Denise Sullivan

Author, Journalist, Culture Worker

April 7, 2022 • 7:13 pm 0

The Tao of Rock

“If the Tao is a way of doing something in concert with its essential nature, David Meltzer’s ‘Rock Tao,’ a relic from the 1960s published for the first time this year by Lithic Press, is an aptly named guide. It’s a book as mysterious, ageless and full of contradiction as rock music itself.

Presented on the page as a textual collage in six parts, Meltzer alternates quotations from the I Ching with Greek philosophy and lyrics by the Supremes. He expounds on the teen appeal of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and touches on the artistry of Sam Cooke and showmanship of James Brown, among others. Weaving in and out of the music with scene-changing headlines, Meltzer chronicles, annotates, observes and critiques his times in “Rock Tao,” providing a portal into the mind of an insider.” Read the full story, my latest for Datebook in the San Francisco Chronicle

Filed under: Books, California, Poetry, rock 'n' roll, , ,

April 30, 2021 • 9:47 pm 0

Tongo Eisen-Martin: The revolution is live

Today April 30, marks the end of National Poetry Month and Jazz Appreciation Month. The bookend to my April 1 post on musician, poet, and literary artist Gil Scott-Heron is in tribute to Tongo Eisen-Martin, San Francisco’s newly appointed poet laureate, and a multidisciplinary artist in his own right. Eisen-Martin’s inaugural address and the reading he curated for the occasion was live-streamed on April 22 by the San Francisco Public Library in cooperation with local literary institutions, City Lights Books and Litquake. You can watch the entire 90 minute program here:

Please be patient as I am only just now realizing the how and why of Eisen-Martin’s standing as a natural torch-bearer for a modern style of poetry the likes of which Scott-Heron forged and the performing hip hop poets of the ’90s brought back into vogue: Both Eisen-Martin, like Scott-Heron, make substantive use of revolutionary rhetoric and their dead serious lived experience as Black men in America. While rooted in Black experience, the content expresses a profoundly deep love of and want for liberation of all oppressed peoples which leads with the dismantling of the structure of a capitalist society built on white supremacy, the one we historically and presently inhabit. That’s a lot for some folks, I know. There is also a spiritual core to the content that veers from the satirical to the surreal, all of it of a piece with its message.

Scott-Heron famously followed in the footsteps of his inspiration Langston Hughes, and Eisen-Martin has direct links to that lineage of jazz and blues poets: I’m not going to give away the hand, so if you’re interested you can dig around on your own and make the connections.

Though familiar as I am with Scott-Heron’s work, and in the several hours I’ve talked poetry and in the many more spent reading and listening to Eisen-Martin, Scott-Heron didn’t come up. Why? Well, Gil is the poet most often checked when people not-so-well-acquainted with poetry, Black poets, hip hop, Black music or Black Arts think of the first time they hear Eisen-Martin at work: I didn’t want to be that person, so I didn’t say so. Besides, that, I knew Eisen-Martin was more likely to name revolutionary, feminist, activist poet Audre Lorde, as someone he’d read widely and revered; that he’d studied with scholar Manning Marable, who’s written extensively on Malcolm X, and that he has appreciation for a spectrum of music, from Handy to Hendrix. But anyone who’s a regular at Eisen-Martin’s virtual readings will have noticed the image tacked to wall of his Zoom background: A picture of Scott-Heron, preaching to thousands.

For his inaugural event, friends, family, fans and San Francisco poet laureates emeritas Janice Mirikitani, devorah major and Kim Shuck were in attendance as Eisen-Martin passed the virtual mic to a cast of extraordinary poets, their work helping to give him his start and sustain him: They were, in no particular order here, his brother, Biko Eisen-Martin; early supporter, Marc Bamuthi Joseph; running mates during his New York years, Jive Poetic, Anthony Morales and Mahogany L. Browne, and the local network upon his Bay Area return: poet Joyce Lee, community organizer Uncle Damien and Alie Jones, co-founder of his newly established independent publishing house, Black Freighter Press. All contributed to making the poet and his inaugural event unprecedented in its power and presence. The humility of Eisen-Martin, and all of the poets, their collective ability to be attentive to each other’s work as they prepared to respond then perform their own considerable pieces without any interruption to their respective flows was part of the revelation. The intensely personal and political content was extraordinary, alive with excellence, contributing to the livestream’s immediacy, prescience and what will be its staying power: It was epic, in all respects. These poets of the Bay Area and beyond are the voices of the here and now, speaking to our precarious times, to neverending police violence and murder of Black people, and the everlasting oppression of indigenous people, women and the environment – matters that impact all people – delivered through Black (and Brown) lenses.

