About this collection

“How one creates a poem is as interesting as the spaces in one’s life.”
—Al Robles (1930–2009)

The three-day Kuwentuhan (Talkstory) residency, a collaboration between Barbara Jane Reyes and The Poetry Center, was funded by the Creative Work Fund. The project features seven poet-writer-performers, with multiple events at various San Francisco venues, culminating in a Collective Performance in the beautiful loft space at McRoskey Mattress Co, video-documented by a student film crew from the DocFilm Institute at SF State.

In addition to Barbara Jane Reyes, featured artists include Arlene Biala, Javier O. Huerta, Urayoán Noel, Aimee Suzara, Lehua M. Taitano, Angela Narciso Torres, together with their audience/guests. Graphic art by Trinidad Escobar.

Kuwentuhan (Talkstory) takes the Tagalog term, a phoneticized form adapted through the colonial Spanish, as its title, proposition, and starting point. Kuwentuhan (“necessary step towards big talk,” by one definition) is orally based, informal in nature, usually spontaneous, and is always an opportunity for people to converge and share. It occurs in all kinds of social spaces as talkstory circle. We envision this collaboration between artist(s), audiences, and the Poetry Center, as a way of enlarging this circle beyond ethnic boundaries, in contested urban spaces.

The project’s aim is to open up precisely the kind of human space that barely exists in our technological and “globalized” culture, by allowing a select group of American poets out of widely disparate and polyglot cultural and geographic backgrounds to actually talk face-to-face, sharing stories, poetry, and conversations among themselves and with audiences. We are interested in work that originates from a communal basis, and in shaping a project that encourages collective creation, by putting into action mechanisms for creating “live” person-to-person exchange between and among artists and audiences.

Many thanks to the Manilatown Heritage Foundation at I-Hotel, Alley Cat Books, the Bayanihan Community Center, McRoskey Mattress Co., The Green Arcade, DocFilm Institute, poster artist Trinidad Escobar, and the Creative Work Fund.