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At dozens of cafes, libraries and book stores - even a garage in Bell - Southern California teemed with poetry readings and open mike nights before COVID-19 took hold of the world.
Some events survived by migrating online. Others we lost for good.
Now, as the vaccination rollout continues and an end to the pandemic appears in sight, we've asked five poets at very different points in their careers to reflect on the confinement and share their hopes for what lies ahead. Though disparate in background, style and subject matter, these poets share an unwavering -- though not romanticized -- love for the place we call home.
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Megan Dorame
I dribbled down a concrete river. It was there where I merged with my water relatives: 'Akwaaken and melted Ywaat / Snow.
From "Papaavetam/Water People"
The Tongva, whose villages once dotted the flood plain of Los Angeles and Orange counties, lived on this land long before it was labeled in Spanish and English. For some, this is still Tovaangar. Through her poetry, Megan Dorame works to reclaim and revitalize the language of the region's original inhabitants.
The poet, raised in Huntington Beach, comes from a family of cultural resource monitors. Growing up, she'd watch her father head out to construction sites. There, he'd crouch beside archaeologists and work to protect any indicators of past human activity, including objects of importance to local Indigenous communities.
Whenever they came across her ancestors' remains, Dorame's father ensured that they were properly reburied. Dorame often attended the ceremonies.
"Unfortunately," she says, "our ancestors are found more often than you'd think."
Today, the poet lives in Santa Ana. During the pandemic she's worked on poems about abalone, which in California once numbered in the millions. The Tongva used them for adornment, ceremony and nourishment. "These animals are our relatives," she says. "It's sad for us that they're disappearing."
Dorame didn't grow up speaking Tongva. After "three waves of colonization," the language was nearly wiped out.
At college in Oklahoma, linguistic anthropology classes ignited her interest. When she moved back to California about five years ago, she found a Tongva class on Facebook.
"I was, like, 'Hey, can I come?' "
She was transformed as soon as she started learning the...