I hope readers of this space will set aside time to listen to the 90 necessary and critical minutes archived here, so that you may see and hear what we are doing here in San Francisco under Eisen-Martin’s steady guidance. “It’s the best decision this country ever made,” said Mahogany L. Browne of Mayor London Breed’s appointment of Eisen-Martin. “You’re a soul survivor – you are the best of us,” said brother Biko Eisen-Martin. ”Tongo might be the greatest poet of our generation but he’s a very, very good man,” said Marc Bamuthi Joseph in an introduction that also served as a lead up to a piece in which he conjured the life, slow death and words of Gil Scott-Heron.

And so the month ends where we began it: The revolution is in good hands.

Filed under: anti-capitalist, anti-war, Arts and Culture, Black Power,, Book news, Poetry, video, , ,

April 1, 2021 • 12:54 pm 0

National Poetry Month and Jazz Heritage Month Open with Gil Scott-Heron, Born 4/1

April marks National Poetry Month and Jazz Appreciation Month. This month’s posts will attempt to shine a light on great moments and people in jazz and poetry, past and present.  

Gil Scott-Heron is a timeless poet and performer who published poems and prose, in addition to performing songs on piano–often classified as jazz–but with an emphasis on words. There are echoes of blues and gospel, rock’n’soul in his grooves. And prophecy. Always ahead of the game and yet right on time. Alien (Hold On To Your Dreams) is one of his classics, a song I think of often in these trying times for

In 1970, Gil Scott-Heron was barely 21 when his first novel, The Vulture, was published and his startling, spoken-word record, Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, caught his incisive cool on tape. “I consider myself neither poet, composer, or musician. These are merely tools used by sensitive men to carve out a piece of beauty or truth that they hope may lead to peace and salvation,” he wrote in the album’s liner notes. Accompanied only by conga drums and percussion, Small Talk at 125th and Lenox featured a reading of “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”, Scott-Heron’s most enduring work and an early masterpiece, its flow combining elements of both poetry and jazz.

“The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox

In four parts without commercial interruptions.”

Excoriating the media and marketing, the song’s structure burrowed its way into the collective consciousness of musicians—both mainstream and underground—and listeners alike; it is referenced throughout music, and rather un-ironically the title phrase has been repurposed to advertise consumer goods, from sneakers to television itself. The piece is also, of course, foundational to hip-hop, its words potent and direct, even if some of the allusions and references may be lost on those uneducated in ‘60s or ‘70s culture. It also sounds great, which explains why it’s a standard-bearer for all music, whether it be politicized rock’n’soul, funk or jazz. Pulsing throughout the piece is Scott-Heron’s projection, a foreshadowing of the realities of global connectivity and the pacifying effect on the brain produced by viewing from a small screen. Heron’s vision was a word to the wise:

“The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal…
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised.”

Positing a necessary parsing of media-generated “reality” from truth and setting his poem to music on his 1971 album, Pieces of a Man, Scott-Heron was caught in the chasm between jazz and soul, poetry and rock, and few knew just what to do with the new poet and big bass voice on the scene, though time would reveal his impact: As the years rolled by, this poet of vision would weigh in on matters environmental and racial, as well as political and social. Though Scott-Heron’s voice was too often a cry in wilderness, it served as a clarion for future generations of conscious writers and thinkers.

Born in Chicago April 1, 1949, Scott-Heron was raised in Tennessee by his grandmother until he and his single mother, a librarian, eventually moved north to New York City. As a teenager, he excelled at writing and earned enrollment at Fieldston, a progressive Ivy League preparatory school. Upon graduation, he chose to attend Lincoln University in Philadelphia, quite simply because it was the alma mater of poet Langston Hughes. As a musician, Scott-Heron’s style was conjoined with the word styles of Hughes, as well as those of talkers like Malcolm X and Huey Newton. But it was “musicians more than writers” who inspired him, and he used the rhythms of folk, blues, soul, and jazz to fulfill the intensity of his emotion. “Richie Havens—what he does with the images and themes, Coltrane—the time defiant nature and thrust of his work. Otis Redding—the way he sings lyrics so that they come through as sounds. You can really appreciate how close a saxophone is to the human voice when you hear Otis singing. I sometimes write poetry, in a way, like Otis sings. The sounds form shapes. Like clouds banging into each other. That’s how I get loud sounds in my poetry,” said Scott-Heron to Jazz and Pop‘s Nat Hentoff.

Read: More on Gil Scott-Heron in Keep on Pushing.

