Academy of American Poets – Aileen Cassinetto

Farewell note

Dear community partners and friends, 

As my laureateship ends today, I wish to thank all of you for your incredible support over the last three and a half years. With your help, I was able to accomplish what I initially set out to do which was to make poetry more accessible and amplify its role in the context of larger intersectional movements.

Some of my most important projects include: 

—the San Mateo County Youth Ecopoetry Project, a series of workshops and short films that highlight young people’s climate advocacy through the lens of poetry, film and equity, with support from the Academy of American Poets and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation;

—Speak Poetry in San Mateo County Project which included readings and a web archive featuring the individual and anthologized work of over 300 poets from the county and the greater Bay Area on the theme of belonging, with support from the County of San Mateo;

—Makerspace Poetry Lab (Poetry Makers) which integrates poetry into the makerspace to encourage divergent thinking in people of all ages, launched by the Redwood City Public Library;

—Filoli Annual Haiku Competition and Ecopoetry Award engaging not only the beauty of nature but also the impacts of climate change, with over 3,000 submissions since 2020;

—Proclamation of National Poetry Month by the County of San Mateo Board of Supervisors and the mayors of 11 cities in the county, as well as a countywide celebration of poetry including raising of the Speak Poetry banner at the County Center on April 1st, 2022;

—Poets RISE at the 2020 & 2022 San Mateo County Women’s Leadership Conference;

—“Love in the Time of Covid-19: A Community Poem for Healthcare Workers and Other Frontliners,” the first collaborative poem which raised funds for pandemic relief efforts and was also used as resource material or featured in California and four other states (CT, TX, MN, HI);

—Skyline College Poetry Corner Series celebrating poetry and themes of belonging, diversity, social justice and equity;

—youth programs (e.g. competitions, workshops, youth poet laureate campaigns etc) in partnership with the San Mateo County Office of Arts & Culture, Office of Education, Mental Health Services, Youth Climate Ambassadors, Commission on the Status of Women, member libraries of the Peninsula Library System, Daly City Public Library Associates, City of South San Francisco, City of Menlo Park, Filoli, the Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County, and many more, to empower youth, support mental health, advance social justice, and encourage greater civic participation.

What I am most grateful for, however, are the relationships I built and communities I upheld. I am ever so grateful that poetry has allowed my story to connect with yours. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. It has truly been an honor and privilege to have served as your poet laureate.

With much respect,
Aileen

To find out more about my work as poet laureate, please visit:
Speak Poetry in San Mateo County 
Dear Aileen Cassinetto 2022
State of poetry in the county
The Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship
The Future is Poetry
Power to the Poets

Poet Laureate’s National Poetry Month 2022 Campaign

It is National Poetry Month all over San Mateo County! The County of San Mateo and cities in the county are proclaiming April as National Poetry Month upon the request of San Mateo County Poet Laureate Aileen Cassinetto. Ms. Cassinetto is also spearheading several events to celebrate poetry and the work of poets in the county.

On April 1st, the “Speak Poetry in San Mateo County” banner was put up at the County Center in Redwood City, with support from the Offices of Supervisor Warren Slocum and Supervisor Carole Groom, the Office of Arts and Culture, and the county’s Public Works team. The Speak Poetry web archive was launched the same day featuring the bios, poems and civic engagements of over 70 poets from San Mateo County and the work of over 200 youth poets, as well as more than 70 poets from the greater Bay Area with ties to the county.

Following National Poetry Month proclamations by the County Supervisors and the mayors and councilmembers of the cities of Pacifica, Burlingame, San Mateo, Redwood City, Brisbane, Menlo Park, San Bruno, Belmont, Half Moon Bay, East Palo Alto, Daly City and the Midcoast Community Council, activities, readings and programs have been launched around the county celebrating local poets and the role of poetry in our communities, including a Makerspace Poetry Lab pilot project for all ages to promote STEAM and encourage various ways of looking at the world in terms of relationships and possibilities. Additionally, almost 200 trees have been planted in honor of San Mateo County’s poets and poetry advocates, individually and as a group, for their many ways of making and giving and paying it forward.

Launched by the Academy of American Poets in April 1996, National Poetry Month reminds the public that poets have an integral role to play in our culture and that poetry matters. Over the years, it has become the largest literary celebration in the world, with tens of millions of readers, students, K–12 teachers, librarians, booksellers, literary events curators, publishers, families, and, of course, poets, marking poetry’s important place in our lives.

Check out poetry events near you. Happy National Poetry Month!

Speak Poetry in San Mateo County

Happy National Poetry Month!

Today I launched the “Speak Poetry in San Mateo County” web archive featuring poets from San Mateo County and those with ties to the county. It is a celebration of poetry and its many roles in our shared humanity. It is also an invitation to connect and explore natural & literary ecosystems and human relationships. Lastly, it hopes to honor the land by presenting a diverse and balanced narrative of our lived experience, inside and outside the margins. The archives feature the bios, works and civic engagements of over 340 poets from all around the Bay Area, including over 200 San Mateo County youth poets and over 70 poets from the county.

