a. benét is Black poet and creative. She is a San Diego, California native, where she is a first year Master’s student and Prebys Creative Writing scholar at San Diego State University studying poetry. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in LETTERS Journal, Foglifter Press, Honey Literary, Diode Poetry, and others. She has been nominated for Best of the Net, and was the 1st place winner of the 2020 Grossmont College Slam Poetry Competition.
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Right now, my go-to shoes are my pandas, my nike dunk retro lows. I wouldn’t consider myself a sneaker head at all. Growing up, I wore knock off brand shoes from payless. Now, as an adult, it’s tough to pay more than $40 for a pair of shoes. But I wanted these, like I wanted air forces when they were the “new” basic. But what makes these more special is that they were a gift from my girlfriend who is very much a sneaker head and I feel like I’m making her proud when I wear them.
Ten years ago I would have said a jeep wrangler, but now that I’m closer to my 30s, I would probably pick something more practical, like a Toyota Corolla. My 2013 baby is getting me where I need to be. His name is Sommar and he has started to rust I think it adds to his character. I consider his energy to match the black air forces. I’ve been told I do a great job of keeping him clean. I don’t play about mess in my car. Sommar is also special to me because he was a gift. While I was saving up for a car, my family decided to buy one for me and I couldn’t be more grateful.
The parts of San Diego that feel like mine alone are the streets and alleys that had something to do with molding me into who I am today. It’s not one city that belongs to me, but the side street in City Heights that bleeds schools into neighborhoods, the views at the summit of Emerald Hills, Skyline and 61st, always.
These places capture the essence of San Diego because it is where real people are and by real I mean this isn’t for tourist’s eyes. These are places where the everyday monotony becomes a reason to cling to life.
The places built for tourists to swoon and spend money are the masks. La Jolla and Coronado will never be real places to me.
It was chill. BBQs in the summer, watching the fireworks from my window on the fourth of July, bonfires with s’mores and veggie dogs, water balloon fights. I spent a lot of time in the water because my birthday is in the summer, and as a child, I had pool parties every year.
I used to dream of the south though. I thought I would go to Atlanta for college. If I could go anywhere, and politics and climate were no issue, it would probably be Texas or maybe South Carolina. I could see myself returning here because this is my home and it always has been.
Both of my parents are from the east coast. Work brought my dad to San Diego, love and the military brought my mom. I imagine San Diego was a rebirth for them, a sort of second chance. Something I will always keep with me are the lifelong connections and friendships they made here in San Diego.
I think I’m a perfect mix of them both and a little bit of just me. I might see my mom’s smile and almond eyes, her hair. The older I get, the more I can’t deny how similar my personality is to my dad. I have his low tolerance and impatience and reckless mouth.
I owe my childhood to the church I grew up in. I spent most days of the week there, but school holds piece of me too. The friends I made at church and the experiences I had stay with me. I’m a big homebody, I’m usually at home. But I’ve always been drawn to water, so I would go to the beach early, when it’s not crowded, to release anger or find peace.
Mission Bay
Plaza Bonita
My third grade teacher, Mrs Geary
No, but I’d like to think they grew tired of borders and followed the ocean to what used to be home.
Not this is how I find out Horton Plaza doesn’t exist anymore. Next you’re gonna say Seaport Village isn’t a thing anymore either.
It’s absence, like so many other absence in San Diego now, mean gentrification and tourism, meaning we’re losing more than my memories, or yours, but what made San Diego the best place to grow up.
Personally, what’s changed about San Diego in 10 years is the lack of community and third places. It doesn’t feel like there’s anywhere to meet up with friends and family outside for free. That could also be an effect of growing older and feeling your circle grow smaller and smaller.
It’s hard to put into words the parts of San Diego that will never change. It’s the vibe down here. It’s both chill and entertaining. There’s always something to do, but there’s also stillness.
I think all the people who have grown close to me at one point or another in my life have changed me in ways I could never expect, even if we’re no longer close. I met people from all over the country, all over the world, and they’ve had an impact on me, whether it’s the food I learn to love, the lingo I use, my beliefs and values.
I think of my Somali friends in High School, my friend from Florida whose house I spent the night over everyday for a week. I think of my childhood neighbor who taught me so much about sharing and kindness, or my friend across the street and how we used to ride bikes and check the street for pennies.
I think what makes the change unexpected to me is that they weren’t life long friends, though at the time I would have assumed so. They were here to teach me something or change something in me at that time in my life, and move on.
To me, boundaries don’t exist (my therapist would have a problem with this), but it’s true. It doesn’t feel like that’s there and this is here anymore than the ocean tide can meet the rocks at night. The blend is effortless to true San Diegans. I think we know this isn’t our land to own and dictate. The deep respect I have for other’s culture is reflected in my own. I’m grateful and open to sharing and bringing in, like I’ve been brought in, but I always know my place.
