I'm dedicating today's poem to the good people of POWER, who, rather than staying hushed, are speaking up. They're spending the morning calling for accountability from the City of San Francisco and fighting for justice for low-income people of color. Read details here of the legal showdown over health concerns surrounding the construction in the Bayview-Hunter's Point area of the city.

Go POWER!

Here's a rough poem I've been piecing together.


hush

here is where we learn to hush:
         at mama’s bedside
to sleep, she needs the silence
    of secrets submerged
   below soft voices
        hush         hush

here is where we learn to hush:
         before the pulpit
  voices may boom from behind it
     but from where we sit,
not a word of the pain resting in the pew
              not a word
          hush          hush

here is where we learn to hush:
          before school
             in school
           after school
where words don’t come from live voices
     where words are set it stone
           hush          hush

   we learn to keep our voices scattered
  never gather enough sound at one time
      for it’s always time to hush, now,
           hush           hush
   
     so silent before we shout

Maisha Z. Johnson

I really can’t believe 2011 has arrived already. But I guess I should get used to it. So, like everyone else I’m spending my day reflecting on the past year, thinking about the next one. For me, 2010 was full of highlights, and I hate to reduce it to a silly top-ten list, but if I didn’t I might ramble on forever about my year. So here they are, my Top 10 Highlights of 2010:

·   Safetyfest
         CUAV’S 2010 Safetyfest was a spectacular highlight of the year. It was great to be a part of the planning process as a member of CUAV (Community United Against Violence), to help launch, in April, a festival of events designed to build safety in queer and trans communities. Events included everything from self-defense workshops to opening and closing celebration parties, and it was all thanks to the combined energies of community members giving time and money and resources to help empower each other. I was so thankful for the chance to lead a writing workshop and an open mic, where folks astounded me with their presence and words. Planning for Safetyfest 2011 is now underway, which is very exciting. Watch this look back at Safetyfest 2010 here!

·   CUAV
      Continuing my membership at CUAV has been a highlight of 2010 in general. Opportunities have ranged from being a part of transformative Safety Labs to reading poetry at rallies in support of social justice. Not to mention building community, and growing as a person in all that I’ve learned along the way. 

·   POWER
      Another great part of 2010 was volunteering with the inspirational people of POWER (People Organized to Win Employment Rights) in various capacities. They do really great work that helps a lot of folks, and empowers folks with the tools to help themselves, and the time I’ve spent with them has taught me a great deal about organizing in ways that can really enact change.

·   U.S. Social Forum
      This was one of the great opportunities that came with being an active member of CUAV – the staff invited me to be a part of the delegation that attended the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit. The USSF was a conference of activists and organizers who brought knowledge and open minds to share with each other tools for making change. For example, a workshop with the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) featured a panel of folks speaking on immigration and shared BAJI’s findings on black communities’ involvement in immigration rights movements. There were so many workshops at the USSF that it was hard to choose which to attend, but being me, I tried to pop into as many of the arts-related workshops as possible. Workshops like “Art is Change” with Anasa Troutman were enlightening, and I was inspired not only in my own writing, but also by the power of words to move others, as I saw people like Anasa making a difference in folks who would carry her words across the country and to the rest of the world. I’m grateful still for that time spent in Detroit, especially because now we continue to share what we learned and what we shared with others while we were there.

·   Transfer
      In an exciting milestone for my writing, in 2010 I got a short story published for the first time. Transfer Magazine published my short story “The Single Woman’s Guide to Surviving a Miscarriage” in Transfer 99, and gave it the Leo Litwak Award for Fiction. Whoo!


·   Quiet Lightning/sPARKLE & bLINK
      Some of my most thrilling moments this year were all thanks to Quiet Lightning, a local reading series that’s given a great range of writers a place for their words. They gave me a place during Litquake in October, and again in November, and I’m so thankful for those unforgettable experiences. Hell, I’m thankful just for Quiet Lightning, whether it includes me or not, because Rajshree Chauhan and Evan Karp are doing something wonderful for the San Francisco literary community. And with Quiet Lightning, of course, I’m also grateful for sPARKLE & bLINK, the publication featuring each month’s readers (which they also generously offer for free on Scribd).

·  San Francisco Lit Community
      I’m thankful that this year has introduced me to the thriving literary community that’s such a lively part of the Bay Area right now. I’ve had such a great time at events like Quiet Lightning, Literary Death Match, the Living Room Reading Series, 14 Hills events… I could go on, and there are plenty more I’ve yet to see as well. To say that it’s exciting to witness and participate in such a vibrant scene hardly captures how thrilling it all is, and I can only hope for what the next year will bring as we walk through the doors that are opening for writers in and around San Francisco. 

·   HIV prevention
      I feel like I can’t not mention my so-called “day job.” If my writing is the side of me that is the wild, unstable artist, then I guess my stable side is what has me walking the streets of the city at odd times of the night in an effort to prevent HIV. Working as a study recruiter for the AIDS Office of the San Francisco Department of Public Health has been challenging in some ways, but it’s been a highlight of 2010 in that I’ve been a part of an extensive effort to reduce HIV infections, and for some, substance abuse, and along the way I’ve had the chance to learn about other people by connecting directly with them.

·   Writing Ourselves Whole
      Another that can’t go unsaid – I’ve participated in several of the incredibly transformative workshops of Writing Ourselves Whole, and recently I’ve had the pleasure of working with the workshops’ facilitator, Jen Cross, with some of the duties that help her efforts to reach others move forward. This is another of 2010’s gifts for which I’m immensely thankful, and I look forward to connecting more with Writing Ourselves Whole in 2011. 

·   Graduation / Grad school
      And I can’t leave out, of course, my graduation in May from the Creative Writing department of San Francisco State University. I feel like I’ve taken a long journey through school, so I had a whole lot to be thankful for upon reaching graduation. And now I’m looking forward to the next step, as I apply to MFA programs. Maybe I shouldn’t count this as a highlight until I actually get into grad school, but deciding to move forward with the process has been a highlight of the year for me.

·   Inkblot
      Okay, so if you’re counting you’ll know that this is actually highlight #11. But I couldn’t resist adding it, because I wouldn’t have the platform to go on this rant of reflection and gratitude without this blog. I would definitely call Inkblot a highlight of 2010 because it’s been a part of my growth as a writer, it’s helped me connect with people I admire, and it’s been one way I can share all that I’ve learned from the thrilling and critical moments of the year.

Thanks for being a part of it all with me. Have a safe night. Happy New Year!

 This weekend I helped run a Bowl-a-thon for POWER (People Organized to Win Employment Rights). For a couple of months now I’ve been helping Aspen, POWER’s tireless fundraising director, get together the details for this fundraiser, so it was great to see all of our hard work paying off.

 Here’s a question for you – which of the following activities can support low-income people of color, youth and immigrant communities?

• dressing up in outrageous costumes with some of your co-workers or closest friends?
• dancing your way through a game of bowling, to earn a score so bad you win a prize for your last-place finish?
  
• taking a break from eating pizza to race to the DJ booth and answer a trivia question?

The answer, I’ve learned, is all of the above. Who knew that social justice work could come in the form of a blissful day at the bowling alley? I’d call this an art – just as artists take what’s familiar to us and make it beautiful, taking the sometimes exhausting, sometimes depressing task of fighting injustice and making it joyful helps remind us of why it’s all worth it. It’s worth it to see the folks most affected by society’s problems rise up and thrive, dance and laugh. Knowing they’re doing more than knocking down bowling pins – they’re heading for justice, and knocking down anything in their way.