This project is made possible with support from the County of San Mateo Board of Supervisors and The Academy of American Poets, with funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

To celebrate the launch, a banner was raised at the County Center in Redwood City, in collaboration with the offices of Supervisor Warren Slocum and Supervisor Carole Groom, and the Office of Arts and Culture.

Dear Poet 2022

dearpoet
Submission period opens in April.

From The Academy of American Poets:

New York, NY (January 27, 2022)— The Academy of American Poets, the originator of National Poetry Month—now a worldwide celebration—invites students in grades five through twelve to participate in Dear Poet 2022, an annual multimedia education project featuring videos of award-winning poets reading their work, including poets who serve on the Academy of American Poets Board of Chancellors and who have received Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowships. Students are encouraged to watch the 26 newly-released Dear Poet videos, write letters in response to the poems, and submit their letters during National Poetry Month this April. Selected letters will be published on Poets.org, one of the most visited sites for poetry on the web, and shared on social media. Each year, the Dear Poet videos are viewed by tens of thousands of students across the country and more than 3,600 students from 35 states participate by sending in letters.

The 26 award-winning poets participating in Dear Poet this year include Academy of American Poets Chancellors Ellen Bass, Marilyn Chin, Kwame Dawes, Forrest Gander, Marie Howe, Dorianne Laux, David St. John, as well as Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellows Marcus Amaker, Semaj Brown, Aileen Cassinetto, Leslie Contreras Schwartz, Magdalena Gómez, Georgina Marie Guardado, Chasity Gunn, Kari Gunter-Seymour, Luisa A. Igloria, Dasha Kelly Hamilton, Melissa Kwasny, Debra Marquart, Trapeta B. Mayson, Anis Mojgani, Chelsea Rathburn, Lloyd Schwartz, M. Bartley Seigel, M.L. Smoker, and Brian Sonia-Wallace.

“As many students process their lives in our complicated time, The Dear Poet project is a great opportunity for them to interact with contemporary poems and poets who are confronting the same issues through their writing. Dear Poet provides students with an opportunity to learn about some of the leading poets writing today, to read their poems and respond by writing letters to the poets. Selected students will even receive a personal response from their poet!” said Dr. Madeleine Fuchs Holzer, the Academy of American Poets Educator in Residence.

To learn more about Dear Poet 2022 and to participate in the project, visit: http://www.poets.org/dear-poet.

An accompanying lesson plan will be available on the Dear Poet 2022 page in mid-February.

For additional resources to assist with the project, visit the Dear Poet 2021 lesson plan; read an essay about Dear Poet; check out one high school’s past participation in the project; and browse this Dear Poet teacher collaboration featuring video walk-throughs, writing prompts, and a short assignment. For some examples of student letters, visit last year’s Dear Poet page.

About the Academy of American Poets

Founded in 1934, the Academy of American Poets is the nation’s leading champion of poets and poetry with supporters in all fifty states. The organization annually awards more funds to individual poets than any other organization through its prize program, giving a total of $1.25 million to more than 200 poets at various stages of their careers. The organization also produces Poets.org, the world’s largest publicly funded website for poets and poetry; organizes National Poetry Month; publishes the popular Poem-a-Day series and American Poets magazine; provides award-winning resources to K–12 educators, including the Teach This Poem series; hosts an annual series of poetry readings and special events; and coordinates a national Poetry Coalition working together to promote the value poets bring to our culture.

My “Dear Poet” poem, “There are no kings in America”

Read the poem here.

Academy of American Poets Interview

The Academy of American Poets interview with Poet Laureate Fellow Aileen Cassinetto

“A poem is an ecosystem where life happens. There’s ruthlessness, but also so much grace and so much possibility. Poetry situates us where our story connects with other stories, where we navigate bodies and language and distance and place with agency and urgency. We don’t always get clarity and illumination, but the simple act of connecting may lead us to write ourselves into a world and a future that we want to see.” Read the full interview here.

Highlights 2019-2021

Aileen Cassinetto was appointed by the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors to serve as Poet Laureate in October 2018. In January 2019, she launched her “Speak Poetry in San Mateo County” campaign in schools, city halls, the county jail, nursing facilities and local libraries. In April 2020, she curated the community poem, “Love in the Time of COVID-19 for Healthcare Workers and Other Frontliners,” which raised funds for the San Mateo County Health Foundation and was also featured in the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project in Minnesota, the Montgomery Independent School District in Texas, the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, the Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut, and the Maui Arts and Cultural Center in Hawaii. In January 2021, she released the poetry anthology, I Have a Dream: Inaugural Poems for a New Generation featuring poems by 115 students ages 6 to 16 from all around San Mateo County. In June 2021, Aileen was named an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow and awarded $50,000 to work on a project that will equip youth with the language of ecopoetry as a way to broaden the search for creative solutions to climate change.

