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We’re excited to announce the launch of “Voices from the Hill” a podcast dedicated to showcasing the incredible talent right here in our literary backyard. As a proud member of this vibrant community, Telegraph Hill Arts & Literature believes our local authors deserve a platform to share not just their published works, but the stories behind them.
If you’re a Bay Area author interested in being on the show, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out to us at submissions@telhilit.org.
Welcome to Voices From the Hill, celebrating the vibrant literary voices of the San Francisco Bay Area. I'm your host, Jennifer Barone, along with Joseph Carboni, owner of Telegraph Hill Books. Each episode, we sit down with a local author to explore their creative process, inspirations, and the unique stories that shape our community. Today, we are joined by poet Andrew Paul Nelson, author of the recent poetry collection, How to Draw a Guillotine, and the owner of the Golden Sardine in North Beach, an intimate wine bar that has quickly become a cultural hub for Bay Area poets and writers. Through his thoughtful creation of wine, his literary journal Apocrypha, and his work organizing the Coit Tower poetry Club every first Friday, Andrew has helped create a vibrant welcoming space where community and creativity meet.
Jennifer Barone:We're so excited to dive into his creative process, his inspiration, and what he's exploring in his latest work and poetic life. Andrew Paul Nelson, thank you for being here.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Thank you, Jen.
Jennifer Barone:Yeah. Welcome to Voices from the Hill
Andrew Paul Nelson:I literally live a block away.
Jennifer Barone:Yeah. So we're gonna kick it off today with some poems from Andrew's book, How to Draw a Guiltine. So tell us what you've chosen to read today and also why it holds special meaning for you.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Well, we're on Grant Avenue, and this is called The People's History of Grant Avenue. Old Mussolini wannabes of North Beach, I caught you washing your dirty flutes off in the street. I entered your dreams and contrived within them a nightmare of clocks, spying on you as you plot the inevitable demise of time. Oh, lousy calendar, not a date worth keeping, untimely harvester of words. Rearrange your alleyways in hopes you might wander off into sunspots, even our memories of you disappear like the sounds you made before language.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Oh, death rattle blues, every goddamn poet here thinks they're a rock star. Every goddamn rock star thinks they're a poet. In truth, y'all are perfect. Colombian neckties mirror the blood on the slack wire. Speak, you natural born whisperers, you.
Andrew Paul Nelson:I recall your book burning, holding each other like a grudge, faceless and bathed in refracted light, armies of logger louts blindsided by love mirror the conquest of nature and man, I keep a piece of myself locked inside you. Oh, heavenly ping pong balls ebbing in see through houses, noxious blue too busy living and dying for poetry, Holy in stillborn gutters, street lips tied over what remains of tomorrow. Oh, eternal return of patchouli milkshake. Yeah, baby. It sure is hard to be a blue cheese lady in a hot sauce world.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Oh, faulty sewer drain as birdbath. Funny how things can be used towards accidental joy once they are broken. Oh, what is metaphor if not cold metal on stone? Who will write these poems if you won't?
Jennifer Barone:I love those poems so much.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Thank you.
Jennifer Barone:So much of your poetry, I think, is about the immediacy of being here, being present in this place. And you got your start, you know, pretty much out on the street. Yeah. 16th And Mission. That's right.
Andrew Paul Nelson:That's right.
Jennifer Barone:And now Coit Tower Poetry Club. I guess the themes in this particular book had to draw a guillotine. I wonder, you know, that you mentioned book burning, for instance, and there's the current social and political climate. Do you see, you know, the themes in this book as being touching on that a little bit, but also, being personal and introspective as well?
Andrew Paul Nelson:Yeah. The book was mostly written in 2020, so, I had kind of fallen out with poetry. Wasn't a huge part of my life. I don't know. How was that?
Jennifer Barone:How was it?
Andrew Paul Nelson:I know. Was weird. I had, like, a sales a wine sales job that kind of took over my life. And, yeah, I was still reading poetry. I was still writing a lot.
Andrew Paul Nelson:I think I was writing poems, but I never was finishing anything. Just wasn't I was no longer doing readings. I probably didn't do a reading for, like, five years.
Jennifer Barone:Oh, wow.
Andrew Paul Nelson:And I became kind of, like, secretly a poet. Like, all of my new friends in the wine sales community did not know that it was a part of my life, which I enjoyed keeping it secret. But suddenly in 2020, which I know was really tough time for a lot of folks, I had a lot of free time, and I spent that time listening to a lot of music and watching a lot of films and reading a lot and suddenly writing poems again and finishing poems again. Mhmm. And, yeah, 2020 was such a radical time to have time to do art.
Andrew Paul Nelson:And, also, in this neighborhood where I've lived for seventeen, eighteen years, 2020 and 2021, we lost, like, some of the biggest and most important, influential revolutionary poets of our community of this American poetic tradition. Lawrence passed away. Jack passed away. Dan DePrima passed away. Q r Hand passed away.
