Each month, the San Francisco Public Library Web site features
selected poems reflecting the theme of War and Peace on Our Streets.
To submit a poem or for more information about the project, see our News Release.
Poet A. Faye Hicks
This month’s City Reflections: War and Peace on Our Streets project highlights some of the poets who make up the Po' Poets Project, a project of POOR Magazine, a non-profit, grassroots, arts organization.
POOR Magazine is dedicated to providing media access, literacy and arts education and advocacy to very low and no-income youth, adults and elders in the Bay Area. POOR Magazine was founded by a mother and
daughter, Dee and Tiny (aka Dee and Lisa Garcia-Gray), “two formerly homeless, very low-income women resisting through media, literary and visual art. We attempt to create word and art projects as well as
media and publications projects that fuse literary art with message et al to create change.” Their newest venture is POOR Press - which “publishes the books and CD's of poor youth and adults as well as training them how to self-publish.”
Past Featured Poets | September Web Poems | October Web Poems |
November/December Web Poems | January Web Poems
January Featured Poet: A. Faye Hicks
A. Faye Hicks is a member of the Po' Poets Project of POOR Magazine (www.poormagazine.org). A. Faye Hicks is the first Po’ Poet Laureate and the author of
The Poor Nation, published by POOR Press. This award from POOR Magazine is given to a po’ poet who has “achieved excellence within their media activism and writing on poverty and racism.”
The Po’ Poets Project “uses our stories to heal, educate and relate... how to survive thrive and stay alive through race and class oppression.”
A Slam Bio
My name is A. Faye
I am a Lady of the Shelters.
I am a student and teacher of Life
in Indoor shelter living and Outdoor cardboard shelter living
I have met Hundreds of People
Most with Tragic Stories.
Jailhouse, Sickness..........Mental and Physical
I am all alone
Yet not alone!
Sheltered in the Wings of Heaven!!!!
(The Slam Bio is a tradition of The Po Poets - Poets in poverty using the Word to educate and relate issues of poverty and racism)
Recommended Reading by A. Faye Hicks:
- Collected Poetry and Plays by Langston Hughes
This is one of those books that reminded me that the poor are getting poorer.
- The Houzin' Project: Words, Art and Resources on Gentrification, Displacement, Eviction and Homelessness
- (Survival Handbook #2 by POOR Magazine/POOR Press)
- Collected Black Women’s Poetry (Schomburg Library of 19th Century Black Women Writers), vol. 2, compiled by Joan Rita Sherman
January Featured Poem by A. Faye Hicks
The Poor Nation
The PEOPLE are being Scattered
shuffling along with blankets, backpacks, shopping bags &
pushing carts
No more Unity in the poor Nations
Park benches uprooted—-shopping carts over-turned, homeless
people unjustly
Arrested
The sick living in doorways & behind cardboard boxes.
Bathrooms locked, water fountains denied
“This is a sad state,” thought the tired so-called Bag Lady
Alone. Mental Facilities sorely tested. Weakened by a gnawing hunger.
From her womb. Misery was etched upon her copper tone belly
She paused to rest for a moment
Dark eyes glazing into the distant skies
Pondering the next move
Remembering the Peaks of her non-existence
An old Lady at Eighteen
Birds flying in formation, overhead
Dark clouds floating, silently in shapes of nightmares
Her only safe shelter the Blazing Sun, capturing her attention
“If only I had a Star to wish upon or Something I can get some energy from.”
She stepped upon the wet, well-cut lawn of a Californian City Hall
Its dampness drinking in & nourishing her being
Her breast painful from unused Mother's Milk
Sticking to her dress. Ragged around the edges of her soul.
Its wetness the Morning Dew or Her Deluge of Tears
Coming from deep within an inner well.
THE POOR POOR NATION
Ah. The grass, so soothin to her wiggling toes. COMFORT
Half worrying about Police Surveillance
Not daring to rest
Because a trespassing ticket, would dip off into her Funds?
The gold nail polish on her sun burnt toes glinting magically
Spiraling undrugged thoughts upward seeking SUCCOR
A hole in the Bushy Hedges?
Dare she rest? A Haven?
Her curled into a Tiny Ball! Her hide-away bed The City Hall
With its Black & Gold Dome. warrin against a winter sun
A King's Ransom. Battling against the principals of the Homeless Nation
Unnatural Flags, weavin in the Beautiful Breezes. Compromising Life
One Nation Under God?
YO! YES
The power hunger god!
The prestigious god!
The Greedy Gut god!
And The blood thirsty one!
Ah. Knowing she signed. Better get a move on
There is no rest for my weary Bones here.
