San Francisco Poet Laureate Tongo Eisen-Martin examines Black experiences with eloquence
SAN FRANCISCO -- CBS News Bay Area stands proud to begin weeks of celebration in recognition of Black History Month. Our stories define us, and our community of luminaries, change-makers, and people fighting for justice and equality are all around us.
One of those voices belongs to San Francisco Poet Laureate Tongo Eisen-Martin. His word work rings like music, firing notes that examine the injustices of our world. Our news team recently caught up with the San Francisco native backstage at a recitation at one of the city's Martin Luther King Jr. Day events.
We found him doing what he does a lot, rolling back the tape in his mind to reflect on deeper issues facing the Black community. Eisen-Martin calls his writing an intersection of "groovy, artistic humanization" and activism in the face of what he sees as systemic oppression.
Mayor London Breed chose Eisen-Martin to be the city's poet laureate because of his prolific and published voice on social justice issues.
"The pen is a mega-ton situation," said Eisen-Martin. "What we write, what we put into practice, what we theorize becomes a relationship to power that no brute strength can conquer."
Eisen-Martin's writing process is to erase himself, something we saw him doing backstage before his recitation. He feels he is a biographer of his time.
"It is kind of it's the nobody who is the best biographer of a society," he said. "To play with thought, to play with words is to fade into the historical background and play in the background."
Tongo Eisen-Martin's word work is writing another page in Black history.