Jennifer Barone:Yes.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Michael McClure passed away. Al Young passed away, like, literally within, like, I don't know, eighteen months of each other. Mhmm. So I felt this, like, gap, like, this space. And I would look out the window every day and at North Beach, which I wasn't really going into because we were kinda stuck in our houses, and I was thinking a lot about keep what we can do to keep carrying the torch that they carried in the way that they carried it.
Andrew Paul Nelson:And I felt this both Caitlin, my wife, and I feel this, like, immense not pressure, but, like, privilege to continue to work in that way.
Jennifer Barone:Do you feel like a certain responsibility in a way to keep poetry? Because it's a living tradition. Yeah. And it's an evolving tradition. Yeah.
Jennifer Barone:You know, do you see a difference? I mean, a lot of the poets here that you and I know, you know, we looked up to these people and, like, we admire them. And with Coit Tower Poetry Club, I love, which happens every first Friday up at Coit Tower
Andrew Paul Nelson:Yeah.
Jennifer Barone:We, you know, honor a particular poet every month, which is really a beautiful tradition as well that is kind of a new tradition that you've started in our neighborhood. But there's a certain honoring, and I feel like City Lights Bookstore is part of that too. It's like an honoring of these these waves of poets that have come in. But do you see a difference between, let's say, you know, our generation or the younger generations coming up reading on the street corner, reading out at the venues for poetry and Golden Sardine as opposed to, yeah, the generation that is is kind of transitioning now.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Sure. Definitely, there's a difference, but I definitely feel like whether the whether your average American realizes this, like, it's poetry is a massive thing, and it kinda always has been. In every part of the world, in every big city, in every small city, there is a poetry scene. Right. Like, there are poets.
Andrew Paul Nelson:There have always been poets. It is an art form that has always existed, will continue to exist even if it's not connected to any type of financial gain, which I think is why it's so special and appealing to a lot of folks.
Jennifer Barone:Let's just clarify that it's not connected to any financial gain. Exactly.
Andrew Paul Nelson:It's not something you do because because you wanna be famous or make money. I always think about Charlie Getter who's, like, really important in a lot of our poet poetry journeys and very inspirational poet in our lives and has a line in one of his poems about how poetry is an affliction and
Jennifer Barone:Yes.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Those of us who got it, we got it bad. And if you don't got it, then you shouldn't do it. Yeah. I've always felt that that, like, I didn't really choose it. It's not something that I if I were to think about it, maybe that's why for five years I didn't write poems because I was like, this is a lot of my energy and space and time, and I could be using that other ways that actually have some return on investment.
Andrew Paul Nelson:But, yeah, it's something that I don't know. Do you feel that way? That it's something you have to do.
Jennifer Barone:A 100%. I mean, I'm like, what is I mean, it's making me think your question of, like, what is the ROI of poetry? Like, why are we so obsessed with it? Why do we feel like we can't live without it? Why do I mean, I feel like I cannot live without poetry in my life.
Jennifer Barone:Like, I can't live without writing it. I can't live without hearing it Yeah. Reading it, being an active, like, participant in it. It's just something that I feel like if it were missing in my life, like, I don't know.
Andrew Paul Nelson:I don't want it to sound like there's no return on investment because I feel like like, for example, I was part of why I got out of poetry is because I got was in I was in bands. We were writing a lot of music. We were touring, putting out albums, and that kinda became the focus of my creative energy, and that ended. And then I never replaced that with anything, but I always felt that with music for twenty years of my life, I put so much into it, and I got such so so little out of it.
Jennifer Barone:Mhmm.
Andrew Paul Nelson:And I've always felt since, like, I first started hanging out on the street corner and became a part of a poetry scene that even the tiny bit that I've ever given to poetry or to my poetry community have always gotten back 10 times more.
Jennifer Barone:Like, in what way?
Andrew Paul Nelson:It's so it's like it's like a a secret group of similar weirdos that all have the same fetish that doesn't make sense to anyone else but each other, like, back to Charlie's poem. And, you know, I would I would see like, first time I saw Jonathan Siegel read poems, first time I saw Sam Saks read poems, first time I saw M. G. Martin read poems, I was just like, holy shit. This is something I wanna be a part of.
Andrew Paul Nelson:This is something that is so fulfilling in so many ways to me. And then to then be writing and performing poems with them, that was like I remember being 22, 23 years old and just being like, this is the greatest experience of my life. I felt so a part of something, and I felt like what we were we were doing was absurd, but also important, and I still feel that way. And now with the with having a book store and a poetry venue in arguably the most important poetry neighborhood in the world, we just get so much from it. And I meet people from all over the world every day that are weirdos like us, that this is their life, and it doesn't make sense.
Andrew Paul Nelson:And that's partly why they love it so much.