Filed under: Arts and Culture, Black Power,, Jazz, Poetry, , ,

January 16, 2021 • 9:09 am 1

San Francisco Names Eighth Poet Laureate: Tongo Eisen-Martin

“My poems are a product of a complete life of resistance,” said Tongo Eisen-Martin when I interviewed him for the San Francisco Examiner in 2018. On Friday, the San Francisco-born movement worker, educator and poet was named the city’s Eighth Poet Laureate. With the civic appointment and as author of (the award-winning) “Heaven Is All Goodbyes,” No. 61 in the prestigious City Lights Books “Pocket Poets Series” — which includes “Howl and Other Poems” by Allen Ginsberg and “Lunch Poems” by Frank O’Hara — Eisen-Martin is receiving the kind of recognition it often takes poets a lifetime to achieve. Yet, he is exceedingly humble, his head in his work as a social and racial justice teacher, and his eyes on the prize. “The best reality for me is the reality that’s better for everybody,” he said, his extra-tall self contained in what looks to be a chair too tiny for him in the back of a Mission District bookstore. “If not that, I’m deluding myself and not living the ideas I’m championing in my poems.

Read my profile of Tongo Eisen-Martin here:

Filed under: anti-capitalist, anti-war, Arts and Culture, Black Power,, Books, California, Civil Rights, Poetry, , ,

June 7, 2020 • 6:09 pm 0

Writers making change in the pandemic age

This week, and what a week it was, I’m pleased to introduce you to several writers living and working in San Francisco, all of them striving

Poet and activist Thea Matthews in the Mission District on Wednesday, June 3, 2020. (Kevin N. Hume/S.F. Examiner)

toward a more just and equitable society in their own unique ways.  First, poet and activist Thea Matthews is a San Francisco born and raised writer, celebrating the publication of her first poetry collection for a local press. She’s also deeply involved and on the frontlines of the Movement 4 Black Lives. Read more about where she’s been and where she’s going in this week’s San Francisco Examiner column, SFLives.

Also publishing today, a story I was reporting on and off for about five months on the Writers Grotto, a community of authors who found they needed to recreate their organization so that it would be more inviting to writers of color. You can read the full story in today’s San Francisco Chronicle Datebook  (and one day, I promise to a write story about the process of reporting it).

I love my work, seeking out the stories on the lives of the people and places that show San Francisco at its best. What a privilege it is to be trusted to tell these stories and deliver them to you, especially in these times. As ever, I thank you for taking the time to read and I bid the best to you and your families as the pandemic runs its course. May the moral arc of the universe continue its bend toward justice.

Filed under: anti-capitalist, anti-war, Arts and Culture, Black Power,, Books, Poetry, racism, San Francisco News, ,

May 4, 2020 • 6:23 pm 2

Come Back Little Stevie (for JW)

It’s been years since I saw you at Gilbert’s El Indio

We waved but I didn’t stay. It was clear you were in deep

They say I wouldn’t recognize you so I’ve kept my vision pure

Giddy, ridiculous, sun bombed, self-conscious, unselfconscious

Like Stevie

Back then, we knew everything there was to know about

Everything

You couldn’t tell us

Anything

We hadn’t yet left home or done much

But we were destined

For the big screen and magazines

You knew the names of all the actors and the models, even the minor ones

Patti Hanson, Kim Alexis

I committed it all to memory. Documenting the rise. I’d write your bio, say I knew you when

We were 15 but said we were 16, just so we could work

At Woolworths

I thought you were smart, had things wired

And you did

Until the switch flipped

I don’t know when you found trouble or how it found you

These things have gone wrong since the dawn of time,

Or at least since the dawn of 7-11 parking lots

But we who belong to the sisterhood of checked-out mothers, stay at home mothers, gone to the club mothers, corporate executive at the bar mothers, overwhelmed by life and death and disappointed by life and divorce mothers, hooked on their own unique blend of white wine and Valium mothers, frozen in time mothers, younger than we are now that some of us are grandmothers mothers are here

And we love you

So tell us

Is it over now? And

Do you know how

To pick up the pieces and go home?

