent with fragrance.***

**WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBLE

For more information about the venue, please visit http://www.aaacc.org

(image by Alia Ghabra)

This event is sponsored by the California Arts Council, Grants for the Arts, QCC, The San Francisco Arts Commission, The San Francisco Foundation, and the NEA’s Art Works.

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Poetry Mission: The New Sh!t Show

YOU SHOULD BE WRITING…

this upcoming thursday. [9th]
we.re back and trying to trump
the last badass show we put on.

NEW POETRY ONLY

sign ups are at seven
get there on time to
make sure you get a spot.

our feature this month is Kirya Traber
who is a riot hiding in the throat. here.s the
bio…

Kirya Traber is a nationally awarded spoken word artist. Her work has appeared before a US President, incarcerated convicts, and classrooms of kindergartners. She has toured the United States and Canada with the legendary queer girl literary road show, Sister Spit, and can be found in the pages of Other Tongues: Mixed Race Women Speak Out by Inanna Press, and her self published chapbook black chick. She currently works as the Arts in Education Program Manager of Youth Speaks Inc, and will attend graduate school in the fall for an MFA in acting.

We ask for a suggested 5-10 dollar donation.
nobody.s turned away for lack of funds…

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TOOTHBRUSH, a short film about the conflict of desire and healing by Tonilyn A. Sideco

“Two toothbrushes in the holder abruptly become one as Cor now faces the devastating challenge of letting go of a painful relationship. Back to two… three, and maybe even four; the toothbrushes change as new women come in and out of her life. Still haunted by memories of her past, will Cor eventually find room in her heart…for herself?”

Premiering at:
Soaring Past Survival – 7th Annual Queer Women of Color Film Festival
Saturday, June 11 · 3:30pm – 6:00pm
Brava Theater
2789 24th St.
San Francisco, CA

CENTERPIECE SCREENING
SOARING PAST SURVIVAL

From simmering memories that threaten to explode, to the adjoining paths of culture and sexual identity, to incensed confrontations against street harassment, these films draw on the fire of our communities to forge our collective survival.

Moving Boxes (Danielle Brown, 2011)
My Way (Vinh Vu, 2011)
Flight (Jamilah King, 2011)
Shoe to Drop (Teresa Hagiya, 2010)
Angel (Jazmin Jamias, 2010)
Self-Inflicted Freedom (Tiye Square-LeVias, 2011)
Bound (Bianca Williams, 2010)
Dancing Backwards (Camille Bates, 2010)
Toothbrush (Tonilyn A. Sideco, 2011)
Hollering Back (Ines Ixierda, 2011)
Running Time: 94 minutes

www.qwocmap.org

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Naked Girls Reading: PRIDE!

Queer Literature read to you by the cast of Naked Girls Reading: SF
Special Naked Cast Member: Kirya Traber
After the Naked Cast, Daphne Gottlieb will be reading her own material.

When:
Sunday, June 12 · 8:00pm – 10:30pm

Where:
Center for Sex and Culture
1349 Mission Street (btw 9th and 10th Streets)
San Francisco, CA

How Much:
$15.00 General Seating
$20.00 Front Row Seat
Discount Advanced Tickets: http://ngrsf.eventbrite.com/

Featuring:
Naked Cast: Carol Queen, Lady Monster, Ophelia Coeur de Noir, Cherry Galette and Kirya Traber
Special Appearance: Daphne Gottlieb

Kirya Traber is a nationally awarded spoken word artist. Her work has appeared before a US President, incarcerated convicts, and classrooms of kindergartners. She has toured the United States and Canada with the legendary queer girl literary road show, Sister Spit, and can be found in the pages of Other Tongues: Mixed Race Women Speak Out by Inanna Press, and her self-published chapbook, black chick. She currently works as an arts educator with Bay Area youth, and will attend graduate school in the fall for an MFA in acting. Check out an excerpt of her forthcoming theater piece at the Queer Rebels of the Harlem Renaissance show in the National Queer Arts Festival on July 1st and 2nd! http://kiryayvonne.wordpress.com/, facebook.com/kiryatraber