Jennifer Barone:I wanna, like, ask you about your personal work as well, your personal poetry. Like, do you see your poetry evolving from your earliest, like, street and underground work to this collection, this new book that you put out? Or are there, like, threads that remain consistent through both?
Andrew Paul Nelson:Yeah. I mean, I'm sure I hope it's different. I think, like and I had a I had a manuscript, ten, fifteen years ago when I was first getting into poetry that I that at the time, I think, with a few other folks, we were all trying to get published. Mhmm. And I never did really pursue it.
Andrew Paul Nelson:And then ten years later, looking back on that manuscript, I'm like, I'm pretty glad I didn't publish I don't think I would be stoked about it. Now, I think I'm still working through the same relationship to language. My background is philosophy, and I used to get, like, deducted points on philosophy papers in college because of the language I would use. And I always thought, you know, your your papers are being graded by, like, a TA and not the actual professor, and they're, like, deducting points because you used a word they had to look up. And I was, like, reading a lot and discovering all these new words, and, like, I would keep a journal every time I would learn a word that I never heard before, and I would try to use it in context and use it in writing.
Andrew Paul Nelson:And a lot of my poems came out of, like, all this new language to me. Mhmm. And it became very clear that, like, philosophy school and philosophy papers was not the space for that.
Jennifer Barone:Yeah. In poetry, there's the philosophic component Totally. Into poetry.
Andrew Paul Nelson:So, yeah, culmination of moving to this neighborhood and deciding that, you know, the best use of language to for me was going to be writing poems Mhmm. And just liberating it from anyone, putting, you know, pluses or minus on whatever word I chose Yeah. Totally revolutionized revolutionized my relationship relationship to to to language. I think it's totally different than it was then. I'm not screaming poems on the street to be heard, which was, like, the first couple of years.
Andrew Paul Nelson:But I think I'm still angry about the state of the world. Yeah. And I have a difficult time. This book has been finished for many years, and I've had a difficult time figuring out what the next thing is because I feel like I'm still angry and even more angry than I was when that book when I was writing that book, and I don't wanna write about the same thing anymore. But I can't seem to get past the moment that we live in.
Jennifer Barone:Do you feel like there's a responsibility in the poet to be speaking out on these kinds of issues or creating, like, change through their work?
Andrew Paul Nelson:I think yes and no. I think that if you're a poet and you are actively creating poetry in a world that does not know what to do with it, that in and of itself, regardless of what you're writing about, is a revolutionary act. Mhmm. Like, people that are like, you're not a revolutionary poet if you don't use this word or that word or say this thing or that thing in your poem, I think are kinda missing the point. I think poetry in and of itself is not normal.
Andrew Paul Nelson:It's not status quo. It is it is, an affront to the way that people use language every day and become used to. So I think it is radical always no matter what it is or what it is about. But then taking that and saying, okay. With with having that potential, you're you're totally free to do whatever you want with that language.
Andrew Paul Nelson:What are you going to do with it? And maybe because of the tradition in this neighborhood and the people that got me into poetry, like the my eye opening moment with poetry is Amiri Baraka and still kind of my the the thing that I read the most and think the most about. Yeah. And being a that being inspiring to me, Ferlinghetti being inspiring to me, the poet the the radical revolutionary poets of this generation being wildly inspiring to me, I feel like yeah, I can't really write poems about the sky or flowers or
Jennifer Barone:the park
Andrew Paul Nelson:or whatever.
Jennifer Barone:What do you consider revolutionary?
Andrew Paul Nelson:That there I mean, the premise of the book is that there are way more of us that don't have the financial power and influence than there are that do. And as soon as the as soon as the large group of us realize that collectively we do have this power, it would not be that difficult to change that. There's a massive the the odds are stacked against the billionaire class of fascist people obsessed with money. And the French Revolution was, in the grand scheme of things, not that long ago. So I think the the main the main the main aesthetic of the book is to imagine to use language to imagine things differently.
Andrew Paul Nelson:And I think that's like I was saying earlier, like, poetry will always do that even if it's not directly about change, radical change, even if it's not built on metaphorical structures about radical change. It's giving you the opportunity to think differently because it's not fitting into the way things are.
Jennifer Barone:There's something about Koitao poetry Club, also Golden Sardine, reading on the street corner, succeed in mission that there's this collective energy where it's not only about the poet that's reading, but it's about, like, the whole group energy. It's like it's about people being actively together and in a public space too, and there's not many public spaces together. Like, in Europe, we got the piazza, and they were trying to build a piazza here. And we kind of have, you know, Washington Square Park and Coit Tower is like our piazza. But it's, like, very difficult to find places where people can gather Totally.
Jennifer Barone:For free. Yeah. Let's just say, or have community where they could share ideas. But so in that respect, I feel like these places that you are creating and are have always been a part of are revolutionary just in and of themselves.
Andrew Paul Nelson:I mean, lot of that comes from Viracocha.
Jennifer Barone:Right.
