Darius Simpson is the kind of guy who has to wait until Saturday night to take calls. The poet, educator, farmer, and activist stays fully engaged in a plethora of Bay Area communities. And in a time when the word “activist” has become closer to a personality trait or a

While winning yet another Grammy, Taylor Swift took the chance to plug her upcoming and eleventh album: The Tortured Poets Department. Shortly after the announcement, Google recorded a 588 percent increase of users searching “Dead Poets Society.” This strange moment arrives within a year of Drake’s Titles Ruin Everything dropping, a

The Huge Release Party for the Literary Magazine In case you haven’t heard, we just put out an incredible literary magazine called The Dreams I Dreamt: Letters to San Francisco thanks to a grant from the Civic Joy Fund. It’s a gift to San Francisco, where 19 of The City’s

There’s a tense air in San Francisco. The city is readying for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) — a major international conference hosting President Joe Biden and General Secretary Xi Jinping alike — and erupting in demonstrations against the evolving humanitarian crisis in Gaza, raised to a fever pitch by

BY LAUREN PARKER Ben Bernthal would like to write a poem for you. You just have to pick three words.  “A lot of people don’t know they like poetry,” Bernthal says, now based in San Francisco and a regular presence near the Ferry Building and in the Mission. Set up

BY DENA ROD What started as grief and loss over Iranians fighting for their freedom shifted into gratitude. I was a US citizen. That gave me an untold privilege that has always echoed throughout my entire life.  When traveling to Iran became an impossibility rather than a high-stakes travel goal, I

San Francisco is not Detroit (no offense to Detroit). -by Alen Nye   San Francisco is where you go to get sexy. And be queer. To get high while getting by. To get hip living on tips. To get paid for getting laid. And get lost on the edge of

Sometimes, as much as you love a place and its people—in this case, Chicago, and all the memories it holds for me—it can’t hold all of who you are. And that’s okay. September 30th, 2021. The day I landed back in the Bay Area after having moved back to my

This week’s Broke-Ass Poet is Barbara Berman, author of The Generosity of Stars (Finishing Line Press, 2008) and Currents (Three Mile Harbor Press, 2018). STOCKTON, CA. For Geraldine Law Lee. When planes buzzed    during 1950s air shows she   recalled   wartime   bombing   and   froze. She wanted her kids to feel safe, to