you. thank you for all the magic you created over the years. as i said earlier, when we work together at the complex, there were a lot of challenges, especially with our boys and we had unfortunately a lot of violence in the community and just seeing you as this literary figure and inspiring these young people to look at other ways besides, you know, being out in the streets and doing stuff that was happening then, focusing on how poetry, how music is poetry, and how they can really shift their voices to tell their own stories. you brought that to their lives and i know they continue to carry it with them today. so, you have been an inspiration for so many years, directed at

so many generations of people. i'm so grateful that you accepted this honor so now i want to turn the floor over to you so that people can know who you are. if they don't know, now they know. we're looking forward to the work that we know you're going to do to make san francisco proud. so the floor is yours tongo. >> thank you. thank you very much. incredibly humbled and honored. also, deep appreciation to the selection committee. i want to send love to my mother and brother as i am only an extension of their love, imagination, and revolutionary commitment, love to my two powerful sisters and the whirlwind that has nothing on us, love to my family above mud

and lava, love to my father and the rest of the village that is not here in the physical form. i would also like to thank kim shuck for being a leader of poets and beautiful force of the people. a poet of any station is secondary to the people. a poet of any use, that belongs to the energy and consciousness of the people, one of arts most important incarnation is that expression of mass resistance but really what art teaches us with its dominantable energy, the indominantable energy of an idea is evident that it is

oppressors themselves who are in the position of resistance. it's bigger than any imperialistic, cognitively reflected in any generation. the power is ours and it is oppressors who are resisting us, resisting humanity, resisting us pretty well. it's resisting our right to determine our reality, resisting a coming epoch of liberation. mass participation in art is what is always created in san francisco, futurism. san francisco has legend too fearless for me to count myself as one of them. i am from this legendary collection of thousands and thousands of participants,

revolutionary history and culture. i'm proud to be one of the anonymous thousands in san francisco who have road these buses all night, who has been raised in marcus's bookstore, who wants justice for mario woods and alex, who wants freedom. what the people taught me is that unity is the only thing and taught me that individualism, as it is practiced and codified, romanticized in this society is not really about your adventure through life but at its core, unfortunately, individualism is about practicing the selective humanization. other people are only human beings when it suits individual interest. civilism of sorts, that is deeply connected to slavery,

both from what the society evolved from and process that addicts you to and power struggle that alienates ourselves, and at no point do we find the dehumanization of other people, the deanimation of people acceptable, are let alone necessary for an individual journey. so as much as i would love to assign the rest of my days to an individual invention, that time is over. history is heightening, showing us more and more everyday that we're part of people, a people beyond systemic description, and we need the entire pallet of protecting human rights and nurture human curiosity. the madness we see today shouldn't be surprising.

these apartheid nativity scenes come home to roast and a capitalism in crisis, what is mixed in with the parole papers and the environmental racism and program deliverables and passivism. we're in a time of epochal shift where this is opening its arms if we don't open the historical process more critically. where do we go from here? what is our revolutionary practice or more conveniently, it begins with cultural work. it transforms the way that we relate to each other, transforms the way we relate to the earth, to a way that is conducive to

liberation. a poet belongs to the energy and consciousness of the people, respecting their spirit. my only aim as poet laureate is to join with that energy, join with that consciousness in order to create vehicles of unity. events, workshops, readings, publications, these are all just vehicles of unity. i will never tire in building as many as the city can handle. so, meet me at the library. [laughter] >> if you can't make it, i will for sure meet you wherever you are. let me now say rest in power to cure junior and diane, and i

will conclude with this poem titled faithless. a tour guide, through the robbery, he also is. cigarette stand, look at what i did. ransom water and box spring gold, this decade is only for accent grooming, i guess. ransom water and box spring gold to corner store, war gangs, all these rummage junk. you know, the start of mass destruction begins and ends in restaurant bathrooms as some people use and other people clean. are you telling me there is a rag in the sky waiting for you? yes. we should have fit in. warehouse jobs are for communists and now the whistling is less playful and if it is not a city, it is a prison. it has a prison.