Andrew Paul Nelson:And, like, Jonathan Siegel met on the street corner. He ran a series I forgot when called poetry mission briefly in the backroom at Dalva. And that was when I first was getting into poetry and first hanging out with that crew of people.
Jennifer Barone:Those are, Dalva.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Some of my favorite memories. There's a poet, Ed Bowers. Yes. And Brandon published a very long piece of his about bedbugs, which is to this day one of my all time favorite poems. I have to find it.
Andrew Paul Nelson:I don't know where it is. Brandon probably has it. But it's like a fifteen, twenty minute poem about bedbugs. And, the book release party was at that backroom in Dolve's part of Poetry Mission, and it was just Ed Bowers, me, Charlie, Brandon, Shy, and Jonathan. And Ed got up to the microphone, and he had a bag of of jalapenos.
Andrew Paul Nelson:And he said, if you don't like my poems, you can eat these. And he threw them at us, and then he read for, like, twenty five minutes. And I was like, this is the greatest experience of my life. I love this so much.
Jennifer Barone:I feel like we should have a storytelling night where we tell out all the crazy things that have happened at the poetry.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Brandon is the is the the scribe. He's got all the stuff down. He was at all of those things. But they wanted to turn that room in the back of Medalla into, a bar. Yeah.
Andrew Paul Nelson:So they kicked Jonathan and all the poets out, and Jonathan didn't wanna just be reading on the street. So he opened he came up with his idea to open I'm still not exactly sure what Viracocha was or what they sold. It was, like, kind of an antique store. It was, like, a place for local artisans to sell their things. And then downstairs, it was a art venue, and it was like it was like nothing I've ever experienced.
Andrew Paul Nelson:It was and at that that time in my life when I really felt that that that community was exploding, there was so much opportunity, so many poets, people getting coming through here and being like, there's so much going on here. I wanna be a part of this. But it was pretty apparent early on that, like, that wasn't financially a stable business. Mhmm. And it was, John kept it up for, I don't know, six or seven years.
Jennifer Barone:Mhmm.
Andrew Paul Nelson:It was really special, but it never it it was it never seemed like there was any way itself. Mhmm. And it's the same thing with remember Emerald Tablet up here, which was another really important poetry space in the neighborhood that that was the last time I saw Mary Baraka Reed was there. Like, some of my favorite readings were there. We used to host a series there as well.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Wow. And, you know, they couldn't legally sell alcohol. There was no way to make money to pay the rent there. That space lasted, I don't know, two, three years maybe. Mhmm.
Andrew Paul Nelson:So it was clear to both Caitlin and I that, like, we wanted something we wanted a poetry space exactly like you're talking about, a community space, for poetry in the neighborhood, but it had to make money. So the idea was, like, been working in wine for so long. I had helped, other friends open wine bars that were very successful right away and kinda saw that, okay. I could open a wine bar. I know how to do it.
Andrew Paul Nelson:I know how to make it successful financially. What if we opened a wine bar that was also a poetry bookstore and the the wine sales element could support the poetry element? That's what we did.
Jennifer Barone:Tell us a little bit about the name Golden Sardine and your inspiration
Andrew Paul Nelson:for it. Golden Sardine is number 21 in City Light's pocket poet series written by Bob Kaufman, street poet laureate emeritus of this neighborhood. I would say the most important I would say the most influential poet of his generation. I think a lot of the folks of that generation that are more well known than Bob are riffing on Bob in a lot of ways and, like, kinda speak Bob. Bob, like, almost invented language in a way of in a way of a poetic form.
Andrew Paul Nelson:And I think a lot of I think that gets lost. Mhmm. Yeah. I don't know. It was always gonna be something that paid the name was always gonna be something that paid homage to the historical poetry culture of this neighborhood.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Also, it's always sounded like a North Beach bar restaurant. Like, it sounded like it already existed, and it fit into this like, there were so many spaces in the neighborhood historically, and they had these absurd names that had nothing to do with what they did. It's like that across the street.
Jennifer Barone:Live worms.
Andrew Paul Nelson:We have live worms, which is still great, but that across the street was the coexistence bagel shop.
Jennifer Barone:Oh, wow.
Andrew Paul Nelson:They did not sell bagels. It was a bar. The Spaghetti Factory was right here, and it did not sell spaghetti. It was a bar. There was a place called The Place that was right here, and it was just a bar and poetry space.
Andrew Paul Nelson:We still have Mario's Bohemian Cigar Store Cafe that has not sold cigars since, like, the fifties, sixties.
Jennifer Barone:But you do sell sardines.
Andrew Paul Nelson:I know. Yeah. Which is kind of a trick because we we sell a lot of sardines, and that's because people think we're a side sardine bar because tinned fish has become such a thing.
Jennifer Barone:Yeah. With some of the most beautiful packaging.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Yeah. And my background with wine and food is Spain and Portugal. So, like, I've all I've yes. I've been into it for for many years. I did not know that it had become such a thing, and, it's funny.
