The Monterey Bay Poetry Festival shows that poetry may be the last safe space for politics.

Poetry fans had a chance to participate in the 2025 Monterey Bay Poetry Festival, April 11-12, organized annually by local teacher and poet Stephanie Spoto, who is also the founder of Old Capitol Books in Monterey. 

There, in a tiny but cozy space that can fit a bit more than 20 people, an event called Nepotism took place on Saturday night. It was a great chance to hear local poets, as well as Chris Carr, a fantastic Black poet, photographer and rapper from Brooklyn, who came just for the occasion.

Each of five invited poets presented a few of their works, with Brian Sheffield hosting and reading his—much louder and performative—pieces than that of others.

Poet Heather Flescher read lines about her experience as a trans woman in Monterey County and the pain she experiences in her everyday life. She doesn’t go to restaurants and avoids contact with children since many trans people are—with no reason—associated with pedophilia. One of her pieces was about the seraphims, those highest of angels, whose only “job” is to praise God, “knowing that any instant it can be judged as inadequate, knowing that their existence is an internal balance on a knife edge, knowing nothing they ever do will secure their safety, providing love for god whose heart is as empty as his promises,” to quote.

Alex Jiménez, who recently moved to San Jose, presented, in a quiet, sweet-sounding voice her magical love poetry. She speaks of a communion possible between two souls; she says: “I was a cat once, and so were you. You, orange and me black. We were strays on the streets of early America. You brought me dead mice. For you I killed birds.”

Poetry by Leslie Haynes Little, originally from Texas, sounded large and cosmic—political, Biblical and feminist at once.

“Texas is saturated with blood sacrifice," one of her poems opens. “Crimson tinge tumbleweeds roll past the bodies of the dead—in Sutherland Springs, El Paso, Uvalde. What a skeleton of the country this is. Bullets torn through the flesh of the “U.S.A.! USA!"

Pilar Graham is a local poet, known for her poetry of personal experience. Her works talk about grief, heartbreak and madness. She wrote from her two volumes—Currents, and the most recent one, Falling. 

Finally—the cherry on the top—was Chris Carr, who electrified the audience with his exploration of morality, the fact that it’s not safe to be a nice, kind person and the advantages of projecting power.

What was striking to me was that the poems were chiefly about politics, and that it was politics that is not present or allowed in the official political discourse, or presented by any of the parties, including the one that calls itself the Left.

Poetry seems to be the last safe space to practice free speech. Hopefully, the current administration—after attacking the best American universities—will not find the way to infiltrate little bookstores and other places where such tiny, but important events take place.