Opening 2025, I have been interviewed and published at California Poets. I performed at Benicia’s MLK Day celebration, at Revolution Books for an Anti-Fascist Revolutionary Poetry Night and at Lake Merritt for Not My President’s Day. “American Dream” launched with Athena on February 26th and landed on the moon on March 6th. I have upcoming features for the Ina Coolbrith Poetry Circle via Zoom and at Monkey House in Berkeley.
I edited a Grateful Dead themed anthology which was released by Hercules Publishing on January 15th, and there will be a reading of California based poets on June 28th at Alibi Bookshop. I am also compiling an anthology of Vallejo’s Poets Laureate and hoping to compile one of all the Solano County based poets laureate as well. I have upcoming publications in this year’s editions of Emerge magazine.
I meant to publish this retrospective on January 1st. However, life got in the way, so I am presenting it to you now.
In 2024 my poetry was published in 16 online publications, 3 print lit journals, 23 anthologies, and I also had 3 journalistic articles published. I am currently experiencing numerous months of writer’s block which resulted in my Submittable queue emptying out for the first time in 4 years. I lost track of the rejections this year, but there were some. You can see a list of published poems available online here and a list of anthologies here.
This year I added Colorado and Indiana to the list of states that I’ve had poetry published in Scotland, Spain, and the Netherlands to the list of countries, bringing the total to 16 states and 9 countries. In an incredible twist, one of my poems, “American Dream” is on its way to the moon with the Lunar Codex. It will travel to the moon twice with Athena and Polaris in 2025.
Though the number of performances this year were less frequent, they were meaningful. I’m grateful when I get to use my art to support the struggle for a better world. To my surprise the Vallejo City Council named me among several local women activists in a proclamation for Women’s History Month.
I was also honored to have a poem printed in the CPUSA’s convention booklet, and was an online panelist for the Party’s writer’s group twice. I also performed with the Revolutionary Poets Brigade at the Starry Plough in support of Toomaj Salehi and other political prisoners, following up on the 2023 event honoring Mahsa Jina Amini at Revolution Books in Berkeley. I also performed at Specs for the Dadaist journal Maintenant, and at Laborfest Sing Out! at Eric Quezada Center for Culture and Politics. I also had three poems accepted for display as part of the Causing Cultural Anarchy: Censored & Banned exhibit. I encourage you to check out my book Fighting the Solar System if you’re interested in political poetry.
Making new friends in the Oklahoma poetry community was certainly a highlight of my year, having performed at Scissortail Creative Writing Festival in Ada, Ink and Inspiration in Enid, and the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival. My activism took me back to Oklahoma as well, and I am grateful for the work of the Enid Social Justice Committee. I wrote two articles for People’s World, and a followup for the People’s Tribune.
I was interviewed on KZCT, KPFA, and by Fevers of the Mind this year. I featured at 1428 Poets in the Haight and 3rd Saturday Poetry in Chinatown in San Francisco, the Solano County Fair and Visions of the Wild in Vallejo, and the Jewish People Exhibit at the Vallejo Museum. Congregation B’nai Israel invited me to perform a poem on the occasion of their affiliation with the Reconstructionist Movement. I hosted 12 Rounds featuring Kyrah Ayers at Mare Island Art Studios.
2024 marks ten years of spoken word performances. Although I was asked to share one of my poems at a synagogue gathering in May 2013, I count December 6, 2014 as my debut because I caught the performing bug, and it was life changing. After months of wrestling with my stage fright, the next year beginning April 9, 2015, I started attending Poetry by the Bay which at the time met twice a month.
62% my performing has been in Solano County which is a testament to the close knit, supportive poetry community here. Over the years I performed 104 times at Poetry by the Bay, including once as a guest host. I have appeared 54 times on KZCT, including 5 featured interviews. I attended Poetry in Notion 30 times, including 19 times as host and once to teach self-publishing. I’ve read at over 100 other events in Vallejo, Benicia, and Fairfield.
Certainly, my busiest years were during my service as Vallejo’s Poet Laureate where I was performing nearly every week. Although the number of open mics has grown in Solano County, I have cut back considerably.
If my counting is correct, then 449 performances by the end of 2024.
- 2013: 1
- 2014: 1
- 2015: 29
- 2016: 45
- 2017: 46
- 2018: 64
- 2019: 63
- 2020: 36
- 2021: 36
- 2022: 51
- 2023: 37
- 2024: 40
