Barbara Jane Reyes

San Francisco Poet Al Robles (1930-2009)

Hello all, this is my first post to the Harriet blog, so let me very briefly introduce myself. I’m Barbara Jane Reyes, and I blog regularly at Poeta y Diwata. I am also a contributing blogger for Hyphen magazine, where I feature Asian/Pacific Islander American authors published by small presses. I’m an Oakland-based poet, and a long time San Francisco Bay Area resident.

As a poet, I was mentored by writers in Kearny Street Workshop, the original hub of the San Francisco Filipino American and Asian American literary scene. One such literary figure in this scene was the much venerated poet Al Robles, a denizen of the pre-gentrified SoMa (South of Market), Chinatown, and Fillmore District. He was a true San Francisco citizen, a collector of folks’ stories, and an elder storyteller around whom communities gathered.

Photo by Jeremy Villaluz

Al Robles was an activist, at the forefront of the movement to stop the demolition of the I-Hotel, which housed elderly and low income tenants, many of whom we’ve come to know as the “Manongs,” elder Filipino Americans, or Pinoys, who spent their youths as migrant labor in West Coast agriculture and canneries, and as US veterans who fought in WWII. He brought young activists and artists to Agbayani Village in Delano, a rural settlement of these Manongs, and to the WWII Japanese American internment camps at Tule Lake and Manzanar. He believed it was important for young activists and artists to see these places with their own eyes, to hear the stories of these places firsthand. Robles’s activism was closely tied to his poetic work; in fact, his activism and poetry were one and the same. He believed poets should bring themselves into the world.

08.16.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (7)