Sligo Scholars

For me, art has always been one of my most powerful healing tools. When I was in my hardest moments, words and drawings were always there to help me work through the pain and confusion. For years I have kept journals and sketchbooks, planting seeds of hope in each page I filled. Spilling out precious memories and dreams, rooting my experience of living in each moment of creation, capturing the past and the future and distilling it into words or images.

Even though I don’t write every day, it doesn’t mean I am not a writer. Every day I am creating something, every day my words form like spells to breathe a dream into reality. (It just might not always see paper). My art flows out of me like blood, spun from my bones and pushed through my heart. It is as real as I am because it is me. Forged from my hands and born of me, I write because I have to. Like Audre Lorde said, “Poetry is not a luxury… I feel therefore I can be free.” What I understand from this piece of her writing is that poetry is how we give form to experience. It’s how we dream up new worlds, and process the world we live in, perhaps even that which we would like to see changed. It is not something that is exclusive, poetry is for everybody. It is a necessity for many of us who use it as a tool for survival.

I can’t speak about poetry or survival without speaking about Stockton. My childhood home, and my home to this day. Growing up in Stockton meant I was always told that to do anything meaningful, I had to leave. That if I wanted to be safe, or successful, or happy, I would not find it here. So many times, my family and I did not have the eyes to see the gems sparkling quietly all around this city. It took me leaving for me to realize what a special place I had left behind. While I was away for college, I realized the importance of what community really meant, as I found home and family, fragmented into pieces, unlike anything I had experienced before. When I am in Stockton, I have three generations of family roots. Histories of migration and settlement, ancestors spending their days doing farm labor in the fields surrounding this town. The blood, sweat, and tears of my ancestors all brought me to Stockton. And when I left, I found myself ever scrambling for anything that would remind me of home. Nothing I experienced was ever quite like the feeling of driving back home on I-5, to the nighttime glimmer of the lights of downtown Stockton. Getting off on Waterloo and continuing into the fields beyond the city limits, air sweet with dew and soil. Nothing outside of Stockton ever beats the feeling (for me, at least), of coming back home.

My family worked hard for generations for me to have the opportunity to go to college, to leave Stockton for the first time. I was one of the lucky ones. Not everyone in Stockton gets to leave, and if they do, they might leave so hurt that they don’t ever want to come back. I cannot deny that my city is hurting. It has been for a long time. We have long histories of struggle and suffering. Bloody histories. Of displacement, of racism, of segregation and isolation. We have a history of everyone seeing us for the ways we lash out when we are hurt. Laughing at us for being broken, thinking that we are broken in the first place. When I left, I knew that everything I was doing, I was doing it for something much bigger than me. Every class I took, every job I worked, every experience I had, I did it so that I could bring it home. Everything I have, I have it because someone believed in me. I have it because someone supported me. They saw things in me I might not have been able to see. They saw potential. When I look at Stockton, all I see is potential. Every person I see on the street has a story. Every person here deserves a chance at their dream.

If I am given the immense privilege to walk in Seamus Heaney’s footsteps, and learn more about how to dive deeper into art and writing in the beautiful and proud land of Ireland, know that it is not for me. Know that I am doing it for every person in Stockton who has a dream just like me. I am doing it for my ancestors who worked hard, and for my descendants that I pray over every day. No matter how far I go, I will always come home. My dream is to be in service to my community and give back to others all the support and love that has been given to me. When someone asks me what my dream job is, I tell them it is to be a community organizer and a community healer. I want to see my community organized and ready to come together to create our highest good. And I know that won’t be possible without putting in the hard hours to heal our city, our families, ourselves, and our communities. I try every day to commit myself to my community, because without my community, I would have nothing. I can only dream of the ways that Sligo and all the experiences of learning would better equip me to be a healing force for my community. I am immensely grateful that there are people out there who believe in Stockton. That there are opportunities like this one for us. Thank you for believing in us, thank you (if you so choose) for believing in me, and thank you so so much for your time and consideration.

