Gabriel Cortez

Poet • Educator • Organizer • Boom Bap Enthusiast • “If blues developed under forced labor, hip-hop arose from the conditions of no work” – Jeff Chang

[Gabriel Cortez @GabrielMCortez]

s/o to all the poems I don't know how to write yet

[Academy of American Poets @POETSorg]

“Descending from a people [who] have experienced ‘diasporization’ across multiple generations [. . .] so deeply impacted by gentrification, I often wonder what it means to define ‘home.’”

—Gabriel Cortez
@GabrielMCortez
#AboutThisPoem

https://t.co/yfcYyLlWim

[Academy of American Poets @POETSorg]

This small sliver of Oakland, 
where the children ask you your favorite animal 
and the animal becomes your name.

––Gabriel Cortez
@GabrielMCortez
#PoemADay

https://t.co/yfcYyLmu7U

[Gabriel Cortez @GabrielMCortez]

What an honor to have this poem out in the world with @POETSorg

No more landlords

[Academy of American Poets @POETSorg]

This small sliver of Oakland, 
where the children ask you your favorite animal 
and the animal becomes your name.

––Gabriel Cortez
@GabrielMCortez
#PoemADay

https://t.co/yfcYyLmu7U

[Gabriel Cortez @GabrielMCortez]

Thank you @annamarie_yanny for believing in my story! And thank you @KALW for offering it a home

[Anna Marie Yanny @annamarie_yanny]

Give me a poetry story, any day.

I got to shadow @GabrielMCortez at Berkeley High School! Gabriel is the first poet-in-residence at Berkeley's @EcologyCenter.

Listen in on @KALW :
https://t.co/3bMrokpzRQ

[Anna Marie Yanny @annamarie_yanny]

Give me a poetry story, any day.

I got to shadow @GabrielMCortez at Berkeley High School! Gabriel is the first poet-in-residence at Berkeley's @EcologyCenter.

Listen in on @KALW :
https://t.co/3bMrokpzRQ

[Gabriel Cortez @GabrielMCortez]

🌵 I’m going on a little tour this Spring

Join me in Berkeley, where I’ll be sharing new work lifting up environmental justice, food and land sovereignty, and local lineages of resistance alongside an amazing cohort of local poets debuting new pieces from our workshop series.

[Gabriel Cortez @GabrielMCortez]

Not me crying to “Umi Says” first thing in the morning

[Litquake @Litquake]

Full event video out now! https://t.co/DqrX9TFrN7

As part of 2023's Out Loud series that highlights local BIPOC & LGBTQ+ writers. Curator @littlelomanto feat. @jen_anne_co @gabrielmcortez @fieldednotes Charisel Angelle Hector son of Hector

Sponsors: @sfoewd @ybgfestival

[Chapter 510 @chptr510]

High schoolers flexing their creative muscles! 💪🏾📝9th graders from Latitude High School wrote poems about their experience of Oakland with @GabrielMCortez during their site visit to the Dept. of Make / Believe. 📚🚀 #Latitude378 #DeptOfMakeBelieve #CareerPath #Writer #Poetry

[Gabriel Cortez @GabrielMCortez]

Bay Area Poets: apps due Sunday October 22nd!

Join me for an online writing workshop series creating poems to help audiences in Berkeley (and beyond) explore the lineages of resistance that shape their relationship to climate justice and food sovereignty

https://t.co/1aGvThB6aW

[Gabriel Cortez @GabrielMCortez]

Always a joy to big up the teachings of @zentronix and @favianna ❤️

[Nicola Gray @NickyJGray]

Really interesting session in the #1point8 Global Forum on NCDs and marketing - Excellent point made by @GabrielMCortez that 'culture shift precedes policy shift', and adolescents can lead culture shift as history shows @PMNCH @NCDChild @GlobalNCDsUK @UNESCOchairGHE @IAAHglobal

[Gabriel Cortez @GabrielMCortez]

#MartinLiutherKang

[Gabriel Cortez @GabrielMCortez]

We live in the timeline where they quoted Martin Luther King Jr in a Mortal Kombat game

[Gabriel Cortez @GabrielMCortez]

This has been one gift of being out of practice:

In returning to practice, you get to feel your way through things that, before, might have grown callused or absorbed into muscle memory.

You get to feel the ways you’ve grown soft.

[Gabriel Cortez @GabrielMCortez]

I’ve been crying as I write poems lately. They’re not even sad poems! They’re just true. It’s the act of distilling a feeling or idea into words, then hearing myself finally say it — even if it’s just in my own head — that is getting me.

[Gabriel Cortez @GabrielMCortez]

I’ve been crying as I write poems lately. They’re not even sad poems! They’re just true. It’s the act of distilling a feeling or idea into words, then hearing myself finally say it — even if it’s just in my own head — that is getting me.

[Gabriel Cortez @GabrielMCortez]

"Simple decoding of symbols, without the social dimension, is designed to produce compliant, passive readers, those who can become the good worker bees, unlikely to rebel or think critically." – @rick_ayers

[Gabriel Cortez @GabrielMCortez]

Bars by Rick Ayers: “Reading is a social activity, pursued within a context, in the presence of others, with access to prior knowledge... We must consider an interactive model of the reading process, the relationships among reader, text, and context.” https://t.co/b65vN3aijf

[Gabriel Cortez @GabrielMCortez]

@brandonwintpoet I was just talking about wanting to find a space to do this with others

[POCHO BOY MEETS WORLD @alan_chazaro]

A former student at Oakland School for the Arts, Leila Mottley, once submitted a collection of poems in my class that could’ve been a graduate thesis. She was in 10th grade at the time. Now she’s in bookstores everywhere. Love to see it 🥲🥲🥲 #writerslift