Daphne Gottlieb is a “fierce,” “unapologetic,” “scorching” and “deliriously gutsy” San Francisco-based Performance Poet. She stitches together the ivory tower and the gutter just using her tongue. Daphne is the author and editor of nine books, most recently the poetry book 15 Ways to Stay Alive as well as co-editor (with Lisa Kester) of Dear Dawn: Aileen Wuornos in her Own Words.? She is the editor of Fucking Daphne: Mostly True Stories and Fictions and Homewrecker: An Adultery Reader, as well as the author of the poetry books Kissing Dead Girls, Final Girl, Why Things Burn and Pelt, and as the graphic novel Jokes and the Unconscious with artist Diane DiMassa. She has won the Audre Lorde Award for Poetry, Firecracker Alternative Book Award and was a finalist for the Lamba Literary Award. http://www.daphnegottlieb.com/

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Queeriosity: Living in Motion

Friday June 17th
The Rainbow Room @ The Center
1800 Market St. at Gough
FREE

http://queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/QFest11/Queeriosity.htm

As we celebrate our 15th year, Youth Speaks Inc. is proud to present Queeriosity, a spoken word and performing arts showcase dedicated to young people who are reshaping the contours of our conversations about sexuality, identity, and community. We are anything but afraid—we are full of light, and running at the speed of life. We never asked to be tolerated – we call to be seen and experienced as we are: In agitation, transformation, Living in Motion.

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Oaktown Indie Mayhem

Saturday, June 25 at 8:30pm- 1:00am
1320 9th St, Berkeley, CA
$12-15 sliding scale, including raffle tickets.
OAKTOWNINDIEMAYHEM.COM

Come join us for a full evening of local independent films, music, art, live performance and much more! See lineup below:

Visual Arts:
Jessica Abraham
Tiffany Chavez
Johnny Crash
Sarah Zehr
Jared Gutekunst

Film:
Melinda James
Colin Johnson
Erica Eng
Vanessa Carr
Sam Berliner
Ewan Duarte
Jason Takahachi

Music:
Aerin Monroe
The Sweet Trade
Ben Henderson
Maracuja Sound
Dj Caruso

Live Performance:
Sheba Queen of the Night
Rasa Vitalia
Kirya Traber &
A Surprise Guest Performance

2nd Projector:
We will be screening short documentaries about local small businesses
in a separate room

We will be featuring live painting by NO!ONE and screen printing by Buckman Graphic Designs. As well as organic, locally made food from Mamas’ Kitchen. See the full menu on the website.

And don’t forget about all the awesome prizes we always raffle off! This time we will be raffling O.I.M shirts’ printed by Buckman Graphic Designs w/local artist NO!ONE designs, Sick new sunglasses by Temple Worship (which aren’t even out on the streets yet!) and a few surprises we’re keeping under wraps.

But there are a limited amount of seats so grab your tickets early from the website to assure you’ll get in!

OAKTOWNINDIEMAYHEM.COM

$12-15 sliding scale, including raffle tickets.

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Queer Rebels of the Harlem Renaissance

Friday AND Saturday July 1st + 2nd · 7:00pm – 10:00pm
African American Art & Culture Complex – Buriel Clay Theater
762 Fulton St @ Webster
San Francisco, CA
Tickets: $15 – $25
Brown Paper Tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/174193
Find out more:
http://www.queerrebels.com

Friday AND Saturday July 1st + 2nd

Slip back into a forbidden era. Re-imagine the Jazz age. Bawdy. Raunchy. Intellectually Stimulating!

From Langston’s dreams deferred to the love affair of the Empress of the Blues; from La Bentley’s tux and tails, to the liberating prose of Richard Bruce Nugent – this is Harlem’s poetic rebellion.

Tonight, Queer Black luminaries commemorate our forgotten legacies. Tonight, we reclaim history and the urgency of our art and activism.

Celebrate Queer Harlem and join us for a glorious cabaret followed by sweet treats and libations.

Featuring:

Adee Roberson
Anna Martine Whitehead
Brontez Purnell
Crystal Mason
Earl Thomas
F.B.J. Browne
Griot Noir
Kirya Traber
M.A. Brooks
Oriana Bolden
Sweet Baby J’ai
TuffNStuff
Vagina Jenkins

Creative Consultation: Tina D’Elia
Culinary Delights: Tiffany Martinez
Graphic Design: Amie Leeking & Shauna Steinbach

Queer Rebel Productions is directed by Kali Boyce and Celeste Chan.

Our vision:
—to enhance the presence, visibility, and artistic excellence of new work by LGBTQ artists of color
—to connect generations by honoring queer history
—to build community by creating visionary art for the future

Find out more:
http://www.queerrebels.com
and

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Queer-Rebels/202952816387774?sk=wall

These Moments

This is my favorite time of year.