Andrew Paul Nelson:We kind of we allow for that misconception to exist. We really correct people, but we'll we'll always let people know, like, oh, we're actually named after this book of poems. We're actually not a sardine bar.
Jennifer Barone:I think it's such a cool story. I of of the name of the place. But so this, you know, wine bar is very infinite, very beautiful. Beautiful. It's It's one one of words, I think.
Jennifer Barone:Right? Like, most romantic date night place, that's a bar. But it is a cultural hub as well. I mean, you sell wine, beautiful food. You have pop up, you know, chefs come in, like, specialty winemakers come in for tastings.
Jennifer Barone:It's got so much rich culture that's happening in this very small space. Yeah. And you sell books and you sell wine and you have events, which is just incredible. So you're approaching your two year anniversary come January 25. It's gonna be a big party there to celebrate.
Jennifer Barone:But during this two years that you've had, like, have there been some, like, key moments or, like, incredible things that have happened in this space that were sort of beyond surprising or beyond your imagination of what you wanted for this space?
Andrew Paul Nelson:Yeah. It it happens all the time. And it's like running a small business, just you and one other person is, like, sixty to eighty hours a week. Like, it's so much time, and it's so draining. And I am, like, completely exhausted all the time.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Like, if I stop, I just fall asleep. Like, at Thanksgiving, I was asleep by, like, 08:00.
Jennifer Barone:The turkey does that.
Andrew Paul Nelson:So I forget some yeah. Was yeah. Over the
Jennifer Barone:food. But,
Andrew Paul Nelson:I forget sometimes about, like, why we're doing it. And then every time there's a reading upstairs, it is, like, blatantly obvious to me that this is even more than we could have imagined. Like, I've always kept the wine part of my life and the poetry part of my life very separate, and was pretty nervous for years about marrying those two. And it just made, like, total sense the whole time.
Jennifer Barone:Do you think there's a connection between wine and poetry?
Andrew Paul Nelson:I think a lot of poets I know drink pretty heavily. And other than that On
Jennifer Barone:the flip side of that, like, I feel like winemakers, especially, like, small boutique, like, specialty winemakers, they often talk about wine as making wine as being, like, a bottled poetry, you know, sometimes. But, like, yeah, like, the storytelling sometimes behind their experience of even growing it.
Andrew Paul Nelson:I don't know. They're they're still separate in my mind for some reason. I haven't found that.
Jennifer Barone:You haven't bought you haven't really, truly married the two yet.
Andrew Paul Nelson:It's not incremental. We publish a we publish a magazine called Living Poets, and there is, it's mostly poets. There's a couple of, not, like, prose in there as well. And there's one reminiscing from one of our favorite winemakers in Napa, Steve Mathiasen, who in the nineties was a was a bike messenger in San Francisco when, like, being a bike messenger was like the you were like God's gift to the world. And he has these very fond memories of him and his crew bike messengers rolling through North Beach and getting off work and all coming to North Beach.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Every time I see him and every time he comes to the bar, he's always so excited to be in North Beach. He wants to tell these stories, and I was like, why don't you write this for us and we'll put it in our magazine? So, like, in the magazine, there is three or four pages by Steve Mathiason on on North Beach.
Jennifer Barone:Tell us about this magazine. Can people submit to it, or
Andrew Paul Nelson:how does how does it work? It's more of, like, there's an amazing scene in the Bay Area right now that is like we have such access to because we are a bookstore and an event space. So it is poems we either saw read at the bar or I don't get to go to a lot of readings anymore, but I try as much as
Jennifer Barone:I can to still get out to you.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Yeah. It's not the same. It was just a it's like a list of 20 of the the the poets in the Bay Area that I'm most obsessed with and either saying, hey. I saw this piece. I would love this piece for the magazine, or asking them, like, hey.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Can you send us three pieces and we'll pick our favorite? Mhmm. It's it's currently not a submission based thing.
Jennifer Barone:So it's curated.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Yeah. And the first issue just came out a couple months ago.
Jennifer Barone:And we can buy this at Golden
Andrew Paul Nelson:Cycle. At the bar. Hopefully, we put it out every year. It took me two years to make this one on top of, like, running the bar. So there's not a ton of time to do it, but it's certainly worthwhile.
Jennifer Barone:You're, like, publishing books. You're publishing a a literary journal. You're running the events. I mean, that's so much work. It really is.
Jennifer Barone:Like, how do you balance the two?
Andrew Paul Nelson:I don't. I don't. I just I try to answer as many emails as I can as quickly as I can, but it's like I lose every day. Yeah. I'm gonna make a list at end of this year of all the things I do and be like, who wants to do some of these things?
Andrew Paul Nelson:Because, I mean, I've stepped back from a lot of things. Like, I'm not involved in Koi Tower Poetry Club whatsoever. And you and I should talk about Ferlinghetti Day this year because I was way too involved in it last year, and it was amazing, particularly the reading that you were a part of at the historical society with all of Lawrence's things. But, like, I can't organize I think I organized eight readings all in one day. Wow.
