Be easy. No—Be smooth enough that you don’t have to be as hard as a four-year-old saying “hydrangeas” is what he’d say. He said it as slick as an ice cube sliding on itself or as a puck coasting toward goal. Maybe that’s what made him a Boston weed man, or maybe being a weed man made him say it, but either way I’m sure he’d be happier in California. His cousin told him that once but warned him it was hot as fresh tar. Though he would never leave his daughter, so it didn’t matter, but he loved it cold. Or rather, he loved bundling up, or was it he just loved shopping for clothes. In other words, he was a fashionista or ghetto fashionisto if there were such things. There are such things. Last we spoke, he had bought $400 sunglasses just because he liked the new brand Rascal—or was it he liked the new brand Rascal because they charged $400 for sunglasses? Last I saw him was at the beach. His brown skin glistening with purple orange sunset, sand, and smile. He said, Be smooth—backed heel first into the ocean.
is an educator, advocate, and writer of poetry, prose, scripts, and code from Smithfield, NC. Currently Director of the Elder Writing Project, a community-based outreach program of the Litquake Foundation that brings creative writing and storytelling workshops to retirement communities across San Francisco and Oakland as well as a coding instructor and advisor at the low-cost, custom-paced coding bootcamp Kickstart Coding in Oakland. Kevin is committed to helping nurture emerging writers and developers of all ages. He has a long history of volunteering and working with young writers as well during his tenure developing curriculum and teaching at Duke University’s Young Writers Camp, through Social Advocates for Youth (SAY) San Diego, at public and private grade schools throughout the bay area, and volunteering with 826 Valencia. He also serves on the board of the bay area reading series Quiet Lightning. Kevin is a Writers Studio Ralph Dickey Scholar and has received fellowships, grants, and awards from the San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Center for Cultural Innovation (CCI), Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, and the North Carolina Poetry Society. He is author of the chapbook How to Fall in Love in San Diegoand his words have recently appeared or forthcoming in The San Franciscan, Syzygy Magazine, The Cincinnati Review, North Carolina Literary Review, & more. Kevin holds a BA & BFA from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, MA from East Carolina University, as well as an MFA from San Diego State and for a little Black boy from Smithfield, NC believes he has been brought a mighty long way.