With love,

Adria Vidales

After Silvio Rodriguez’ Yo Te Quiero Libre

Yo te quiero libre 

Translated as

(I love you freely)

(I want you to be free)

(I love you when you are free)

Yo te quiero libre

As in

Near or far

I am loving you no matter what

You are a whole being, autonomous as me

And when we’re together I never feel more seen

And we live our own lives, but always we are tied together

Not like we are tied down, but rather

We are connected like roots from two neighboring trees

I love you to the moon and back for as long as the moon has existed or ever will exist

I love you without tension, I love you and it makes me free

Yo te quiero libre

As in

I love you so much, I don’t ever want you to suffer

Struggle is a given

But I love you so much I dream that we will walk freely 

Hand in hand, sin miedo

Manos en el suelo

Without the crushing weight of watching babies burn half a world away

Without being in debt, always owing our lives to someone else

Without control and policing of our actions, our bodies, our movements

I love you so much, I will fight every day to be closer to freedom and liberation with you

Because

Yo te quiero libre

As in

I pray that you will not let the world harden your heart

Or soften your principles

You are freedom, walking down the street with seeds in one hand and a sickle in the other

All of this to say

Yo te quiero libre 

hasta siempre

TAKE NOTHING AWAY FROM KNOCKNAREA

Pebbles rolling

downhill towards the strand.

Mists floating by,

kissed by salt and brine.

We are reminded to take nothing but memories

from the sacred mountain.

Gaze freely upon 

grass, grain, soil.

Sedimentary lines of pale gray chert. 

Here and there, a hint of oyster shell.

As we climb,

we share a little saltwater of our own.

Cattle graze lazily, 

oblivious keepers of unseen catacombs, 

guardians of fossilized artifacts.

Neglected corners. 

Forgotten stories.

Grab a rock on the way up.

Pause to catch breath often.

a repository of information.

The hero’s journey

to become

Savior of a civilization.

In the name of a great queen.

Archeological knowledge.

Plant identification.

Volumes of poetry encased in cranial vaults.

Oral traditions taking root in bone and tongue.

Illuminated manuscripts,

illustrated with ink from distant lands. 

Holy indigo. Cosmic crimson.

Music hung like moss over everything.

Memory is a cultural imperative.

It must be shared if it is to matter.

The sidhe would stitch it into our skin if they could.

Slow rolling drum rumble

echoes on the emerald hills.

Rippling fiddle strings 

send us rambling,

dancing across the green.

Dew drops burst into oblivion,

billions of small rainbows 

scattered by our feet.

Gathered near the cairn,

we leave our offering to affirm that

we are among the living.

All those poor mouths filled with stone,

we have avenged them, 

added to their mounds with reverence.

Given time and breath to share their tales.

Observed celestial alignment with sites across the valley.

Listened deeply,

and drew our own truths from the tombs.

A history that must be lived

to be understood.

This is what we will carry home.

As much as we can possibly remember.

My love affair with language and storytelling began at a very young age. My mother was a voracious reader, which resulted in our house being regularly littered with piles of books. It wasn’t uncommon for me to plop down on the couch for Saturday morning cartoons, only to unearth a few novels hiding in the cushions. I took to reading very quickly and was particularly drawn to the genres of fantasy and science fiction. The joy and wonder I experienced while exploring worlds in imaginative stories became something I wanted to give to the world. Almost as soon as I learned to read, I began writing simple stories of my own. The ideas often flowed quicker than my ability to develop work, but I managed to complete several short stories, and won awards in elementary and middle school writing competitions.

My passion for language deepened my freshman year of high school when I discovered poetry. Not that poetry was totally unfamiliar to me, but a very attentive English teacher helped me see it as a vessel for my own unique form of expression. When writing stories, I often struggled with the dilemma of starting new work before finishing works in progress. With poetry, I found a medium in which I could take one idea and bring it to full expression in a succinct and direct fashion. I was also becoming involved with theater at the time, so my writing style leaned towards the performative. It turned out that I enjoyed being in front of crowds and could memorize text with relative ease. I began to perform my poetry at local open mic events, and even hosted a few of my own. Later on, I would compete in national poetry slams.