Andrew Paul Nelson:And, yeah, I don't have time. I don't have the time or energy for that.
Jennifer Barone:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Andrew Paul Nelson:So hopefully, someone else can pick that up.
Jennifer Barone:Maybe you can just host a part at Golden Sardine.
Andrew Paul Nelson:I think eventually the bar will run itself more, and that'll create more time and space to do to focus more on the making the publishing element more legit, like getting distribution, trying to get books in stores and stuff, which currently we don't really do because we can sell most of it through the bar. Mhmm.
Jennifer Barone:Yeah. Where where do you where are you thinking of taking the publishing arm next?
Andrew Paul Nelson:I we would love for it to be real. It's just not something I've ever done, and there isn't, like, that I know that I know of just like, here's what you do if you want to have a legitimate small press. And what's cool is there is particularly since we're a bookstore now, like, every day, there's, like, 20 new small poetry presses. And every major publishing company still puts out poem poetry even though it's, like, know, since we have public service. Like, they're not making money on it either.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Like, it's still a massive growing medium. Why? Why? Have no idea. I like I said, I think it's a human thing that exists everywhere and always has and always will.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Mhmm. Whether times are good, whether times are bad Yeah. People are always gonna be writing poems and trying to get people to read them.
Jennifer Barone:Is the Apocrypha Apocrypha Journal different from Living Poets?
Andrew Paul Nelson:Yes. That was the original publication, but that is no longer. And so that was last year we put out a magazine.
Jennifer Barone:Okay.
Andrew Paul Nelson:And then this year, it's called Living Poets.
Jennifer Barone:Okay. So it's
Andrew Paul Nelson:changed Yes. It'll go through. It'll go on as Living Poets.
Jennifer Barone:And is the press name the same? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay.
Jennifer Barone:Well, let's hear another poem.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Sure. Yeah. Wait. That was yours. This is a poem for Arthur Russell.
Andrew Paul Nelson:The award for best dream goes to crater faced cowboy, Professor Moonlight, whose only regret was never having had one, who chose to be abandoned, terribly infantile self saboteur, guardian angel of tramps and Marbleau men, latchkey desert wanderers and disappearing artists. All your leftover secrets hidden away inside metamorphic love, safe and sound in your East Village tape recorder, your unfinished manifestos leave a pretty corpse. Volume after volume of lust well lived, a junky magician's catalog, a five story walk up you breathe famous on both sides. And the award for best dream goes to old mesmerous kitchen conjurer, Iowataw Grass Whisperer, a real hole in the floor, a transcendental portal connecting this leaky basement to the all night disco and free lunch program. Follow the flashing emergency exit signs to the clever trail of Eucharist on Fire, from the window at the top of the stairs to the cello's only orgy beneath Saint Christopher Street Pier, how come nobody likes you, Eli?
Andrew Paul Nelson:All bare bones, fragmented form, a simple dog all heavy in heaven. Crude renderings of an afterlife lilting shapeless like a dead end street. You surrender raw finality of organs, amorphous febrile phantasmagoria, and the award for best dream goes to Lonely Heart Nightingale, death memory miracle worker, a midnight minstrel ambling the empty avenues at dawn, tongue in hand, every streetlight a lucid reminder of timelessness, each season returning your warmth eternal in spring, you are yourself. In summer, total anarchy and you are yourself in fall, though you have no fear of drifting back into formless animality and you are yourself in winter, though the clock hustles like the wind and you're eager to forget the killer inside you, Vagabond, eclipsed moon apostle, keeper of irreversible time. On Sundays, death comes over, we get high and watch Days of Heaven, while the winos in Washington Square Park stage walkouts against the paper bag tacks, Benjamin Franklin tosses his time capsule into the sea.
Andrew Paul Nelson:My ghost muse sits cross legged in a crater on the moon, heavy as America, gazing up at the stoop and dreaming.
Jennifer Barone:Being in this neighborhood, because you mentioned Washington Square Park in there the people on the street, the city and this neighborhood has changed a lot and is always kind of, like, evolving, but there was something that drew you here. Yeah. And there's something that still keeps you here, and there's something that's alive here for But tell us about your experience in North Beach.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Man. I moved here in 2007. It was the neighborhood. I went to USF originally, and it was kinda insular. Like, people didn't really leave USF, or if they did, they went to, like, the hate or they went to the beach.
Andrew Paul Nelson:North Beach was, like, exotic, and I'm from a really small town. So I remember, like, the first few times walking up and down Columbus, walking up Telegraph Hill, and just being like, I've never seen anything like this. There's so much life. It's such a beautiful neighborhood. Like, just the aesthetics of the the neighborhood, the the way it sits on the hill, the views everywhere.
