By Brian Dunlap

There’s a new reading series in town and last week, the second edition of “Trenches Full of Poets,” at Paige Against the Machine in Long Beach, featured four powerful local poets.

The evening was warm, the first heat that snuck into all corners of the Southland in quite some time. Without the need for a jacket, the sun setting after the reading began and being near Downtown Long Beach in a neighborhood of iconic California craftsmen bungalows, it felt like the first truly iconic Southland summer like evening since the pandemic began.

Inside, the skinny, shotgun style bookstore, was crowded. By my count, 22 audience members. The last time I had been to Page Against the Machine, was to host my reading featuring four DSTL Arts poets, the Wednesday before the pandemic shut down the country. It was great to be back. The reading was co-hosted by poets Nikolai Garcia and Mauricio Moreno.

The first poet to read was Lupe Limón Corrales, an undocumented angel, archivist and daughter who opened her reading with her two published poems from issue 11 of Dryland. She read poems capturing her Chicanx community in L.Á., mentioned the 110 North, driving across the L.Á. Basin. Family. Culture.

Page Against the Machine was suffocatingly warm, as if the heater was on full blast. But the shelves were still crowded with a hyper-curated selection of books and related material on activism and organizing, social and political movements, and socially-conscious living and sustainability and social justice literature. Finally, someone opened the front door.

The second reader to grace the mic was Andrés Sánchez, a trans masculine poet born in Mexico City, who migrated to the U.S. at the age of 5. They read mostly from their debut collection This Body, about their personal coming out story as a queer/trans person of color. One powerful poem was about how they never felt at home, never felt they truly belonged, growing up in the Southland, in Santa Ana or the other Orange County Cities their family moved to.

Through two poets, there had already been enough hard, unfiltered, underdiscussed truths, that snaps, head nods, and uh-huhs were becoming more frequent with each passing poem. The connections, identifying with each poet’s words, from the crowd of mostly people of color to the poets of color was warm and sent goosebumps across my skin.

This carried over to the third featured poet, Christian Lozada. He always refers to himself as the son of an immigrant Filipino and a descendent of the Confederacy. He read several poems from the collection of poetry he co-authored with Steve Hendrix Leave With More Than You Came With, about mixed-raced and multi-ethnic working class families through other displaced communities in the South, San Francisco, Hawai’i and San Pedro.

It was the final featured poet that put on the best performance of the evening. bridgette bianca read her poems with the anger, pride, humor and power to bring down the house. This poet and professor from South Central, her voice rang through the store as she read my favorite poem of hers, “a message from uppity negresses.”

…then i have to confirm
the rumors are true
i am better than you
and you can stay mad

That night, Lupie Limón Corrales, Andrés Sánchez, Christian Lozada and bridgette bianca used their words to push back against the institutional and societal bigotry that America refuses to confront. That affects and often terrorizes their everyday. That ring heavy and true.

When Nikolai Garcia closed out the evening, he explained “Trenches Full of Poets” is an eclectic reading series. From month to month the featured poets will be of different styles and backgrounds, ensuring the audience won’t get bored.

In typical fashion some people purchased the poets’ books, but all exited into the cooler night to converse with like-minded individuals, for the audience and features to continue to build community together.