After high school, I attended San Francisco State University as a Creative Writing major. While living in the dorms I was exposed to a huge variety of new music. I discovered a vein of Hip-Hop that excited me unlike anything I’d ever heard. This was in a pre-streaming era where my musical tastes had been informed by peers, and whatever was played on corporate radio in my small town. When I heard the poetic genius of artists like Mos Def and Black Thought, I was inspired in much the same way I had been as a child reading stories. I knew that rapping was something I wanted to do. I began attending freestyle open mics on Haight Street, Filmore, 16th and Mission. My natural aptitude for language gave me an advantage in the spontaneous arena of freestyle rapping, and I was overjoyed as a young writer to play with words through this musical medium. I would go on to record several poetry and Hip-Hop records, as well as perform extensively in many different locations.

Since then, Hip-Hop and poetry have shaped my life in countless ways, enabling me to travel as a performance poet and rapper. My evolution through language has culminated in a lifelong desire to share stories, poetry, and music with people all over the world. The brief excursions I have been blessed with have only quickened my wanderlust. For me, there is nothing more exciting than traveling to a place where I don’t know anyone and connecting with people by sharing my artistic expression. The bonds of friendship formed this way have filled my life with a wealth of inspiration, as my creativity is informed by people and cultures I encounter.

In addition to publishing and performing, my linguistic journey has also opened doors for me to be an educator. I have been blessed to conduct a number of creative writing workshops, including participation in the recent Tuleburg Fresh Hip-Hop Summer camp. The passion that I have for language is obvious in a classroom setting, and my roots in both Hip-Hop and academic poetry allows me to speak directly to students from varying backgrounds. Bringing my life experience as a writer and professional performer to a workshop grounds the teachings in authenticity that students of all ages can relate to.

A savage rendering. Shattered faces in a mirror that no longer exists. The flesh is torn.

The mask is broken. It’s difficult to sit still with my sockets shattered.

It’s the stillness that brings healing. A new skin revealing. Even when my skull was crushed,

the Divine Cord held strong.

It promised that, when I’m ready, I shall be sewn together again.

These are the phases of rebirth.

Bloody, bony, jagged, muscular.

Totally intangible.

I am a journeyman in the land of the unseen traveler. We are not ghosts. We are spirits.

Bellowing mouths with dry lips, proclaiming rage and truth.

We are nomads gathered round quiet fires where herbs are brewing.

We roast the bones of our former selves

and lend compassion to the rebellion.

If you’ve never been shredded to ribbons, this will be beyond your comprehension.

Kick the hornet’s nest. Welcome swords to your chest. You have been here before.

This is not the first mask you’ve worn.

There is a part of your memory beyond your

recollection.

Recollect the talismans that

remind you who

You are.

Cherished remnants of a holy heritage, scattered through ravaged realms of lifetimes lived.

Searching for a needle to thread my inspiration.

I’m stitching seams between

all these shredded dreams.

A patchwork lattice of my most

brilliant disasters.

Sometimes the medicine needed isn’t what it seems.

I’m limping my way towards fulfillment,

bloodstream awash in all my favorite toxins.

As I walk,

I leave pools of mud,

where lotus flowers will blossom.

This is how we are able to return,

even when it hurts.

The people I’ve met in my life have all had something special to share. Stories and experiences that till this day I carry in my heart. The books that I’ve read have given ideas to grasp and with it, knowledge to be gained. And through all this I found that in poetry I could share my own words with those around. Here in Stockton, I found a place of belonging with others whose words are shared and heard throughout the city. Poetry is something of beauty in that these simple words can be put together to create an image in our heads telling a story. As I explore more in my poetic endeavors, I find a growing community here in Stockten of artists. Though they will long pass, in this moment ours comes a restlessness to share what we’ve created. What can I add?