Filed under: Poetry, rock 'n' roll, video, Women in Rock, , , , , , , , , ,

March 29, 2020 • 10:56 am 0

Poetic activism in the pandemic age: Tony Robles writes home

I first heard of the work Tony Robles was doing to stem the tide of gentrification in San Francisco when I returned here, following a decade of living in Los Angeles. A housing advocate, particularly devoted to keeping seniors in their homes, and a cultural worker whose art is poetry, whether in the fight to preserve bookstores or entire neighborhoods, from the Fillmore to the Mission, Robles was a strong presence in the various communities he represented, from North Beach to City Hall and South of Market. Combining community and culture in the spirit and tradition of his uncle Al, one of our city’s beloved poet activists, Robles is a fighter for the city he’s allowed to hate — because he loves it — even though he’s left us for rural North Carolina…

In 2017, I was happy to include Tony’s piece “Conversation With A Buffalo,” in Your Golden Sun Still Shines, the San Francisco story anthology I edited for Manic D Press (and which his open letter to another Tony, Bennett, helped deliver the book’s title, a reference to “I Left My Heart in San Francisco”). Now that Robles has left his heart here for real, having relocated to Hendersonville, he’s receiving some well-deserved recognition for his work as a poet. I hope you’ll read the full story of his life and work, particularly as it relates to the role of artists in the age of the pandemic in my biweekly column for the Examiner, SF Lives. And oh yes, a big thank you to Tony: Mabuhay! Read the column here.

Filed under: anti-capitalist, anti-war, Arts and Culture, Book news, Books, Poetry, San Francisco News, Tales of the Gentrification City, , , , ,

October 30, 2019 • 10:02 am 0

Border Songs

Here in California, with both ends of the state engulfed in catastrophic fire, matters of basic survival are at the forefront of our minds. For those of us living with the comfort of hot water, a warm bed and a roof over our heads, it doesn’t take a crisis to take our lives for granted. Of course for refugees, whether from fire, or for migrants seeking asylum, life is an ongoing crisis. This month I had the unique opportunity to talk to two San Franciscans who risked their own comfort to cover the migrant communities at the U.S./Mexico border.

Mabel Jiménez. Portrait by Ekey Kitpowsong/Current SF.

Photographer Mabel Jiménez  was moved to personally investigate the migrant camps and shelters growing in Tijuana. Over the last several years the border town has been a landing spot for refugees from around the world, particularly from Haiti and Central America. Additionally, LGBTQ migrants from around the globe have banded together in their own communities where they can find shelter, acceptance and safety. Jiménez gained the trust of these travelers at risk: Many of them are fleeing violence and poverty in their home countries, only to find further complications in Mexico.  I hope you’ll read her full story and see some of the intimate portraits she shot at CurrentSF.  An exhibit of her photos in on view at City College of San Francisco through November 9.

 

Jorge Argueta. Portrait by Kevin N. Hume/S.F. Examiner

Jorge Argueta is a poet, author of children’s books and a librarian in his home country of El Salvador.  His migration to San Francisco in the ’70s during El Salvador’s civil war landed him in the center of a growing and active Central American community in the Mission District where he pursued writing. Forty years later, he returned to San Salvador to meet with migrants headed for the U.S. border, hoping to encourage them on their journeys. Of course the migrants encountered all forms of difficulty during their caravan to the north and were ultimately turned away or separated from family. Argueta turned one of those stories into a novel in verse, Caravan To The North.  I hope you’ll read more of his story in my San Francisco Examiner column, SFLives.

Though the poet and the photographer have life experience that’s vastly different, they have a common heart and a common goal: They love life and the world around them. Both Argueta and Jiménez are very much engaged in their work, in their immediate communities and matters of global importance. They help where help is called for, then they step back and use their gifts to further their causes and share their stories with others.

Everyday is a crisis for someone, somewhere in the world, but I didn’t want our present disruption to deter from sharing my stories about about two extraordinary San Franciscans and their stories, with you. I hope you’ll read both and take something from them to carry with you as we move together through this beautiful catastrophe called life.

Read more about Jorge Argueta in the SF Examiner

Read more about Mabel Jiménez in Current SF

 

Filed under: anti-capitalist, anti-war, Arts and Culture, Books, photography, Poetry, San Francisco News, , , , , , ,