Andrew Paul Nelson:It's just the most beautiful place. And and then city lights is unlike anything that maybe exists on earth. And speaking of free community spaces, like, I would go in that basement and just read
Jennifer Barone:Yeah.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Every day.
Jennifer Barone:Or the poetry room.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Or the Poetry Room and just read every day. Yeah.
Jennifer Barone:It's the most amazing poetry room.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Do that. You can still take six hours out of your day and go to city lights, and no one's gonna hassle you. It's it was always meant to be exactly what you're talking about. That was always Lawrence's idea, and it's still that, like, whatever, seventy years later. That's incredible in that those types of spaces, even, like, in the neighborhood I was talking about, this space used to be this.
Andrew Paul Nelson:This space used to this. All these spaces used to be poetry spaces. Mhmm. And they've all gone by the wayside, but City Lights still exists. And first time I saw Mary Baraka read was at City Lights, and that kind of sparked the poetry thing in me.
Andrew Paul Nelson:And still, I try to go to as many readings there as I can, and it's so special.
Jennifer Barone:Yeah. This little, like, neighborhood is only maybe just a few blocks long, but it's so chock full of stuff. Like, I mean, the fact that I've lived here, like, twenty years and I still love it Yeah. Says a lot.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Yeah. And, you know, I mean, you you still meet people, but, like, twenty years ago, fifteen years ago, you would you met more of the old weirdos of North Beach. Like, there's so many
Jennifer Barone:The characters.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Strange, beautiful, why do you exist? Even if they're not poets, they're like poetic characters. Like, fact that you're a person and a thing in the world, and because of, like, rent control, you've been able to stay in San Francisco for forty, fifty years. It's amazing. Like, so many places don't get to have those things.
Andrew Paul Nelson:And sadly, that generation, like the poets we're talking about, are all passing on. So, like, who's gonna be the next generation of North Beach weirdos?
Jennifer Barone:We're the new characters.
Andrew Paul Nelson:But we're we're Yeah. Kind of the old character. I mean, we're in the middle there. We're like the we're not cool anymore, but we're we're not, like, old school enough to be old school, and we're not, like, new on the block to be new on the block. So we're, like, in this weird gray area.
Jennifer Barone:I have never considered myself cool, but Yeah.
Andrew Paul Nelson:So I think about that a lot. So the space is is hopefully encouraging there to be an existence of the North Beach weirdo that people wonder how it is that this person in this place can exist. Although that's changing a lot.
Jennifer Barone:Yeah. I noticed you and Caitlin also travel quite a bit. Like, you've been in Europe and maybe going also to see, like, Shakespeare and Company, bookstore, and places like that. But what do you what do you feel like in terms of traveling and then sometimes coming back to this neighborhood of, like, you know, the international poetry communities and literary pockets.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Yeah. I mean, North Beach has such a name in poetry all over the world. City Lights has such a name all over the world. The poets from this from the community that influenced, you know, a lot of us, influenced a lot of people all over the world as well. It's, like, the same kind of starting points for a lot of folks.
Andrew Paul Nelson:I love coming back to San Francisco. I love flying in and seeing the city, and I definitely when we when we do leave, which is totally necessary to get out, get perspective, but, like, I love coming back. It's my favorite feeling. I feel rejuvenated and, like, refreshed in a way so I can look at this opportunity that we have, like, with the space that we run to continue that legacy of the neighborhood. Yeah.
Andrew Paul Nelson:It's super exciting.
Jennifer Barone:Like, people coming from all over the world coming through Golden Sardines Sure. As well. Like, do you see, like, a collaboration or a conversation also happening across borders because of your cultural hub?
Andrew Paul Nelson:I I mean, sure. Not none that I none that I can pinpoint, but the space is there for that. And poetry is that language that can connect those things. Like, when we were in Paris, we went it was Bob Kaufman's hundredth birthday this year in April, and that was a really special day in the neighborhood. There's a lot of readings everywhere.
Jennifer Barone:This was in Paris?
Andrew Paul Nelson:No. Well, this was here in North Beach in April. And then in the in June, we went to Paris, and we found a bunch copies of Kaufman in French. And so everywhere we went, we would try to get people to read read Kaufman in French. We went to Baudelaire's grave, and we in honor of Bob's hundredth year, we read Kaufman in both French and English to Baudelaire's grave.
Jennifer Barone:Oh my goodness. Yeah. Did poetry bring you and Caitlin together?
Andrew Paul Nelson:Totally. Yeah. I mean, it was in that time where it was kind of a secret thing that not everyone knew. And the second that I met her, I made it very clear that, actually, this is the whole the rest of my personality is a is a ruse, is a trick. Mostly, I just wanna write poems.
Andrew Paul Nelson:I had friends in the wine industry I remember telling too, and I was, like, really deep into wine sales and not much else that, like, ultimately, I just wanna stop all of this and just write.