I started writing the beginning of this year around march. Before then I never would have thought I’d be a writer of any sort. I’m a college student with an interest in economics and looking to transfer to a UC this year. However, for a very long time I always had a tough time expressing myself. Going through different majors and being off and on with school especially with Covid. But eventually I found a major I had interest in. Then a friend of mine talked to me about poetry and how it helped her express her thoughts and feelings and I thought I’d give it a try. Realizing I had a knack for building up worlds with just the words I wrote down, I started putting in more time and effort to poetry. Reading what I wrote throughout my city in open mics, poetry slams and coffee shops as well as showcasing them in a magazine. These experiences have given me a sense to continue on this path of writing poetry. I come from an immigrant family of Hispanics in the southern states of Mexico and from the small islands of Puerto Rico. We come from rough beginnings but through my families’ efforts we’ve come a long way. Through this I’ve become a resilient person even to the greatest of my opposition in life and working hard to meet my goals. Throughout my life I have been involved in helping out my community. Through middle school and high school, I was always volunteering and involved in school programs. Working since the age of sixteen while still attending classes. In college I was participating in clubs that held interest in my major, working a part time job and for some time held a position for Student Body Government.                                                       

Growing up has been a struggle in many ways. We’ve moved around for most of my childhood and at times my siblings and I lacked the resources we needed to live a comfortable life. Moving around a lot made making friends difficult, never having a true connection with any childhood friends. With school I also had to deal with bullying throughout my adolescence. Always being picked on for being physically weak but I had gotten used to it becoming a pushover. At home I didn’t have a strong relationship with my father. I think to myself that maybe because he never had a father growing up, he never knew how to love his own son. Though it’s frustrating to know that I never had the love and respect a father gave towards his son. I am glad to have my dad by my side, but I wish I had made a connection with him growing up because it played a big role in me not being able to express my emotions and really put them in words and thoughts. I’ve made strides throughout my years, but I hit my lowest point two years ago.

I had my first love at 21 and up to that point, I had no idea what love was. I’d only known the love given by my mother but the love of another was foreign to me. It was dear to me, making me the happiest I had ever been in my life. But like the Greek tragedies, I lost her in the most heart wrenching ways never to see her again. After an unfortunate night she was left traumatized and I with a bloodlust to a hopeless cause. We slowly drifted away until she was gone from my life, but that anger never left. I distanced myself from family and friends, regressing to a state of indifference and for the longest it stayed that way. Though I knew I couldn’t stay like this and made strides to improve on myself, it was when I started writing where I was fully able to express these repressed emotions. It has taken a lot of effort mentally to get to where I’m at, but this is just one of many steps I’ll make throughout life.

Not many will get the opportunity to travel to Ireland and study Irish literature and I know that I can be one of them. Ireland has birthed many famous poets and it’d be amazing to understand why it is so and how it has inspired English literature as well. But, given the chance, I will grasp what I’ve learned from this experience and utilize it in my writing efforts. Currently, I’m working on writing my first book that I’ve envisioned for quite some time. Sharing my visions to the world around and hopefully inspiring many others to write their convictions. I will never give up this opportunity to write poetry for I’ve found my calling. However, if there is any reason for this given opportunity, it will be the culmination of my experiences, my strengths, my weaknesses and of the people who have been around me. Thank you for taking the time to read my personal statement and I hope you take a liking to these poems.

“Thousands are sailing / across the Western Ocean / where the Hand of Opportunity / draws tickets in a lottery…..”

“For where’er we go we celebrate / the land that makes us refugees / from fear of priests with empty plates / and guilt / and weeping effigies….. And they’ll dance to the music, and they’ll DANCE.”

Immigrant Experience – how powerful its stories are

I grew up on Flogging Molly. Almost literally.

