SDFP once again celebrated poets and poetry in April

By Brent E. Beltrán

After Anna Daniels wonderful job curating 2014’s National Poetry Month here at San Diego Free Press I decided to volunteer my services for 2015. Anna posted a poem here every single day in April last year.

I had no plans to be as ambitious as her but with my background as a former literary publisher I knew I could handle the task of curating selections during the month. But there was no way was I going to seek out thirty separate pieces!

Hopefully our readers enjoyed the selections during the month. Here is a breakdown of the poems and poetry related essays that were shared during National Poetry Month.   [Read more…]

By Brent E. Beltrán

I have the honor of knowing and being a friend of Jesús “Papoleto” Meléndez. In 2004 I met him in a hospital in Tijuana where his comrade in poetry, Pedro Pietri, was receiving experimental treatments for cancer. Though I have only seen him once since he returned back to his apartment in El Barrio in New York we have maintained our friendship through social media.

Papoleto grew up in Spanish Harlem (known as El Barrio), is an original founder of the Nuyorican Poetry Movement, published his first poem in 1969 (“Message To Urban Sightseers”) and his play, Junkies Stole the Clock, was the first Latino play produced by the New York Shakespeare Festival The Public Theater’s Nuyorican Playwright’s Unit.   [Read more…]

For Steve Kowit

By Karen Kenyon

Tear open your heart — like a giant purse
it will pour out memories
and yearnings,
keys to doors you will never open.

And you must read the others
who have also dipped into this world
even if in another language
of the soul.   [Read more…]