it's a prison, not a city. when a courtyard talks on behalf of the military issue, all walk takes place outside the body. a medieval painting to your right, none of this makes an impression. you have five minutes to learn. when a man goes sideways barb wire becomes the roof. did you know they killed the world for the sake of giving everyone the same back story? watching indiana, fight yourself into the sky, oh penny for when. it goes up and over your headache, marking all aspirations, the first newspaper i ever read and the storefront, they left us down where the holy spirit favors the bathroom. for those in the situation offer 100 ways to remain a loser. watching those clock, what are we talking about again? the narrater at the graveyard,

10 minute flat. the funeral only took 10 minutes. you're going to pin the 90s on me, all 30 years of them? why should i know the difference between sleeping and the pyramid of corner stores on our head. we die right away. that building wants to jump off other buildings, those are down tone decisions. what evaporated on earth that we can be sent back down? thank you all again, much love. i want to give the whole roll call right now but that's too many. much love to all my family and thank you again madam mayor. thank you. san francisco for better for worse, which you are raised, you know? >> thank you so much tongo. just so you know, the chat is blowing up.

there is so much love and excitement for what you will bring to san francisco and i just want to thank you so much. thank you for the incredible poem and your inspiration and just everything that you continue to do. i look forward to what you will accomplish as our city's poet laureate. i can't wait. it's going to be exciting, especially when we open up. when you talk about meet me at the library, it's like that's your slogan now. [laughter] >> so we're going to take it to another level. that's your slogan, meet me at the library. hitting all the libraries all over san francisco. >> that's right. >> just inviting the people in and really bringing it back to some of the basics. you know, with the way technology is nowadays, sometimes we get away from just picking up a book or picking out a book or looking through an

index card. i guess we don't look through index cards to find books anymore. sitting there and having discussions, i'm looking forward to what you're going to bring and really excited about that. i really want to thank the people that nominated you. you know, there was a really compelling, you know, letter of support that you know, went into all the details about your work. you have a lot of fans out there. i want to thank the selection committee, the people who served and had to go through all of those applications because i got to tell you, it was a hard decision and i was so excited that so many people in san francisco, you know, really embraced and support poets in such an incredible way. there are so many wonderful nominees. i'm looking forward to you connecting with all of them as well and really the outgoing poet laureate kim shuck, thank you for that poem and your commitment to san francisco and

the role you have played over the years. thank you to san francisco public library and the commissioners who are joining us here today and our librarian, michael lambert. so many amazing people and i think that based on your comments today, meet me at the library, that's going to be a new part of the campaign to really bring people together, to inspire and to really you know, set things off on a whole other level. thank you tongo for your work and commitment. we're so honored that you will be san francisco's eighth poet laureate and if there is anything left to say, you're welcome to have the floor. if not, we can turn it back over to michael lambert. >> i just want to say much love and appreciation. >> great. >> thank you so much madam mayor. my heart is full,

#meetmeatthelibrary. congratulations tongoo. i want to thank all of you for joining us this morning. our public affairs office is happy to help facilitate any interviews with our new poet lawyer -- laureate, thank you all and have a great day. [♪♪♪] [♪♪♪]

[chain saw whirring] [growling] listen, you are extremely terrifying-- just the scariest undead thing on tv, and i really mean that. i am worried that you could give my kids nightmares if they see you, so i'm gonna have to block you. [sighs] so, that's it. oh, and tell the zombies they're blocked, too.

>> we are joining the city and county of san francisco public covid-19 update. for q and a, state your name, outlet and up to two questions in web ex chat. questions will no longer be taken after the last speaker's remarks and when the q and a portion begins. and now we welcome mayor london breed. >> thank you, and good morning, everyone. today we are going to share some information on our vaccine rollout and where we are with covid-19 in san francisco. first, we continue to see the impact of the december holidays. our cases are still climbing, we have 333 new cases per day, but they seem to be increasing at a slower rate. and our hospitalizations, our sp