I’d pound the pavement of the little frontage road along I-5 near what was Webster Middle School every morning with either John Lennon or Dave King crooning – or – let’s be honest here – screaming into my ears. To Delta College and back again, day after hot summer day, sitting on scalding bus benches that made me feel like my jeans were melting into a green-painted puddle. I walked there and back, foam headphones in my ears, ignoring the world as only a 19-year-old can. Or was I really?

You’d think I was Irish. But alas, I’m Scottish and Manx, with the flaming red hair to prove it.

Celtic enough.

Still, all of those Irish songwriters spoke to me. They taught me about the Troubles, and how peace is a verb, not a noun: “Walk away me boy, walk away me boy, and by morning, we’ll be free. Wipe that golden tear from your mother dear, and raise what’s left of the flag for me.”

They sojourned with me to New York. Shane MacGowan of the Pogues and his songwriting partner, Phil Chevron, went there physically, while I stowed away in spirit. On those old streets, we tramped in the footsteps of Irish legends who had made it. Thanks to Shane I literally heard that the famous songwriter George M. Cohan was Irish – but only after I realized Shane wasn’t talking about Leonard Cohen! And I learned about Irish and Jewish immigrants’ affinity for each other, each borne of Otherness and hardscrabble lives.

“And in Brendan Behan’s footsteps, I danced up and down the street.”

I have to admit that I didn’t dance. Sometimes I did a little punk yip – you can hear it in Shane’s songs – and hopped. I was growing into someone else. Someone passionately drawn to Ireland and the millions who had left their Fair Isle. To the ones who had come to America but whose love for Ireland was firmly stowed away in the bare cupboards of their mothers’ and fathers’ homes. To the people who crooned “Erin Gra Ma Chroi” every Saint Patrick’s Day, whether while warming their hands in an Irish-made turf fire astride the railroads that they had built or beside an Irish-born policeman’s glowing hearth. Irish love – and lore – is available to all of us. For someone who was shy and searching for love, I fell into Ireland.

And, I must admit, I haven’t fallen away from it.

I think it’s because of the way that the Irish reconcile Otherness. With humor, and with pride, they take back the violence that the English used to try to make them feel small. You hear it in “Why Paddy can’t come to work today” — that songwriter’s gift of the gab in celebrating, blow by blow, what is none other than a dumbass mistake. Or in their many songs about drinking – the antics, the pratfalls, the body of the dead person sticking its head out of the coffin and shouting, “we’ll have another round!” Drinking is sport, but it’s also an entry into living – greeting, befriending, SINGING, bonding, barfing, and stumbling home at sunrise.

For me, an outsider kid who’s grown into a wandering ambivert, Ireland has made a place for me. Yes, there’s literary critique and all that – for the Irish come from a great culture! But it takes the lowly and celebrates them. The shy one is called shy – but also brave! Like Stephen Dedalus, in Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man. Even Death, that outsider of all outsiders – is welcomed to the table with a nod and a handshake.

Through the rough realities of the last four centuries, the Irish have had to find the beauty in the real, the gallows, the bawdy.

How else could they truly live?

Marx calls religion the flower that guilds the chain of oppression.

For the Irish, I think they braid those flowers. Make them a tapestry. So that, yes, the chain can still be seen, but it’s overwhelmed by color and beauty.

Because life is about so more than feeling oppressed.

Living in a brain branded as Other

Demands a quick defense.

My friends and I explain each others’ existence

A mantra that I’ve forgotten: past tense.

I’m reminded of it now:

Anxious politics

Like cans of rusting food

Interred

As in if in a hope chest

In case civil strife

Ignites

the States.

BUT

Sipping lukewarm Coke and rum

In a bar full of round tables

In a city full of roundabouts

In a country where stories encircle history

I remember me.

The States pine over things –

The flesh forbidden,

The food and the customs purloined

from neighbors and

settlers

running for America.

Our culture

Still reaching:

A sun-wracked peach tree

Dropping its fruit

Awaiting winter.

A rank smell

But fertile underneath.

The States

Claustrophobic at times,

Talk about the Body

Like a closed-in coffin.

