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By Tino De Guevara

Winter in the Valley
The Tule fog rises
Like a frozen ghost enveloping the sun
Trees grey, leaf less and bare,
Naked, stark, exposed
In the ghostly gloom
Grasp at any passing body
Who’s breath warms their arms
Everything has gone underground
Flora and fauna lay dormant
In a deep sleep of Winter equinox

The lights are carefully taken
Off the branches
Caressing each one with thoughtfulness
Careful to preserve the tenderness
For tomorrow’s bounty of fruit
Spring peeps around the corner
Joyous at the thought of
Soil churned and prepared
For rebirth and rejuvenation

My California 2024

By C. Warner Hensley

In my California
the discordance of competing songs permeates.
The flute-like timbre of Vietnamese, a delicate birdsong beckoning,
interrupted by the abrasive Armenian bass as a couple walks
the sweet smell of pita overwhelmed by wine-blessed shepherd’s stew
from the Basque Hotel where ancient Euskara harmonies blend with
a group baritone in the lower cleft in Russian walking to their crumbled church
In my California
the golden crocodile beneath the Buddha vibrates with
the chants of the orange-clad Khmer monks at their temple.
Refrains of Tai-Kadal, Lao, and Thai fill nearby neighborhoods
as Palestinian voices speak in the fast-paced staccato beat of Arabic.
to the slow songs of Lebanese with the smells of allspice, coriander, and cumin
and Mandarin and Cantonese emanate from nearby kitchens with five spices.
In my California
Japanese poetry and drums are shared by Buddhists and Christians
while Punjabi resonates from the golden Sikh spires chanting into the sky.
The bilabial popping beats of Tagalong and Filipino choired by caregivers
while the five scale songs of Hmong flood the fairgrounds
with the rubber sphere’s beats of their courting.
In my California
the mist from the returned great lake, Pa-ishi,
brings the smell of acorn meal bread
the drums and bells accompany Yokuts and Miwoks.
at pow-wows teaching once lost languages and culture.
In my California
The intense fermenting cabbage flows from Korean restaurants
where poems are read to inspire and continue the story
as the deep-throated Danish rumbles in Hygge happiness
Nearby Swedish float the musical speech over the Danish stridence
In my California
The rapid mariachi Spanish of Mexico slowed by Central American speakers
travels to the fields of fruits and vegetables and streets with the smells of chile,
“Sh” is added to the Spanish by Portuguese and deep smoky aroma of Chourico
In my California
in the other side of towns where the black national anthem rings
where the air is never filled with the smells from rendering plants and garbage dumps.
Past the redlines and railroads, the tapping shoes repeat the sounds
of the train wheels on the tracks and voices of rhythm, voices of blues
voices of hip-hop and rock are born from the pain of joy and sadness
sung in the churches as the African drums with complex patterns
ignore the white clouded storms that never distort history
In my California
rhythms, rhymes, and repetition of readings and slams bring
the sonnets, haiku, tanka
and villanelle, acrostic, epic
to the auditoriums and craft breweries
In my California.

Fresno: The Musical

By Wayland Jackson

Musicians take their places,
The oboe tunes the orchestra,
Lights dim, and Mother Nature
Strides to the podium, raises her baton, And sweet melody washes over the valley.
The arc she traces calls up springtime. Trees proud and tall,
Shrubs and bushes fully robed, Fresno flaunts her emerald,
Her mint, jade, and lime.
Celebrating the hours,
Violins, violas, and cellos
Serenade shrubs, leaves, and blossoms, The lushness of Mother Earth.
Her bosom bursts with color.
In the hands of a master composer, Foliage reaches a crescendo. Strings catch fire, colors shift
As, eyes lowered, Fresno blushes To purple, yellow, and red.
Mother Earth blows colder, And Fresno sways seductively, Drops a leaf or two.
Then, more and more float Down into open arms,
Leaving bare limbs outstretched For all the world to see,
Naked and unashamed.
The sky darkens.
The song turns ominous.
Winter melds into a Russian folk tune, Dark and doleful,
While Fresno shivers and trembles With the heart of a jilted lover Listening for spring.

The flower with a thousand memories

By Lisa White (College)

Find me
by the red poppy
glistening by the sun.
Orange captured red
by the sun,
sweet nectar rain spun.
Time undone.
California poppy,
Angels crept
left listening
to the sound of rain.
Words left
cowards reft
at the tongues of afterlife.