Extension of term as Poet Laureate

Appointment to the Commission on the Status of Women

BREATHE

San Mateo County Youth Toward a More Sustainable Future

There is a pattern we burn

into the night sky, & it will not be of chemical

but compassion for all that is light.

Last year I woke up and

the sky was tangerine,

sick with smoke

because we live in a world where

things are valued more dead than alive

and where we value today so much

we don’t even think about tomorrow,

but in less than twelve years

we’ll be running out of tomorrows.

So tell me,

how do we redefine value?

Humans are warming the planet

Smoke days replace our parents’ snow days

Being told the children are the future

Uncertain if we have one in store

Look around you

Breathe if you can

It’s code red for humanity.

Hazy skylines

the redness of the map

Plumes of black smoke, billowing,

mixing with lavender clouds and orange flame

Yellowed lawns in my neighborhood

The taste of burnt toast in my mouth

Parts of my community lost

As decades of damage, destruction, and hate

Come down like a meteor that never saw space.

We must be united to fight it

We must all take accountability

Reduce CO2 and methane emissions to zero.

We have caused this

We are the only ones who can fix this

We can have a sustainable future.

Sitting in my bedroom staring at the screen

Wondering if this is always what I’ll see

Longing for action, longing for change

Saving the world from climate change

I am learning, struggling, and exploring

Right now I want to make a difference

To know I am safe

I want to live in a world with no pollution

With rainbows in the skies.

Curated by San Mateo County Poet Laureate Aileen Cassinetto. This poem is part of an ecopoetry project made possible by The Academy of American Poets with funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Contributors: Cassandra Bousquet, Chloe Chou, Bellamy Cramer, Ronit Das, Arda Inegol, Samantha Ishikawa, Maya Kornyeyeva, Iris Li, Caroline Lim, Allen Mata, Hanna Docampo Pham, Emma Roginski , Marissa Teng, and Payton Zolck, with additional lines by National Youth Poet Laureate Alexandra Huynh.

Published in Nature & Culture (Copenhagen: Red Press Kulturhuset Islands Brygge & Københavns Kommune, 2021).

BREATHE, an Official Selection in the Nature & Culture Poetry Film Festival in Copenhagen

BREATHE is an Official Selection in the Nature & Culture – Poetry Film Festival and will be screened at Kulturhuset Islands Brygge Cultural Center (Denmark) on November 21st & 28th! SMC youth’s crowdsourced poem, “Breathe,” will also be included in an anthology forthcoming from Poetic Phonotheque, Copenhagen. “Breathe” features work by Cassandra Bousquet, Chloe Chou, Bellamy Cramer, Ronit Das, Arda Inegol, Samantha Ishikawa, Maya Kornyeyeva, Iris Li, Caroline Lim, Allen Mata, Hanna Docampo Pham, Emma Roginski , Marissa Teng, and Payton Zolck, with additional lines by National Youth Poet Laureate Alexandra Huynh.

*BREATHE, the first in a series of short films exploring the layered connections between nature and culture through poetry, is made possible by The Academy of American Poets with funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

June 2021 to June 2022: Youth Ecopoetry Project

As part of my Academy of American Poets project, I am organizing ecopoetry workshops and working on a series of short poetry films that will highlight San Mateo County’s ecology and how our youth are responding to environmental challenges.

“Ecopoetry generally refers to poetry about ecology, ecosystems, environmental injustice, animals, agriculture, climate change, water, and even food. It emerged in the 1990s as poets questioned the naturalness of “nature poetry,” especially since nature itself was rapidly changing due to global warming and environmental destruction.” (Craig Santos Perez, “Teaching Ecopoetry in a Time of Climate Change,” The Georgia Review Fall 2020).

As a poet and an immigrant, I am compelled to engage the environmental changes around me through the lens of equity and empathy, especially since the places I call home are at risk: San Mateo County is California’s ground zero for sea level rise; while the Philippines is the country most vulnerable to the climate crisis. Hence, these questions: how do we begin to search for more creative solutions to climate change? How can the language of ecopoetry help us reimagine a more sustainable future?

The Academy of American Poets interviewed me about my project and laureateship here.

Students grade 12 and below who are interested and wish to find out more, please email me at query[at]speakpoetry.org.

August 2021: Youth Ecopoetry Workshop

Save the date: August 11, 2021 at 5pm Pacific via Zoom!

Youth Ecopoets’ Workshop with 2020 U.S. Youth Poet Laureate & 2020 UN Sustainable Development Goals Ambassador Meera Dasgupta

Organized by San Mateo County Poet Laureate Aileen Cassinetto and the South San Francisco Public Library, this workshop is made possible by the Academy of American Poets with funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and in partnership with the San Mateo County Office of Arts & Culture and Urban Word NYC.

This workshop is free and open to all SF Bay Area high school students. Register here.