Celebrating new generations

BUT

Forgetting that there’s pleasure

In the making of children.

In the States,

I skim an ice cream cone with my front teeth

Not

Licking it

Not

Letting its sweet lather dissolve on my lips.

Why do I do this???

Here,

It’s more than the sartorial splendor of beautiful men.

It’s more than my peering eyes

Under the feminine arches of abbey walls.

It’s the cab driver.

His soft whiskers touching mine –

During his smoke break

As he leads me

Step by easy step

To the street towards the Oscar Wilde House

Its rooms resplendent

With lilies.

Deep in the woods, the water black, and under a pelting rain,

We pilgrim in Yeats’s footsteps.

His cadences warm our squishy feet –

Lilting like the bards of old,

Keeping company beside waterfalls

And baaing black-and-white sheep.

Yeats and his silver-tipped tongue –

His odes to a beautiful maidens

Including one who packs pistols.

Another lilting Irish ode – this one to an ethereal woman

Lilting

In sweet syllables, singing the unspoken plot points of Irish song,

Invites Mystery.

I’m sure there were Boasts –

not just by the Viking settlers

but also

By Irish men –

Their Norse-inflected grammar

Flicking, Flattering themselves

Like the musicality of Their accents.

Still – the Irish softness remains.

It’s a fond familiar –

Not just to me, but to our history.

In my early elementary school years I wrote a book about my stuffed animals. Each had a page devoted to their origin, their appearance, and personal characteristics. Occasionally a stuffie would warrant a drawing, but even then, my focus was on the writing.

During my stint and subsequent graduation from University of California, Berkeley, I had the privilege of studying under a Poet Laureate, MacArthur Geniuses, and went to readings for a bunch of poets you’ve probably read in magazines and compilations, but think you have never heard of. In the past few years I have re-committed myself to writing: essays, poetry, and journaling. I donated most of my paint and paper crafting tools, because I felt it was distracting from the writing in which I wanted to excel. It’s been nine years since I started substitute teaching; it is a job I truly love. It gives me flexibility, and I meet many people. It’s amazing how children want to share stories of new pets, cousin’s birthday parties, or how they ended up in foster care. Their stories are delicate and precious, like tiny birds that fell out of a nest. I try to nurture them and tell their tales if they can’t tell them themselves.

I was first introduced to the writings of Seamus Heaney in college. My humble, Irish, creative writing professor, Dr. J. R. Ewing was a devoted fan of Heaney. He’d written a heavy package of sonnets he had planned to send to Heaney for his review. But, soon enough he heard he was the recipient of The Nobel Prize in Literature and never sent the packet because he thought Heaney would be too busy to read his sonnets. Thanks to Dr. Ewing and Mr. Heaney, I delight in the warm, thick slobber that became tadpoles, in Death of a Naturalist. As in the Glanmore Sonnets, I wanted to write with my “Words entering almost the sense of touch.” Reading and sometimes laughing through his written works, I assured myself I would go to Ireland someday, one way or another.

There are many Irish authors and poets who I cannot meet, including Heaney, so I want to breathe the air these men breathed: Heaney, Yeats, and even Ewing with his lonely sonnets. And I want to write about it.

I’m working on a story about a man who takes a bus from Stockton to Reno, and then a plane to Ireland in order to find his father, whom he believed was dead. Like my poems below, I describe in vivid colors the land he travels through as he goes through the Eastern Sierras. In my poem, a haibun, I write in orange. Through my cinquains, I show you, as a Californian, I know how to write in gold. Now I want to write in green.

When I think of Ireland

All I remember is you,

Cobblestone walks,

the canal filled with swans and sparkles, and the sea.

You in the afternoon, castle ruins

You were my home.

The faeries, flitting and mysterious

I swear I saw faeries’ wings

on the other side of your mountain.

The night I left

Or early that morning, actually

The bakeries were waking up

Coffee, flakes of fresh almond croissant that we

Shared the mornings late in the week

The stars welcomed the sun and disappeared.

