Today (sadly) is the LAST day of the beloved Seattle City Council's Words' Worth Poetry Program. Council member Nick Licata, who started it, is retiring and poets who read as part of the program will show up to read the Last Line of the last poem they read when it was their turn. It should be an eclectic reading, a bit mad perhaps, but above all full of heart for everything that Council member Licata has done for the arts, and poetry in particular here in Seattle. 

Reading/Celebration: City Council Chambers at 2:00 sharp.
Follow it on the city channel: http://www.seattlechannel.org/councilLive OR read the composite Last Line poem -- and all of the poems read over the thirteen years of the program at http://www.seattle.gov/council/licata/poetword.htm

Read more about it from Sierra Nelson who is this terms Words' Worth's Curator and has organized the reading:

http://songsforsquid.tumblr.com/post/133621232872/last-lines-a-collaborative-poem-celebrating-city

Remembering Santos Rodriguez

Altar at El Centro de la Raza, Seattle (2015)

Do you know about Santos Rodriguez?  
I did not until Estela Ortega, Executive Director at El Centro de la Raza, explained the story of the 12 year old Dallas boy shot in the head in 1973 by a white Dallas police officer.  Santos and his brother were handcuffed and taken from their home to be questioned for the burglary of a gas station soda machine.  Santos was in the front seat of the patrol car where the officer showed him his gun loaded with only one bullet. The policeman demanded that Santos tell the truth or he would place the gun to his head. Santos denied any wrongdoing and the officer pulled the trigger twice. The first time nothing happened, but the second time, in front of his handcuffed brother, Santos was murdered. No evidence was found that the boys were involved in the theft.

You can learn more about the story here http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/07/24/205121429/How-The-Death-Of-A-12-Year-Old-Changed-The-City-Of-Dallas  
and here http://www.dallasnews.com/news/metro/20130721-40-years-after-santos-rodriguezs-murder-scars-remain-for-family-neighbors-and-dallas.ece

El Centro de la Raza with the City of Seattle built a park in memory of Santos. Learn more about the Santos Rodriguez Memorial Park here http://www.seattle.gov/parks/projects/santos_rodriguez/

This November second, forty two years after Santos's murder, his mother, Bessie Rodriguez, and a delegation from Dallas came to El Centro to visit the park and to remember and honor Santos for Dia de los Muertos.

Here is the poem I wrote for the occasion.

Think of Santos

-- In memory of Santos Rodriguez

Since not anger, not prayers, nor protests

The clock can stop and prevent the bullet

Fired by a half man and his coward hand

And no brotherly love nor mother’s tears

Life into his lifeless body may inject

We who live yet must Santo’s life recall

His narrow shoulders, the milk of his teeth

Remember his tomorrows in each day

In children smiling on their way to school

Cherish and protect the things he didn’t get

When you say his name he lives inside you

Inside me live his truth, his hopes, his dread

So as the moon calls tides from her distant perch 

So may one day soon Santos and Justice merge.

Seattle's Civic Poet

The Mayor's Art Awards at Seattle Center on September 4th was the site of my first official reading.
Here I am with Mayor Murray at the Chihuly Garden and Glass right before going onstage .

Photograph courtesy of Marcus Donner

Seattle’s Poem

Seattle is a house

perched

on the comings

and goings

of water and wind

ripple of fish

feather of crow

early morning

ferry yawn

Seattle I say

and invoke

a man and a place

the two inseparable

not proportional

not parallel

but as language

is to poem

and salt to sea

I watch bridges, bicyclists, boats

summer blankets tendered

on public lawns

I watch fiery sunsets

tango and sway above jagged peaks

and autumn trees bursting gold

up and down hilly streets

Nevertheless before

I postcard and gloss

and more sunsets

and more trees

find their way into my lines

I must confess

the house’s foundation

is in places brittle

and many rooms are dark

for windows lack

Plenty have I been

on the receiving end

of rehearsed indifference

heard enough shallow

arguments on who belongs here

to wake up scooping

ocean water with a spoon

we are all here

that need to be

The city is concrete and steel

plus the sum of its people

every day we destroy

our house

then race to remake it

those narrow windows

block future’s view

mute voices

that need to be heard

muffle the sound

of the falling tree limb

heavy with ripe plums

Every day we tread

over Chief Sealth’s legacy

his prophetic words,

“At night when the streets

are silent (..) and you think

them deserted,

they will throng

with the returning hosts

that once filled them

and still love this land”

We are not alone

save for his people

we are all immigrants here

waiter, teacher,

artist, worker, nurse

we belong

all of us belong

Seattle is a house

we all need to afford

Claudia Castro Luna

Youth Poets

On Tuesday, I had the opportunity to meet a group of youth from the South West Youth and Family Services Young Writer's Workshop. I was invited to chat with them about writing and to read some of my work. Every summer they gather to to express the Word -- what is true and beautiful and hard in their lives. The Boot https://bootyoungwriters.wordpress.com is where their poems are published.

They will celebrate the release of The Boot on August 12th, 2015 at 5:30 in the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center's auditorium in West Seattle. AND, this year The Boot returns to its original print format. Don't miss their performance and get a hold of that chapbook - It is worth every line!

Here is the one of the poems I read for them:

On my way to the Castle

Twice a day

This walk

Past empty corner lots

Liquor stores

Boarded up buildings

Prayer Mission Pentecostal Church

Retired condoms

Stuck in gutters

Lotto tickets littering sidewalks

The reek of despair

From seedy motel rooms

The color TVs can’t hide the stench

Praise Fellowship Christian Church

Twice a day

This walk

Past sullen faces with hawk eyes

Flimsy bodies inside loose garments

Boys, their wings of love lost long ago

Now turned into vermin spirits

Feasting on decay

Center of Hope Community Church

If a soul needs

Redemption

Or if the weight of things

Becomes unbearable 

Salvation 

Comes in many colors and languages

On Macarthur Boulevard

Available at each block

Between 72th^h and 86^th streets

Centro Evangelista Bethel

Todos los días

A lump in your throat

Today

Reliving your little brother’s asthma attack

Yesterday

The rape of your 20 year old aunt

The day before

The robbery at gunpoint of your best friend

 Al Islam Community Education Center

At the end of the road

Is a school

It once looked like a medieval

Castle high on a mount

Surrounded by lawn and roses.

Now black spears

Surround its tower

The moat long and narrow

Love Involvement Fellowship Education

This walk

Every day

How to think about factoring integers?

What about the causes of World War I?

Crafting a thesis statement?

All elemental truths

Like the mattress

With guts spilled out

In the middle of the sidewalk

Or the apartment windows

Dressed with stained sheets

Tied at the corners

                  Greater Life Community Outreach Christian Church

Walk and think

How to make yourself invisible

In each one of your classes

Hide your body neatly

Behind the head in front

When the teacher

Calls on you

The lump in your throat throbs

The worms 

Too many to hold back

Can come flying out

Spill out onto the desk

Crawl their hideous crawl 

Vision Ministries

But you are too kind

You spare your classmates the horror

And look back with an empty stare

Smile politely,

Hopefully, earn a pass

You ask yourself

Does anyone ever vomit

Butterflies

Whose wings lift

The grayness of things?

Originally published in Milvia Street  2010