bobby coleman from the tenants union and other groups where i organize poets, writers and artists. want to thank the supervisors for their support of poetry literature and the great history of cultural arts in san francisco during national poetry month. i want to thank supervisors mar -- supervisor mar for his kind comments, and supervisor avalos for fine reading of a wonderful poem and the haiku to the mayor during question time which i saw. and all the supervisors for considering that the legacy of san francisco in a way depends upon the continuation of the legacy of the poetry arts in san francisco. also to my fellow poets and other kind comments and contributions today, and to the laureate alejandro magia, i poem today is a third of the traditional trip let of haikus that form a traditional haiku, just a small one, written after i read the agenda. public interest. the winds and blossoms of spring have no lobbyists. one more time. public interest. the winds and blossoms of spring have no lobbyists. thank you very much. >> thank you. next speaker. >>> hello, good afternoon. my na

. >>> good afternoon, i'm virginia barrett co-editor with bobby coleman with the an theology occupy s.f this seems to be the afternoon for poetry. i didn't know this day was coming but i'm supporting him as well along with alejandro [speaker not understood] fellow revolutionary of the [speaker not understood]. i host open mic at the haight. i'll be here tomorrow for thursday for poems under the dome. i offer a short poem. this relates to unused public spaces. the garden of humanitarian. the garden of humantarians in golden gate park is deserted. the wooden green benches and tables sit vacant. where has all the ben he have lance gone? i enter the grove and find a crumpled up pack of cigarettes and orange peels scattered on the ground. as far humanity goes, this place is forgotten and forlorn. still, the birds sing from tree limbs over the yellow of these ever present flowers. thank you. and i encourage each one of you to visit your district branch library and look at the shelf for poetry. it's usually only about this long. and i think that can be expanded and each neighborhood branch lib

i see [speaker not understood] bobby coleman and many other poets. but we recently lost a great community poet, and supervisor campos is also going to make some remarks. but i'd like to ask us to close the meeting in memory of carlos ramirez. he was -- he spent lots of his life in the richmond district. but let me talk a little bit about his colorful and full life. mr. ramirez was a san francisco native who moved to el salvador as a three-year old child with his parents and two siblings in 1941. they returned to the u.s. four years later when a revolution forced them to flee their country. he grew up in san francisco's richmond district for the next 10 years and moved with his family to other districts as well. he studied poetry at new college of california which is my alma matre as well in san francisco. there his teacher, the passionate artist and activist nina sorono emboldened him to create poetic statements [speaker not understood]. he later took a course in poetry at city college of san francisco. i believe with poetry for the people and many d