Tongo Eisen-Martin is an American poet and activist. [1] He is the current poet laureate of San Francisco, California. [2] [3]
Tongo Eisen-Martin is an American poet and activist. [1] He is the current poet laureate of San Francisco, California. [2] [3]
Tongo Eisen-Martin was born in 1980[ citation needed ] in San Francisco, California [4] to a revolutionary mother [5] Arlene Eisen. [6] [7] His parents named him after Josiah Tongogara. [8] Muralist Miranda Bergman is his godmother. [7] He has a younger brother named Biko, [6] and they both attended Meadows-Livingstone school in San Francisco as children. [9] [6] He earned a bachelor's and master's degree in African-American Studies, [10] all from Columbia University [11] [12] where he taught at the Institute for Research in African-American Studies, [4] creating the 2012 curriculum We Charge Genocide Again! [2] He has also taught at detention centers, including San Quentin and Rikers Island. [7] He is the co-founder of Black Freighter Press. [3] .
Eisen-Martin's 2017 book Heaven Is All Goodbyes published by City Lights won a PEN Oakland Award, [10] the 2018 American Book Award, [4] 2018 California Book Award, [13] and 2018 National California Booksellers Association Poetry Book of the Year. [4] His 2020 title Blood on the Fog published by City Lights was named a Best Poetry Book of 2021 by Elisa Gabbert of the New York Times. [14] [15]
A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government or conferring institution, typically expected to compose poems for special events and occasions. Albertino Mussato of Padua and Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) of Arezzo were the first to be crowned poets laureate after the classical age, respectively in 1315 and 1342. In Britain, the term dates from the appointment of Bernard André by Henry VII of England. The royal office of Poet Laureate in England dates from the appointment of John Dryden in 1668.
Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghetti was an American poet, painter, social activist, and co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. An author of poetry, translations, fiction, theatre, art criticism, and film narration, Ferlinghetti was best known for his second collection of poems, A Coney Island of the Mind (1958), which has been translated into nine languages and sold over a million copies. When Ferlinghetti turned 100 in March 2019, the city of San Francisco turned his birthday, March 24, into "Lawrence Ferlinghetti Day".
City Lights is an independent bookstore-publisher combination in San Francisco, California, that specializes in world literature, the arts, and progressive politics. It also houses the nonprofit City Lights Foundation, which publishes selected titles related to San Francisco culture. It was founded in 1953 by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter D. Martin. Both the store and the publishers became widely known following the obscenity trial of Ferlinghetti for publishing Allen Ginsberg's influential collection Howl and Other Poems. Nancy Peters started working there in 1971 and retired as executive director in 2007. In 2001, City Lights was made an official historic landmark. City Lights is located at 261 Columbus Avenue. While formally located in Chinatown, it self-identifies as part of immediately adjacent North Beach.
Diane di Prima was an American poet, known for her association with the Beat movement. She was also an artist, prose writer, and teacher. Her magnum opus is widely considered to be Loba, a collection of poems first published in 1978 then extended in 1998.
Philip Lamantia was an American poet, writer and lecturer. His poetry incorporated stylistic experimentation and transgressive themes, and has been regarded as surrealist and visionary, contributing to the literature of the Beat Generation.
Albert James Young was an American poet, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and professor. He was named Poet Laureate of California by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger from 2005 to 2008. Young's many books included novels, collections of poetry, essays, and memoirs. His work appeared in literary journals and magazines including Paris Review, Ploughshares, Essence, The New York Times, Chicago Review, Seattle Review, Brilliant Corners: A Journal of Jazz & Literature, Chelsea, Rolling Stone, Gathering of the Tribes, and in anthologies including the Norton Anthology of African American Literature, and the Oxford Anthology of African American Literature.
The City Lights Pocket Poets Series is a series of poetry collections published by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and City Lights Books of San Francisco since August 1955.
Jack Hirschman was an American poet and social activist who wrote more than 100 volumes of poetry and essays.
Luis Javier Rodriguez is an American poet, novelist, journalist, critic, and columnist. He was the 2014 Los Angeles Poet Laureate. Rodriguez is recognized as a major figure in contemporary Chicano literature, identifying himself as a native Xicanx writer. His best-known work, Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A., received the Carl Sandburg Literary Award and has been controversial on school reading lists for its depictions of gang life.
Juan Felipe Herrera is an American poet, performer, writer, cartoonist, teacher, and activist. Herrera was the 21st United States Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017. He is a major figure in the literary field of Chicano poetry.
Thomas Centolella is an American poet and educator. He has published four books of poetry and has had many poems published in periodicals including American Poetry Review. He has received awards for his poetry including those from the National poetry Series, the American Book Award, the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry and the Dorset Prize. In 2019, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Alejandro Murguía is an American poet, short story writer, and editor. He is known for his writings about the San Francisco's Mission District.
Janice Mirikitani was a Japanese–American poet and activist who resided in the San Francisco Bay Area for most of her adult life. She managed the Glide Memorial Church with her husband, Cecil Williams. She was noted for serving as San Francisco's poet laureate from 2000 until 2002.
Kim Shuck is a Cherokee Nation poet, author, weaver, and bead work artist who draws from Southeastern Native American culture and tradition as well as contemporary urban Indian life. She was born in San Francisco, California and belongs to the northern California Cherokee diaspora. She is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and also has Sac and Fox and Polish ancestry. She earned a B.A. in art (1994), and M.F.A. in Textiles (1998) from San Francisco State University. Her basket weaving work is influenced by her grandmother Etta Mae Rowe and the long history of California Native American basket making.
Ari Banias is an American poet whose work has been featured in Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics, American Poetry Review, Boston Review, and POETRY.
D.L. Lang is an American poet. She has published twelve full-length books of poetry, and served as the Poet Laureate of Vallejo, California.
Elisa Gabbert is an American writer, poet and essayist. She is the author of numerous books and is currently a New York Times poetry columnist.
Major poetry related events taking place worldwide during 2021 are outlined below under different sections. This includes poetry books released during the year in different languages, major literary awards, poetry festivals and events, besides anniversaries and deaths of renowned poets etc. Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Howard Lawrence Lachtman is an American academic, literary critic, editor and author, who has written extensively on the life and works of Jack London, Arthur Conan Doyle, and on crime fiction as a whole.
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