In English and Chinese 中英⽂詩會 (A Two Languages/One Community 兩種語⾔/⼀個社群 Project)
Wednesday, September 11, 6-7:30 PM, 447 Minna Street, San Francisco Free – Light Food and Drinks will be served
FEATURING
GENNY LIM, San Francisco’s Poet Laureate (2024- ) TONGO EISEN MARTIN, San Francisco Poet Laureate (2021-2024) CHUN YU, Poet/Editor/Translator, San Francisco Public Library Laureate (2023) MICHAEL WARR, Poet/Editor, San Francisco Public Library Laureate (2017 & 2023)
Each poet will share poems from the anthology manuscript “Together in Poetry,” a project of Two Languages/One Community (TLOC) which was co-founded by Michael Warr and Chun Yu who translated all the poems into Chinese. She will recite select poems by the featured poets in Chinese.
S.F.’s first Chinese American poet laureate is ‘positive’ she won’t be the last – Genny Lim, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, said she wants to make San Francisco the “mecca” of world poetry.
San Francisco Chronicle, August 31, 2024
Jessica Christian/The Chronicle
Following an acclaimed career, Genny Lim, 77, will become San Francisco’s first Chinese American poet laureate during a Sept. 6 ceremony at the Asian Art Museum.
Festeggiamo con gioia l’imminente conferimento del titolo di “poeta laureato” della città di San Francisco alla nostra straordinaria amica Genny Lim. Poetessa cino-inuit-statunitense, figlia di immigrati cinesi che hanno vissuto esclusioni, razzismo e deportazioni, è una delle più belle voci della poesia statunitense e della jazz-poetry. Buddista e profondamente impegnata per i diritti delle donne e delle minoranze, studiosa di tradizioni e mistica orientale, rappresenta un’avvincente incrocio tra culture orientali ed occidentali fuse nella sua storia personale e nella sua poesia…
We celebrate with joy the imminent award of the title of “poeta laureate” of the city of San Francisco to our extraordinary friend Genny Lim. Chinese-Inuit-US poet, the daughter of Chinese immigrants who have experienced exclusions, racism and deportations, is one of the most beautiful voices of American poetry and jazz-poetry. Buddhist and deeply committed to the rights of women and minorities, a scholar of Eastern traditions and mysticism, it represents a compelling cross between Eastern and Western cultures merged in its personal history and poetry…
San Francisco’s newest Poet Laureate Genny Lim stands for a portrait at her daughter’s home in Orinda, California Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024. Lim is the first Chinese American to hold the position. Photo by Jessica Christian.
Following an acclaimed career, Genny Lim, 77, will become San Francisco’s first Chinese American poet laureate during a ceremony Friday at the Asian Art Museum.
The 27th Annual Petaluma Poetry Walk – Sunday, September 15, 2024, 11am – 8pm
The Petaluma Poetry Walk is an annual poetry festival founded in September 1996 by the late poet Geri Digiorno. It features over two dozen poets reading their works at eight venues. The event has grown over the years, attracting notable poets and a diverse audience and includes readings in both English and Spanish.
During this day-long “movable feast,” participants walk to different locations to enjoy a variety of poetic performances. It has become a tradition in Petaluma, reflecting the city’s rich cultural and literary heritage.
Photo: Curtis MesserPhoto: Leon Sun
3pm THE POETS LAUREATE
LEE HERRICK, California Poet Laureate & GENNY LIM, Former San Francisco Jazz Poet Laureate
Lee Herrick was born in Daejeon, Korea and adopted as an infant. He lives with his family in Fresno, California and served as Fresno Poet Laureate from 2015-2017. He teaches at Fresno City College and in the low-residency MFA program at University of Nevada Reno at Lake Tahoe. He is the 10th California Poet Laureate, and the first Asian American to serve in the role. leeherrick.com
Genny Lim is the recipient of PEN Oakland Reginald Lockett and Berkeley Poetry Lifetime Achievement Awards. A former SFJazz Poet Laureate, her play, Paper Angels, has been produced internationally. She is co-author of Island: Poetry and History of ChineseImmigrants on Angel Island, winner of the American Book Award and several poetry collections, including Child of War, Paper Gods & Rebels and KRA!
Iris Jamahl Dunkle‘s poetry and nonfiction critically engage with the Western myth of progress by exploring the profound impact of agriculture and overpopulation on the North American West, both historically and in contemporary times. Embracing an ecofeminist perspective, her writing challenges the predominantly male-centric narrative of the American West’s recorded history, delving into the often-overlooked lives of women. irisjamahldunkle.com
Petaluma Poetry Walk 2024
The Petaluma Poetry Walk has hosted many notable poets during the years, including Diane DiPrima—a female voice in the Beat poetry movement, Poets Laureate from California, Sonoma County and beyond, award-winning poets of all ages, and emerging poets.
Join Genny Lim, playwright of award winning drama; co-author of Island: Poetry & History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, for a rare archival screening of the 1985 American Playhouse television adaptation of her 1980 play, Paper Angels.
Saturday, Jun 29, 2024, 4:00PM – 6:00PM; Clarion Performing Arts Center, 2 Waverly Place, San Francisco, CA 94108, USA
Web Gallery
Paper Angels: Post-screening Q+A with Genny Lim at Clarion
Web Gallery
Paper Angels (1985) Publicity Still
Directed by John Lone, featuring an all-star cast, with searing performances by Victor Wong, Beulah Quo, James Hong, Joan Chen and Rosalind Chao and others.
