Photo from tonyrobles.wordpress.com
Fil-Am poet and activist Tony Robles is set to release his new book, “Soup for the Storm,” a collection of poems about community in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
Born in San Francisco and now residing in North Carolina, Robles wrote some of the poems days after the storm. For him, the works were born from a sense of obligation, underscoring the collection’s sense of immediacy and urgency.
“I saw people come together to build community in the aftermath,“ he wrote. “I felt, as a poet, that it was my obligation to be a witness and to document this tragedy and how the people I lived near and beyond dealt with it.”
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Influenced by poets Langston Hughes, Gil Scott-Heron and his late uncle Al Robles, the San Francisco Arts Commission Award-winning author often blended personal experience with social consciousness in his works.
He explored themes of identity and labor in previous titles like “Thrift Store Metamorphosis” and “Where the Warehouse Things Are.”
His book, “Cool Don’t Live Here: A Letter to San Francisco,” is described as “a generational memory of San Francisco[…] As alienation, deportations and technological invasions are gutting its soul.”
His fifth poetry collection “Soup for the Storm,” published by Redhawk Publications, explores catastrophe, survival and grief. The book will launch in April.
Robles also plans to donate a portion of the collection’s proceeds to organizations providing relief to Hurricane Helene survivors.
The post Fil-Am poet Tony Robles unveils collection inspired by Hurricane Helene appeared first on USNewsRank.
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