Thousands of miles
of holy ground
destroyed by greed.
Mingling hands on golden hills
desecrated by digging
to find a bit of gold
in the teeth of the dead.
of missing men, woman and children
indigenous to this land.
Poisonous African
slaves afoot....
sorrows sheltered in the raindrops on petals.
Ancestors' stories whispered in the roots of trees.
Sequoia large
saying to the rinds of reft
"Rescue me."
Histories told of poisonous
looking for
freedom...
in the borders of California.
Histories told
of silent
moccasins
honoring
Gaia
earth mother.
But fallen age
to a bullet
from settlers
time of old.
The golden mist
fallen
the golden
petals
lost to the winds
of memory.
As roads
overthrow
orchards
who deadened
the preserve?
The poppy
not to pick her
sends familiar voices
to the orchards-growing
almonds and raspberries.
Thorns thick with ruin.
Indigenous people
songs in the winds
of ancestors.
Bring me back to the time
of silent
moccasins
California
Poppy
Take root
Happy.
Fill my mind
with love of unions
Marched picket fences
victory
echoes to diversity
lands
golden
many.
Cultures of slaves
yellow, red, brown, blue
touching the sun
with glistening red to hue
all red-many colors combine to red sun
orange
poppy
pedals
rain glistening
sun hues..
Rain on petals
lifes song
unsung.
California poppy
lest remember
the pounding
of silent
moccasins.
Raise the dead
oif old time
unspun
red.
Colors of nations
many nations
in the deserted
graves.
A thousand soldiers
with youndfaces to old
angry voices in
the earth
earthquake
sun silence.
Who preserved
Colors from red to orange
colors glistening
find red skin
bloodshed lost
into native
circles
old wives tales
new generations of birthing babies
life
unfurled.
Indigenous lands of orchards
golden poppies
preserved.
Find me in the red poppy
glistening
by the sun.

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By Cynthia Villalobos

I am a cinnamon-toasted product of the California sun - from playing in the redlined concrete jungles we call a neighborhood

I am a child of Fulton Street - growing up in merchant shops as dad washed windows for Luftenburgs and others on weekends to afford our existence in this city

I am a Tower crawler - from Goldsteins, to Strummers, to Richies, to sitting on a curb admiring the pink rose bushes in front of a home with curtains wide open - I too, love Chopped

I am an educated latina - attending the only four-year institution within 30 miles of my city because living in an educational dessert, we really are born and bred to stay here

I am a born and raised Fresnan - from the Sunday cruises to Thursday Arthops, home will always be an elote with extra chile at a farmers market right in the heart of my city

Is This Our Society

By Abner Zavala

Where when passing we greet a stranger with a “Hi, how are you?” And the response seldom addresses the question.

Are these our facilities? Where our daycare employees gossip with one another in the play yard, instead of intently observing and interacting with our children.

Where instead of a burger we’ll have a salad, but only if it’s engulfed in ranch dressing.

Are these our communities? Where we’re dependent on caffeine? Where we’ll say, “I don’t do anything until I’ve first had my morning cup of coffee,” but then belittle the alcoholic.

Where on the final day of our 6 month DUI program we say, “I don’t have a drinking problem, I don’t even like the feeling of being drunk. I just drink because I like how it tastes.”

Where we love our California stops. Where our drivers enter the road without first looking in both directions, to the demise of the pedestrian approaching from the right.

Is this our society? Where the plasma donation center tells us, “When donating, make sure you bring your cell phone!” Instead of, “Be sure to bring your favorite book”.

Where, we’d rather lie to someone instead of setting them free with truth, in order to keep ourselves and our intentions in good light.

Where we label ourselves open minded, but instinctively take offense to and reject views different than our own, rather than contemplate and reflect upon the ideas in depth.

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. Is this our America? Where we pride ourselves in who knows what about which celebrity or professional athlete.

This is our America. Where we tell someone “bless you” after they sneeze, where we text “OMG,” where we kill for money which reads in capital letters, “IN GOD WE TRUST.” Yet the only time we step foot in a church is for a funeral service.

All Roads Lead to Fresno

By Uvllia Ibarra (College)

It was the first day, of the first class of the first semester of the first year of 2022-2023 and an important question was asked to me that I’ve been thinking about for six months since

What advice would I give someone who was new to Fresno? Someone who just set foot here and must make a major living transition? What advice would I give to turn Fresno into FresYes?

I told him to go to Art Hop because the most honest voices paint themselves on murals and sidewalks; especially around the Tower District, but that’s not all I would tell him.

I would tell him, there is a homeless woman who walk around the Tower District strip named Genevieve and having a conversation with her will cost him a beer or a drink from Bobby’s.