The bold, fresh smell of the street in soft rain.

I said good-bye, sweet Sligo.

I was the one who turned away

For another lover.

You were the statue of the woman reaching for her lost sailor

My name is Alyssa Sierra Langworthy and I am writing in pursuit of participation in this year’s Seamus Heaney Fellowship in Sligo. I am a writer born and raised in Stockton, California. I have been an avid writer since childhood, but truly began to work on my craft as a teenager under the mentorship of Tama Brisbane with the nonprofit With Our Words. I began writing and performing my poetry at the age of fourteen, going on to participate in several Stockton All-City Poetry slams, becoming the grand slam champion in 2010, and earning the privilege of participating in the Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam from 2009 to 2012.  I was able to participate in the Youth Speaks Speak Green competitions in 2009 and again in 2010 where I was selected as a finalist and member of the Green Team for the 2010-2011 year. This appointment allowed me to travel and perform with my teammates for the US Greenbuild Council Conference and Expo in Arizona, as well as the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. I was honored when Tama asked me to return as a slam team coach for the Stockton Brave New Voices teams in 2013 and 2015 during my summer breaks from UC San Diego.

My writing has always been deeply tied to my experiences growing up in Stockton, but since I was a teenager it has also always been indubitably influenced by travel and the ability to share my love for my city with people from across the U.S. My voice is uniquely Stocktonian, but has also been informed by great writers of all ages and times, cultural backgrounds and schools of thought. I would be humbly honored if chosen to participate in this year’s fellowship. While I have been fortunate to learn from incredible poets and writers, both in the classroom and in the spoken word/slam poetry community, I am a believer in life-long learning. There is still so much I do not know and so many opportunities for me to grow as a writer, reader, and human being. I believe that this journey to Sligo could be the next step in my journey as a writer and performer, and I would do everything in my ability to make the most of this opportunity if given the chance.

There weren’t many trees in the neighborhood I grew up in

it’s hard for a tree to grow through cracks in the concrete

watered with spilled blood fertilized with dropped casings

they say if you sing to your plants they grow faster

apparently screams, sirens, and gunshots

don’t ring enough melody for mother nature

 last year in Stockton, California 

78 people fell victim to homicide, 39 of them under the age of 25

almost all of them people of color

every year our murder rates rise like gun smoke

but this isn’t something we can just blow off

In 2005, Spanish designer Martin Azua  introduced the Bios Urn

the first  possibility for a  biodegradable burial

constructed of coconut shell , compacted peat and cellulose

the  Bios Urn contains the seed of a tree at its heart

it begins growing once your loved one is buried beneath the earth

imagine the forest my city could be

I’ve always found trees haunting spirits coiled in trunk

towering over their observers like monuments these deaths could be momentous

another chance at life after death

growing rings for every year their families have mourned

we will carve eulogies in bark like tattoos

 instead of  decorating street corner shrines we will plant gardens at their roots

grow flowers instead of placing plastic wrapped bouquets over shrapnel

tie ribbons on branches rather than street poles

 we will breathe them in

 they will give us life after their deaths

 the most generous act of their  heartwoods

if a tree was once your son, would you still be willing to cut it down?

The neighborhood I grew up in is now considered to be at nearly

four times the national average risk of attempted murder

I can count the number of friends who’ve been shot or killed on both hands

their ghosts could produce enough oxygen for a small child to survive a lifetime

 if we have to keep dying why not graciously give ourselves back to the universe

 give ourselves the chance to start again

crawl back into the womb of mother nature and birth ourselves beautiful

from the ugly of our city can come strength in hardwood

redwoods  replacing skyscrapers

forests lining our streets

posted in front of porches like picket fences

gangs of trees like southside sequoias

we’ll redefine Oak Park post-cremation

grow out of gunsmoke and ashes  like phoenixes

rise like  ash trees

we are tired of burning

tired of smelling like singed flesh and gunpowder

tired of watching our young people fall victim, yet no one yells timber

I feel like I’ve seen coroners on every street corner in Stockton

policemen hauling body bags  like lumberjacks dragging trees to sawmills

logging bodies into morgues whenever someone gets the axe

it’s ironic how the murder rates rise synchronized with Stockton’s summer heat

the pistils of blooming flowers blossom with life while the pistols of young men take it away

leaving their brothers in pools of blood sticky like sap, red like fire

 why are we hiding behind triggers that don’t guarantee our safety?

