NIna Serano

While preparing for my presentation in section. My partner and I came across a really cool book- a first edition collection of poems by Nina Serano, a poet activist and member of Pocho-Che collective. Nina Serrano was one of the few woman who was a part of the Mission bred collective. Nina Serrana focused many of he poetry on social issues that affected mission community members, but there is some beat inspiration in her as well. In the tenth anniversary series of the Pocho-Che issue, she includes a poem on Ferlinghetti titled  "Poets in San Francisco (A legend about Anais Nin and Lawrence Ferlinghetti)".

Poets in San Francisco 

(A legend about Anais Nin and Lawrence Ferlinghetti)

It feels good to write poems in Sa Francisco

But it would be better if someone

wanted to read   listen   and talk about poems

in San Francisco.

There is a place where poets meet and love each other

Once I thought San Francisco

but when I got there their coffeehouses 

turned into dress stores

I think the place where poets meet 

lies in an inner space between

the ribs  the lungs   and the hurting loneliness.

A poet fills his bag with rose petals

and empties it on the head

of another poet.

Her hair is full of petals

There love poems rhymed and metered bloom

and in that movement of raining flowers 

is the place I want to be.

Victor Hernandez Cruz, Nina Serrano, Roberto Vargas 1973

Heart Songs by Nina Serrano