Slam season. The 15th Annual Youth Speaks Teen Poetry Slam, to be specific. We call it a “season” because there are 5 weeks and 13 slams in all. There are eight rounds of preliminaries, four semi-finals, and the Grand Slam finals are this Friday, May 20th at Davies Symphony hall. 17 out of 150 youth poets have made it to perform at finals. Davies is one of the largest venues in San Francisco, seating around 2,400 people. It will likely sell out.

The slam is the pre-curser to Brave New Voices, but honestly it’s better here in the Bay. It’s just so much about community. Don’t get me wrong, BNV is incredible, but there’s so much heightened emotion, and tension, and competition. There’s something that happens here on the local level that’s hard to re-create at the four-day festival. As Erica Sheppard McMath (last years champ) noted, it’s one of the only places where you’ll find competitors sharing work and giving each other advice before a competition. There’s no cut-throat antics, or secrecy. It’s all family.

I know this from first hand experience. In 2004 I was a finalist at the Youth Speaks Grand Slam finals at Herbst Theater. I was so honored to share the stage with everyone that night. George Watsky, Meilani Clay, Jose Vadi, and Dahlak Brathwaite, to name a few. I didn’t know it then, but these were the beginnings of lifelong friendships. On stage that night was also the first time I was aware of losing myself in performance. I remember all conscious thinking fading away as I stood before the packed house. There were more 1200 in the audience and yet I felt more at home on that stage than anywhere else in my life. In all my performances since, it still stands out as one of the most transformative moments I’ve ever experienced.

On staff now at Youth Speaks, however, it’s not the slam this Friday that I’m so excited about. It’s this week before. This is what I’ve been waiting for all year.

The Youth Speaks office is different from a lot of youth organizations. Our office is always open to young people, but a majority of our programs are run off-site, and on most days it is just desks of program staff typing away. Pretty boring. But during slam season the kids come almost daily to get help before the shows. We see a lot of youth that we’ve been working with all year, but there are some that we may have just met. They may have just found out about Youth Speaks a month a half ago when the slam started, but now they never want to leave. They come alone, or in small packs. Their poems may be hand written, or printed from email. And these poets are so brave, broaching subjects that I may even be afraid to write about so honestly.

Today we had Noah St. John, Obasi Davis, Jasiri Asabi-Shakir, Queen Neffertiti Shabazz, Dennis Jones, Erica Sheppard McMath, and Tehan Ketea. I only just met Tehan on Saturday at her semifinal bout, but she specifically asked if she could come in and work with me. I said yes, of course, and she came today. And today was crazy.

My cell phone broke this morning, and my insurance was discontinued without my knowledge, so I will have to pay to replace it. I have a 12 hour day tomorrow of meetings, and workshops, and rehearsal. I have to lesson plan, and respond to so many emails. I’m also trying to plan my benefit, and I keep getting bad news about venues. Everything feels like it’s going wrong. But this is what I’ve been waiting for, this time with the young folks. So I took a break.

My process is to first have a young person read their piece to me without disclaimers to get an un-filtered perspective. I then ask questions about what they hope to get out of it while taking good notes, and finally there is feedback. I don’t know Tehan that well, but I’m learning, through working with her, that she’s the kind of person that takes time after each question to really think. She marinates. After one question there is a particularly long pause, and my ears are suddenly aware of the office around me.

Obasi is on the other side of the room reading aloud to Jasiri. Queen is getting editing advice from Dennis Kim. Dennis Jones is looking over his fresh pages. Noah is in the other room with Mush working on performance, and Erica is across the table from me writing a new piece about her first year in college. There is a hum in the room. Something electric and magnetic: the energy of creativity, of urgency, of First Sound. Young people coming to conclusions about themselves and about art for the first time.

Tehan is quietly thinking. And I am listening. And I think, “This is what it’s about,” this meeting of art and youth development. These are the moment of my life that will be the most valuable. And these are the moments when what I do matters most. That even though these young people will be performing in front of over 2,000 people on Friday, the real achievement happens right here: when I ask Tehan, “why did you write this piece,” and she has to think about it. She will pull from within herself an understanding that she didn’t have access to before, and commit it to the page.

This is why art matters. And this is why I think I’m here, in this world. I’m here to help facilitate these moments for myself, and for young people. They are some of the most beautiful transaction I will ever experience. And they are worth every struggle to witness.

(to get tickets to the Grand Slam Finals, go to http://www.cityboxoffice.com)