Minutes before Tongo Eisen-Martin received the news that he was to become the eighth poet laureate of San Francisco, he was in the midst of recording poems for the San Francisco Public Library when a liaison helping him with the shoot asked him to join a Zoom meeting.
Then came the moment Eisen-Martin had been waiting weeks for, San Francisco mayor London Breed appeared on the other end of the screen sharing the unexpected good news with him.
It was a groovy surprise for the poet to know he could begin enacting an endless potential of impact in the city he was born and raised in.
“To be a representative of revolutionary art in such a publicly assertive way, it is a trip,” he said.
On Jan. 15, Mayor Breed released her official announcement, stating that “[Tongo’s] work on racial justice and equity, along with his commitment to promoting social and cultural change, comes at such a critical time for our city and our country.”
Eisen-Martin’s poetry calls out the injustices experienced by Black Americans living under oppressive socio-political systems in a style unique to a San Francisco poet like himself. His approach to writing is a constant experimentation between wordplay and form on the page that he is able to recreate vocally as he doesn’t tend to “read” his poems to an audience, but rather recites them, and they never fail to amaze.
His latest poetry collection Heaven is all Goodbyes was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize and won both a California and American Book Award. The book was published under the San Francisco landmark book store, City Lights, founded by publisher and poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti (and the first San Francisco poet laureate to hold the title).
In a city that gave birth to beat poets that incited a counterculture movement led by the power of words more than 50 years ago, it is no coincidence Eisen-Martin’s work is part of the same tradition seeking to create a revolutionary consciousness in the community.
One of the first steps to manifest that transformation is by placing art in the hands of people and not just enclosed in spaces of prestigious lecture halls, a movement led by independent book publishers of color all over the country.
During his speech at a press conference with mayor Breed, the poet laureate went over how he plans to navigate his new role curating a series of programming in a virtual environment given the current pandemic that has put a halt to in-person congregations in many cultural and artistic spaces. It has also been an opportunity to connect with more artists around the country and use the city library’s platform to its full extent. One of the first collaborations underway is with Mahogany L. Browne for the release of her new young adult novel Chlorine Sky; an event directed to engage with the youth. He is also working with a group of poets from Mississippi that have been cultural leaders in their own communities.
Eisen-Martin’s involvement as an educator and activist has ranged from lecturing in universities to working with incarcerated individuals.
While he was teaching poetry workshops at a prison in Florida, he happened to meet Christopher Malec, a man in his 30s currently serving a life sentence. Eisen-Martin would teach the whole class and then work with Mr. Malec one-on-one. “He had that gift to facilitate a lot of heavy-duty energy with really humble writing,” Eisen-Martin said.
Having seen both ends of public and private institutions that educates and dehumanizes individuals, he’s noticed how “they both instruct us that the educational reality of a society needs to be in people’s hands…what I see on both sides is maintenance of ruling class hegemony and that needs to transform.”
One of the first steps to manifest that transformation is by placing art in the hands of people and not just enclosed in spaces of prestigious lecture halls, a movement led by independent book publishers of color all over the country. In the coming year, the poet laureate will be releasing Mr. Malec’s poetry collection Pendulum under a Dead Clock through his own publishing house Black Freighter Press (co-founded alongside writer and activist Alie Jones), “a platform for Black and Brown writers to honor ancestry and propel radical imagination.”
The first books on their catalog also include other Bay Area poets, including chicano writer Luis Alderete, who Eisen-Martin considers “a medicine man trapped in a time where he has to be a brilliant poet.” His new collection Baby Axolotls & Old Pochos is currently available for pre-order.
The poet laureate also had the honor to work with Q.R. Hand Jr. to complete his last poetry manuscript Out of Nothing, set to be published posthumously after his unfortunate death on new year’s eve of 2020.
Black Freighter may be a call back to Nina Simone’s rendition of “Pirate Jenny,” an opera song that dates back to the 1920s. Her version tells the story of a woman working as a maid at a “crummy old town hotel” in the south contemplating her avengement to the men gawking at her as she works. She is avenged when pirates arrive in a black freighter and run-down the entire town, except for her, and she sails away with them.
On the other hand, Eisen-Martin’s prose poem by the same name starts: “I make inaudible rebel art; our revolutionary potentials ground into powder, then mist, then conversation. Conversations emptied into fourth floor sewers (insert fourth floor of any institution here). Conversation topics including the political party within the political party within a society’s death date.”
Both pieces challenge the ruling class hegemony that Eisen-Martin references in his work. Halfway through his poem he also asks: “How do you challenge power only on the page?” a long dilemma of writers to be part of the political processes that shape the realities of people’s lives.
But activism beyond the page is naturally embedded in Eisen-Martin’s life as he comes from a family who were activists in their own way. His brother, Biko Eisen-Martin, also merges political subjects through his craft as a painter and actor.
“In my relation to my craft I wouldn’t even have anything to write about if I didn’t have revolutionary praxis,” Eisen-Martin said. “I wouldn’t be as engaged with a reality critically to find the music and nuances of reality if i didn’t experience it as a movement protagonist or as a human being that wants all of his rights.”
The role of poet-laureate extends beyond a title relevant only to the literary community. In the Bay Area, the poet will be one leading cultural change in a time of neo-confederate and neoliberal tendencies that have taken over political parties.
“I don’t think anybody can sit out the roll call,” he said. “If we don’t move collectively and do the work outside of our comfort zone, and do what’s necessary to organize masses, I might be the last poet laureate of San Francisco.”
A Sketch about Genocide
A San Francisco police chief says, “Yes, you poets make points. But they are all silly,”Police chief sewing a mouth onto a mouth
Police chief looking straight through the poet ,
Flesh market both sides of the levy
Change of plans both sides of the nonviolence
On no earth
Just an earth character
His subordinate says, “Awkward basketball moves look good on you, sir... Yes, we are everywhere, sir… yes, unfortunately for now, white people only have Black History … we will slide the wallpaper right into their cereal bowls, sir … Surveil the shuffle.”
I am a beggar and all of this day is too easy
I want to see all of the phases of a wall
Every age it goes through
Its humanity
Its environmental racism
We call this the ordeal blues
Now crawl to the piano seat and make a blanket for your cell
Paint scenes of a child dancing up to the court appearance
And leaving a man,
but not for home
Atlantic ocean charts mixed in with parole papers
Mainstream funding (the ruling class’s only pacifism)
Ruling class printing judges (fiat kangaroos)
Making judges hand over fist
Rapture cop packs and opposition whites all above a thorny stem
Caste plans picked out like vans for the murder show
anglo-saints addicting you to a power structure
you want me to raise a little slave, don’t you?
bash his little brain in
and send him to your civil rights
No pain
Just a white pain