The Poetry Tent at Flor y Canto, Alley Cat Books, San Francisco, April 2019

The photo above is a reflection on National Poetry Month April 2019, which was filled with poets and poetry, in spaces large and small, and in person. I took part in a reading curated by the indomitable Amalia Alvarez as part of the annual tradition of Flor y Canto. That reading was what community looked like to me, and what it still looks like.

National Poetry Months of 2020 and 2021 looked quite different, but the sounds of poets spinning, spitting, murmuring, shouting, slurring, chanting, singing, was familiar. Those sounds did not change. They came from faces in squares on a screen and they were just as, if not more, mighty than in the past.

I am grateful for all of it. Keep singing your songs, poets, singers, writers. Keep singing.