Ice cream truck bells
In 2020, I took my first Creative Writing class and my professor encouraged me to sign up for the slam poetry competition. I’d never done anything like that before, but the idea that people would want to hear my words, let alone resonate with them enough to feel something, solidified my desire to write poetry seriously.
Toni Morrison (even though she’s a fiction writer), June Jordan, Carolyn Forche, Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovani, Ross Gay, Danez Smith, Patricia Smith, Gwendolyn Brooks, Vievee Francis. Some new would be Angel Nafis, m mick powell, Taylor Byas, and so many others.
When I was really young, I loved Chicken Soup for the Soul and memoirs. One of my favorite books as an adult is Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers. Recently I read Jazz by Toni Morrison and fell even more in love with her writing.
I’m constantly drawn to mouth, bend, need, desire, anything related to water, before, home, trees, permanence.
I tend to stay away from, plopped, squawk, light, or anything longer than 5 syllables.
I’ll always want to push deeper into topics that aren’t widely discussed or are avoided out of fear, shame, disgust, ignorance. I want what’s under the surface.
One boundary I’ll always keep is the one between the speaker of the poem and the poet. Poems can be extremely vulnerable, but I never want a reader to feel like they know me because they read my poems. You may know some of my story, but I’d like to think there’s more to me than words.
Surprisingly, I don’t, but I think that has more to do with my lack of routine than my belief in superstition.
Once I’ve decided to write, I usually start with reading poetry until inspiration hits. I start with a line and write until I have an idea for what I’m talking about. Though, lately I’ve been starting with a memory or experience I had and I have an idea for how I want to end the poem, I just need to figure out how to get from A to Z. I am a poet who edits as they draft (which is bad I know), so my revision process is always days later after getting feedback from my poet friends.
I’m a thinker, I like to wonder and my poetry is often a reflection of those thoughts. This thing that happened, these words that were said, where did it come from? What does it mean that it happened? That I let it happen? That I said it?
My poetry is an opportunity for me to reflect on myself, situations, and people. I think writing is both observing life and living it. It’s about trying to express the feeling of desire in an airport or detailing how the houseless person makes a home on the corner where you park your car.
Any topic or person that I sit down to write about and can only visualize a wall, I don’t write about. I take that wall to be a line I shouldn’t cross.
All of these questions were so good and ones I rarely get asked. I think I’d like to be asked why I choose the words I do. I’d like to think I’m pretty intentional with my word choice.
I love anything that has to do with creation; crocheting, scrapbooking, photography, coloring. When I was younger, I was really into DIY. I would sew and glue and make anything I wanted. I was very proud of what new things I was able to make out of the old.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about my elementary school. I went to Highlands in Spring Valley and I’ve been seeing those hallways and playgrounds come up in my writing. I’m curious to know what I’m digging for, what it is I’m being called to unpack or discover about that time in life.
I remember the dry heat and lizards, the purple honeysuckle bushes. I can still picture the graffiti on the wallballs, the metal vault bars we looped around and around, chasing each other up and over. There’s something in that experience that I’m longing for.
Skyline & 61st. That’s the corner of the church I was raised in. Though I’m not religious anymore, I spent a lot of time on that street, I met a lot of my lifelong friends on that street. I experienced heartbreak, love, and formed a lot of my values and beliefs. It’s a complicated relationship I have with that area. It’s always going to have a place in my heart, but I’ve also experienced a lot of trauma there.
To the letter of my childhood San Diego, I say thank you. I wouldn’t be who I am if I wasn’t running in these streets as a kid, if I wasn’t brought up in these churches and schools. Thank you for teaching my tongue to love hot cheetos, chamoy, and tajin. Thank you for bridging two worlds into one, for teaching me that there’s no border that could keep this land from its people.
San Diego of the future, my hope is that you still hold space for community, that you don’t close yourself off. I want third spaces and gardens. I want more BIPOC owned businesses, small and thriving. I want children playing hopscotch at MLK park, water balloons in the summer. I hope your beaches and taco shop are still the best in California. I hope your residents are still stereotyped as chill, as calm as the pacific.
Somewhere in the Bay, a Girl Dreams of the Daygo
If change be god, August be holy. Our
skin, darkened by July, settles into
the heat, like a mother’s arms. We run
in the parking lot turned fair ground,
chase ice cream trucks with dollars
we got for a kiss. At MLK park, a ball
smacks and a girl is baptized in dunk tank.
Somebody’s grandma rocks a crying
toddler. His face, a tiger melting
with tears and mucus. We line up
for veggie dogs and haystacks, dance
under the heat. We family, race low
riders as they pass, kick up dirt
with our feet, see the prints they leave
behind. A relief.