I would tell him Roger Rocka’s is the “Broadway” of Fresno and everything from the plays to the food, to the drinks, are all worth the fancy of polishing your shoes and getting your hair did.

I would tell him if he wanted a McBad Day he would get his big mac from the McDonalds location on Nees and Willow because all the employees are graduates from 2020.

I would tell him to go for a bike ride and take a picture of the giant stenciled Albert Einstein on Blackstone and Abby who holds up the sign that says, “Love is the answer.”

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By Amelia Ellis 

My Fresno
is a result of recency bias.
My fondest recollections
are from the backseats of my teenaged friends’ cars,
packed in on our way to get grand slams
at the denny’s by the dutch bros on Shaw,
belting along to the likes of lady gaga and childish gambino.
or, just being quiet and savoring
the streets I’ve digested all my life –
My Blackstone and My Figarden and My Brawley –
not really drunk on peach wine
as I simmer for a song I know to come up on shuffle.

My Fresno
is that dumbass intersection
that everyone groans about,
the one that feeds into and out of N. Golden State Boulevard,
with trains that take a minimum of 8 minutes to pass,
down the street from an in-n-out and Forestiere’s Underground Gardens.
people get disappointed when I tell them
I’ve gone to the Gardens at least 6 times,
which I don’t get – what’s 7 times to 6?
what’s a childhood to the afterwards?

My Fresno
is a poison that paints the sky
blueberry and tangerine and blush,
sculpts the sun and moon out of cherry-red clay.
I can talk to anyone about the apples
dangling in the open air, where our favorite planets used to be,
and we can laugh and cough
and take out our phones to save those polluted colors,
keep them in our pockets and our throats.
Fresno is the fruit basket of the world, everyone should know.
My father thrills at the sight
of Central Valley green grapes at day markets in puerto vallarta.

My Fresno is the result of redlining.
My Fresno was less expensive to raise a family in than gilroy, or at least it was in the year 2000.
My Fresno isn’t where I was born. I was actually born at clovis community hospital. fuck clovis.
My Fresno had to bus me into the gifted schools in low-income neighborhoods.

Morro Rock, My Happy Place

By Nina Perez Reed

You've served as a guide to many sailors in the open seas.
Your towering height and beauty bring me joy and peace.
You look over the sandy beach that surrounds you and are a sanctuary to birds and a witness to my tears during some of my most difficult moments.
Morro Rock, you are my happy place! You are what I need!
I become re-energized when standing on the large, gray and black boulders at your base.
The melodic sound of strong waves hitting the rocks are nature’s gift to me.

Fresno Doubt

By Thomas Nance

Was thick as the Tule fog
When I was a boy
And the December frost
Crunched under my shoes
As I walked slowly
Across my lawn
Onto Pico Street
Where, if I stopped
In the middle of the asphalt,
I could turn and turn and turn
And still all was grey.
The houses became almost
Imperceptible shadows if close
And nothing at all if farther away.
But my faith then led me back home.
There I was warm.
There my shoes dried,
And there the tiny beads of fog disappeared
From my hair, coat and pants as I waited
For my parents to wake
And promise me the sun
Would return to burn
Away the fog
And bring back a world
That I remembered
But could not see.

Golden Conflagration

By Julia Robles (College)

Once again, the season of fire draws near

A bunch of bugs plastered on

The windshield of my favorite time of year

When all your silent hopes are just a road away,

To justify the cost they complain about as steep

As the mountains of paper mache

Adorning the background, like

That elementary school play

Where I played the sentient frog

And there’s a taco stand on every street

As the sun sinks behind the Sierra Nevadas

That entraps you in with a sea of smog

The price to pay for proximity

To your cold Alaskan current

That does nothing to dull the drought

You can stop to see where your food is grown

On your way to your final destination, Frisco

See endless rows of blossoming trees

Just in time for my birthday

California I could bring myself to leave you

If I could take that “end-of continent-sadness” with me

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By Lola Xiong (8th Grade)

Fresno is sunny.

Fresno is fun to visit.

Many things to see.

Unearthing Home

By Sharon McClain

Sand grit thrashed cyan sea where I was born.

Coastal path stranded me while quaking earth tumulted my bones.

Slippage of plates tectonic, and familial.

My plot seven on the Richter scale.

I yearned for a home.

Fate lured me to this fertile fructuous valley.

Foothills like blue-backed whales flanked

this ancient, dormant inland sea

under azure opal skies.

I stream like snowmelt to velvety alluvium sanctuary.

I am home.

Mud Fight

By Bianca Nicole Hinojosa

Hands sticky with peach

I race to the crisp canal

giggle -- mud in flight