Tongo Eisen-Martin

Tongo Eisen-Martin is an African-American poet and activist.[1] He is the current poet laureate of San Francisco, California.[2][3]

Tongo Eisen-Martin in 2021

Biography

Tongo Eisen-Martin was born in 1980[4] in San Francisco, California[5] to a Jewish mother[4] Arlene Eisen[6] and a Black father. His parents named him after Josiah Tongogara.[4] Muralist Miranda Bergman is his godmother.[4] He earned a master's degree in Fine Arts[7] from Columbia University[8] where he taught at the Institute for Research in African-American Studies,[5] creating the 2012 curriculum We Charge Genocide Again![2] He has also taught at detention centers, including San Quentin and Rikers Island.[6] He is the co-founder of Black Freighter Press.[3]

Honors and awards

Eisen-Martin's 2017 book Heaven Is All Goodbyes published by City Lights won a PEN Oakland Award,[7] the 2018 American Book Award,[5] 2018 California Book Award,[9] and 2018 National California Booksellers Association Poetry Book of the Year.[5]

Works
  • Someone's Dead Already Bootstrap Press. 2015. ISBN 9780988610835
  • Heaven is All Goodbyes City Lights. 2017. ISBN 9780872867451
  • Blood on the Fog: Pocket Poets Series No. 62 Tongo Eisen-Martin City Lights. 2021. ISBN 9780872868755

References
  1. Wick, Julia (12 February 2021). "Essential California: Talking San Francisco with the city's new poet laureate". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 12 June 2021.
  2. Getachew, Samuel (15 January 2021). "Tongo Eisen-Martin Selected as San Francisco's Poet Laureate". KQED. Retrieved 12 June 2021.
  3. Darden, Jenee (27 April 2021). "San Francisco Poet Laureate Tongo Eisen-Martin Wants To Give People Power Through Publishing". KALW. Retrieved 12 June 2021.
  4. Raskin, Jonah (19 March 2021). "Art & Politics in San Francisco, 2021: Portraits of a City in Upheaval, Again". CounterPunch. Retrieved 12 June 2021.
  5. "Tongo Eisen-Martin". Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 12 June 2021.
  6. Feldberg, Sarah (19 July 2020). "Poet Tongo Eisen-Martin's view of San Francisco during pandemic and protests". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 12 June 2021.
  7. Li, Grace (15 January 2021). "Tongo Eisen-Martin is San Francisco's New Poet Laureate". SF Weekly. Retrieved 12 June 2021.
  8. "About Tongo-Eisen Martin". Academy of American Poets. Retrieved 12 June 2021.
  9. "Tongo Eisen-Martin, Poet - Brief but Spectacular". PBS Newshour. Retrieved 12 June 2021.


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