April 28, 2019 • 5:50 pm 0

The City Is Already Speaking, Vol 3

As National Poetry Month comes to a close, our local independent bookseller’s coalition, United Booksellers of San Francisco, has managed to publish our third chapbook in one calendar year with the cooperation of San Francisco Poet Laureate Kim Shuck. In what she calls our chapthology series, we bring you volume three of The City Is Already Speaking, featuring Cathy Arellano, Jorge Argueta, Kitty Costello, JoAnn DeLuna, Lourdes Figueroa, Sandra Garcia Rivera, Charlie Getter, Lauren Emiko Ito, David Kubrin, César Love, Naomi Quiñonez, Tiny (Lisa Gray-Garcia) and Katie Tomzynski.  So far, we have published new and previously published work by San Francisco Bay Area poets Josiah Luis Alderete, Dee Allen, Simon Crafts, Tongo Eisen-Martin, Flavia Elisa, E.K. Keith, Thea Matthews, Alejandro Murguía, Linda Noel, Raul Ruiz, Kim Shuck, Ricardo Tavarez, Avotcja, Charles Curtis Blackwell, bloodflower, Paul Corman-Roberts, norm mattox, Gail Mitchell, Leroy F. Moore, Jr., Richard Sanderell, Norma Smith, Maurisa Thompson, and René Vaz, Featured visual artists have included Michael Roman, Kate Razo, Veronica Solis and Anna Lisa Escobedo. As one of three co-editors and a contributor to the project, I can tell you the effort is truly gratifying when we see the faces of the contributors as well as our readers upon publication.  This is a labor of love by our local community of poets and the bookstores who support their work.  I’d like to thank everyone, especially the readers who make the continued publication of this series possible.  Because we are a grassroots, non-proift/break-even project, we’ve gone into the red on this edition, but you can help us by placing your order at United Booksellers or stopping by one of our participating stores (Alley Cat, Adobe Books, Green Arcade, Bird & Beckett) and purchasing your copy. You can also attend a reading (a live reading of this work will take place on May 12 at 4 PM at Adobe Bookshop in San Francisco). With appreciation for all you do to support the literary arts in the Bay Area and in your area, we thank you for

Filed under: Arts and Culture, Poetry, San Francisco News, Tales of the Gentrification City, ,

March 19, 2019 • 12:59 pm 0

The Lives of San Francisco’s Poets

Poet Tongo Eisen-Martin
Poet Alejandro Murguía

Some people write poetry. Others write about poetry.  I write about poets, among other people and living things. This week, San Francisco remains in the throes of celebrating poet, painter, and publisher, Lawrence Ferlinghetti who turns 100 years old on March 24.  He is indeed a person and a cause worthy of an extended celebration: A champion of art not only in his own work on the page, but at every opportunity he gets to speak publicly about the City, and as proprietor of City Lights, the bookstore he founded in 1953. There has been and will be much more written about Ferlinghetti as we move into his birthday month’s second half and upon the publication of his new novel Little Boy (pure poetry); I’ll leave it those better qualified to speak to his influence. I can however report firsthand that last Sunday,  on an unseasonably sunny and warm day, poet laureates past and present and assorted other people crammed into the cave-live Koret Auditorium at the San Francisco Public Library for a long afternoon of reading and speechifying in the name of Ferlinghetti’s centennial. There were some laughs and appreciation, but it was largely the kind of event that Ferlinghetti himself might have described as a gathering of “all you poet’s poets writing poetry about poetry.” I mean, I don’t know, I’m just going by what he’s written and what the poet’s poets said about him that day (at some point I lost altitude — not enough air in there).

As Ferlinghetti’s celebration continues, and in anticipation of poetry month in April and well, just because I can, I’ll point you to four recent profiles I’ve compiled about the lives of poets from our City of Poets.  All are in some way connected to Ferlinghetti’s legacy.

In this week’s San Francisco Examiner, I profiled Josiah Luis Alderete, a Spanglish speaking poet with North Beach roots and a Mission District corazón. An amazing performer, his pieces with titles like Claudia Patricia Gomez Gonzalez and Pinche Piñata will set you straight. Read his story here

Kim Shuck is San Francisco’s seventh and current poet laureate:  She is a tireless artist, educator, activist and advocate.  Her poems make racist statues disappear.  Read her story here

Alejandro Murguía was San Francisco’s sixth poet laureate and is the de facto poet laureate of the Mission District. His personal story spans beyond poetry and our city limits, from the bracero camps to the war in El Salvador. Read his story here

Finally, Tongo Eisen-Martin has been reading and resisting across the country the last couple of years. If you’ve had the good fortune to hear him recite his poems in person, then you know. He’s done some deep research into extrajudicial killing of Black lives and his poetry is alive on arrival. Read his story here

None of the tellings of the stories of these poets and their lives would be possible without the poets themselves, The City of San Francisco, The San Francisco Examiner and its photographer Kevin Hume, and the independent booksellers of the Mission District (particularly Modern Times Bookstore Collective, where I was lucky enough to make the acquaintance of these extraordinary artists). Thank you to everyone involved in making San Francisco’s poetry community exceptional and accessible.  And oh yes: A hearty thank you and a very Happy Birthday, Mr. Ferlinghetti. Your insurgent poetry continues to inspire we who are waiting for the rebirth of wonder with you.

Filed under: anti-capitalist, anti-war, Arts and Culture, Poetry, San Francisco News, Uncategorized, , , , , , ,

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