“We were invisible on television, in films, and the mass media. Nobody looked like us.”
Paper Angels premiered on September 12, 1980 at the Asian American Theater Company. In 1982, the New Federal Theatre in New York produced the play. That same year, Lim founded her own production company, Paper Angels Productions, and brought the play to the Chinese Cultural Center in San Francisco. A television adaptation of Paper Angels was later filmed and appeared on PBS’s AMERICAN PLAYHOUSE in July of 1985.
The play has been awarded the SF Fringe Festival Award, the Viillager Award from Village Voice, NY, and the James Wong Howe Award from AAPAA, Los Angeles.
FILM FESTIVAL PROGRAM: Saturday, May 25, 2024, 1 – 11pm. Hosted by Theater for the New City, 155 First Av, New York, NY 10003
LES Lower East Side Festival of the Arts is an annual celebration of the rich artistic culture and ethnic diversity of this area. For three days over Memorial Day Weekend, TNC produces a cabaret-style festival featuring over 100 performing groups from the Lower East Side. This year, the festival is mounted with the theme “Democracy: Use it or Lose it.”
The 2024 Film Program is a 12-hour long film festival of art-house, experimental and independent films, showcasing a diverse selection of films from comedy, documentaries, drama and sci-fi. Join any time between 1pm and 11pm for an unforgettable event filled with captivating storytelling and visual masterpieces.
1.51pm THE ONLY LANGUAGE SHE KNOWS (1992) – short film directed by Carla Blank, produced by Ishmael Reed – 21 min. Starring: Genny Lim, M.J. Lee and Al Young. Filmed by Allen Willis, with music composed by Francis Wong.
A traditional Chinese American mother and her avant-garde daughter have a kitchen fight.
Web Gallery
The first LES Festival of the Arts, presented June 14 to 16, 1996, was a three-day, indoor and outdoor multi-arts festival, organized by TNC and a coalition of civic, cultural and business leaders. The aim was to demonstrate the creative explosion of the Lower East Side and the area’s importance to culture and tourism for New York City. It employed two theater spaces at TNC plus the block of East Tenth Street between First and Second Avenues, featured over 100 attractions, drew favorable press and attracted crowds from all around the City. Its success prompted TNC to continue the festival annually on Memorial Day Weekend. For 28 years it has been presented free each year to an average attendance of 4,000. (In 2020 it was held online due to pandemic concerns).
Ishmael Reed is the winner of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship (genius award), the renowned L.A. Times Robert Kirsch Lifetime Achievement Award and the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Award. He has been nominated for a Pulitzer and finalist for two National Book Awards and is Professor Emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley; and founder of the Before Columbus Foundation, which promotes multicultural American writing. He also founded PEN Oakland which issues the Josephine Miles Literary Awards. PEN Oakland has been called “The Blue Collar PEN” by The New York Times. Ishmael Reed is the author of over twenty titles including the acclaimed novel “Mumbo Jumbo,” as well as essays, plays and poetry. Titles include: “The Freelance Pallbearers;” “The Terrible Threes;” “The Last Days Of Louisiana Red;” “Yellow Back Radio Broke Down;” “Reckless Eyeballing;” “Flight To Canada;” “Japanese By Spring,” and “Juice!.”
World reknowned muralist, Juana Alicia, and award-winning poet-playwright, Genny Lim, collaborated on this Mural, Not in My Name, in the hope a permanent Cease Fire will end the genocide in Gaza.
The artists are seeking a site in San Francisco Bay Area to mount the mural and funds to cover costs. Please contact Genny Lim on this website if you can provide sponsorship or assistance.
“We the People solemnly swear to Manifest our Common Destiny as a diverse and multicultural global humanity with respect and recognition of the freedom, equality and sovereignty of all nations and peoples on our blessed planet earth, in opposition to the destructive and unsustainable path of war, extraction, over-consumption and imperialism, on which the colonial forefathers have set us on and which continues to harm all life forms on this planet, from the greatest to smallest each and every day.”
Saturday, Sept. 30th, 4:30 pm, Book Castle, 443 Cortland Ave, San Francisco, CA 94110
Led by Clarion Alley Mural Project, Manifest Differently is a new project developed and directed by Kim Shuck and Megan Wilson.
Over the next year, 2023/24, we’ll be working together with 38 diverse, multigenerational visual/media artists and poets to interrogate the history of Manifest Destiny and its legacies of inherited and perpetuated violence, trauma, and addiction, and the outgrowth of resistance and resilience – giving fire to movements for social/ culture change.
The project is supported by independent curator Trisha Lagaso Goldberg, California historian Barbara Berglund Sokolov, humanities advisors Mary Jean Robertson, Kyoko Sato, Fuifuilupe Niumeitolu, Anita Chang, and David A. M. Goldberg.
"Language of the Birds," site specific sculpture by Brian Goggin and Dorka Keehn. Photo by Andi Wong. 2016.
Genny recited her poem, “Bohemian Universe,” at the dedication ceremony for Brian Goggin’s and Dorka Keehn’s site specific sculpture, “Language of the Birds,” on the corner of Columbus and Broadway, on Sunday November 23, 2009.
Poetry Reading
