Poet Kim Shuck: A reading

Readings by Kim Shuck from three new books:

November Dance Shirt: a new collection of Kim’s poems written in November 2023.

American Indian Stories by Zitkala-Ša, re-release, with an intro and new essay by Kim. More on Zitkala-Ša here (Wikipedia).

This Music: Record of a Poet Becoming, Janice Gould’s last and posthumous book which Kim helped to edit. This reading will include poems, prose poems and prose written by Indigenous women from the early 20th century through the present day. This work tracks concerns and conditions for Native women, including joy and whimsy.

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Kim Shuck embraces the fool and jester qualities of being a modern poet and artist. She is a devotee of San Francisco, whose hills she wanders nearly always on foot. Her maternal grandparents met at the Polish Hall on Shotwell and she spent many hours with her mother and grandmother wandering the Mission St. Miracle Mile, taking books out of the Mission Branch library and watching aquarium fish on the ground floor of what used to be Hale’s. She firmly believes in carrying a bubble wand, keys, pen and notebook and cats cradle string at all times.

Kim, whose poetry draws on her multiethnic background which includes Polish and Cherokee heritage, and her experiences as a lifelong resident of San Francisco, served as San Francisco’s seventh Poet Laureate, from 2017-2021. In 2019, she was awarded an inaugural National Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets, and a PEN Oakland Censorship Award. Among her many books and chapbooks, Pick a Garnet to Sleep In, one in a long line of poetry collections,was published in 2024, and her book of essays Noodle, Rant, Tangent was published in 2022.

In her term as Poet Laureate, she hosted scores of free poetry and art workshops for all ages at neighborhood libraries and schools and worked closely with San Francisco Public Library and the San Francisco Arts Commission to launch major citywide initiatives to honor Native American Indigenous Peoples’ heritage.