it stumps me

but I know that dead kings wear the biggest crowns

I can feel the knots growing in our hearts replacing the severed branches of our family trees

I know that planting seeds in plots instead of caskets

won’t solve the problem of gun violence in my hometown

but maybe it could make the casualties

a little easier to look at

Stockton is a gold mine of hurting artists and creative outcasts. These artists are my friends, my colleagues, my partners… myself. Each and every one of us deserves the opportunity to experience the world and nurture our creative spirit. That includes me. Not all of us will be so lucky, that I know. But I also know that if I were given the chance to go to Ireland and study poetry, it would not be an opportunity wasted. The people of this city matter to me. The art we create matters. And I assure you that what I would learn in Sligo, I would carry that knowledge home with me. I would use that experience to create art that inspires, art that teaches, art that heals. Art that helps all of us share this opportunity, as much as we can.

I was 13 or so when I first realized how poetry can heal. I would fill notebooks with rhymes and paragraphs, traumas and chicken-scratch thoughts. Some of it was legible; some of it… had room for improvement. At the time I just saw it as a coping mechanism, but my English teacher saw potential. It was she who introduced me to the world of slam poetry. I entered my first competition at 15, and since then poetry has been my constant companion. While my poetry is incomparable to that of Seamus Heaney, it has a weight and a perspective of its own.

My experience as a low-income fat queer person from California’s Central Valley has made me strong and humble. I am a survivor with a fiery spirit. I have learned to swallow my pride and ask for help when it is needed, and I have also mastered the art of displaying bravery in spite of fear. It was this bravery that I called upon during my first and only plane trip to Decatur, Georgia to compete in Brave New Voices Slam Poetry Competition in 2015. As frightening as the journey was for me, it gave me the opportunity to meet other young poets and take workshops that explored topics such as intersectional racism, sexism, gentrification, and gender bias. It’s also an opportunity I would not have had without the generosity of the program.

 I always thought that plane rides were things for wealthy people – opportunities were things for wealthy people. For someone like me, they were just as intangible as the rest of my dreams. Since I was 18, I’ve had to work at least 20 hours a week and attend school full-time just to qualify for financial aid. I’ve never been able to afford travel, let alone traveling somewhere so beautiful to study something I love so much.

Although I no longer participate in competitive slam poetry, I still find outlets to nurture my creativity. I run an Instagram account called “@209poets,” where people can submit their poetry anonymously or with credit. I hope to someday publish a zine featuring their submissions alongside my own. I have turned my experiences into lessons, and I work as an art teacher with multiple local initiatives and collectives. I teach children how to express themselves and transform their thoughts into tangible works of art. Poetry is not just a hobby for me, or a coping mechanism; it is the way I process the world around me and, most importantly, how I stay rooted in my community. Everything I would experience in Ireland, I would return to my home. I would share it with the people I love, and our city would be better for it. Thank you for your time and careful consideration.

Sinners sidestep slowly past sunrise ceremonies

Passing pews of passion and pacifism

Stained glass windows display images of

Slavery and sacrifice

Wolves and sheep

And bleeding eyes

The pagans and the protestants point fingers at each other

Blurring bodies and blurred lines

Plagiarizing patronizing prayers

Speaking spells and scripture

Radical righteousness reverberates through the room

The patrons are puppets and pawns of higher power

Convinced they are better than their neighbor

Like all children of the universe

Who fluctuate from fair to felon

Forswearing their flawed faith

Angel to antagonist

Dusk to dawn

Dual dysfunction