Jennifer Barone:Just write.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Like, I know I have stuff that's unfinished that I wanna finish. I I and I I never felt like it was over. I always knew it'd come back. It was just like like kinda like not looking at something for a while so they can go back and look at it. Mhmm.
Andrew Paul Nelson:And Caitlin's a poet as well.
Jennifer Barone:Yes.
Andrew Paul Nelson:So yeah.
Jennifer Barone:Do you write together?
Andrew Paul Nelson:No. We've we've tried something. We've done some things together. We're more like, you know, she's probably my first editor, and I'm if she'll let me look at something, like and I'm yeah.
Jennifer Barone:Are you both secretive about your work?
Andrew Paul Nelson:Yeah. To me, it's not really a I love, working on, like, getting edits from, like, poets I respect. Like, this book is one of the editors is our friend Lauren Parker, who's one of the, editors for the magazine as well and, like, one of my favorite Bay Area poets lives in Oakland. And the first meeting we had on my manuscript was like, she went through every line and is like, why? Why this?
Andrew Paul Nelson:Why not that? And it was so great because it it makes you even if, like, she challenged me on this should be this like, I don't think a lot of changes came out of that experience, but it made me justify and think about what I had written. Like, I don't I never sit down and write a poem. Like, a poem will take me weeks, months, years often. So, like, every word and where it sits is has been changed a 100 times, and I've decided on this.
Andrew Paul Nelson:But then someone challenging you on it forces you to, like, defend it and understand what you were doing in a much different way. Mhmm. And I love that. That was super fun. I think that's something that a lot a lot of I don't know.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Maybe I don't if this is your experience. A lot of poets are so it's so intimate to them. Like, their work is so almost not private, but, like, they would never let you edit their manuscript or say a word about the way that they wrote a poem
Jennifer Barone:Yeah.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Because it's like an affront to their character. It's like, no. No. We're just we're both artists. We both work in the same medium, and I think perspective is good.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Yeah. I'm all about editing.
Jennifer Barone:Yeah. It's good to get that objective Yeah. On on your book, on your writing. So it sounds like you might have a new manuscript in the works.
Andrew Paul Nelson:No. Hell no. I wish.
Jennifer Barone:Well, I'm
Andrew Paul Nelson:gonna I need another global pandemic to finish
Jennifer Barone:my book. No. Let's not
Andrew Paul Nelson:I also need, like, a month off, so whatever we can do.
Jennifer Barone:Yeah. You need you need some carved out time so that you could be focusing on your writing. Well, we're gonna end our our interview on this one question. So I feel like because you've lived in the city so long, you've experienced so much or so you're you're basically creating these spaces for our poetry culture to thrive and survive and evolve. But looking back on your journey here, if you could give advice to a young poet moving to San Francisco today who's looking to cut their teeth in the poetry scene, either get out on the street or just kind of, get involved in the poetry community, what would your advice then be?
Jennifer Barone:Like, where would you tell them to go? What would you tell them to do? Who would you tell them to seek out?
Andrew Paul Nelson:Oh, man. There's so many I feel like it's getting closer to, like, when you and I first met where there was so many readings, happening, and I feel like that's happened again. If you don't know about Decentered Arts, it's friends of ours, Liz and Ria, that put it on, and they have I don't know. Maybe they put together, like, one or two events a week. A lot of them have open mics attached to them.
Andrew Paul Nelson:There's one called Genblend that we're sort of a part of that happens every first Thursday, so it'll be this Thursday, that is meant to connect and this is something that we try to do as well at the bar, and it's connect different generations of artists. So it's not just, like, one scene and one age group, but it's, like, multiple different scenes, multiple age groups all reading together. And that has, an open mic portion as well. My favorite reading in the city, and I don't get to go very often, but I will try every other month to leave early on a Thursday from work to go down to the mission to medicine for nightmares. There's a series there that Josiah has been running called, Speaking Ashalot, that is, like, unlike any open mic I've ever been to because it's it's a lot of people from the same community that are really, really fantastic poets.
Andrew Paul Nelson:And it's like it's more of a salon where they're all sharing new work together, and they're all incredible. It's not it's not your average open mic where, like, some bad comedian wanders up at some point and tells really terrible jokes. It's a it's a it's yeah. It's the best reading I go to whenever I get to go to readings, and I always leave like, we were talking about earlier, we put something into something and you get so much back. I always leave with feeling so excited, and that's such a the fact that that space exists is also kind of like a miracle to me.
Andrew Paul Nelson:And every time I walk in there, feel like I'm in a dream, but it's, like, not a dream. Mhmm. And then I would go find Charlie Getter somewhere and just follow him around. Follow him around for a couple of months. If you can survive that, then you'll be then you'll be great.
Andrew Paul Nelson:You'll be good.
Jennifer Barone:If you meet Charlie, it'll be a good time.
Andrew Paul Nelson:For sure. The guy leaves, leaves, and breathes poetry all day, every day. It's his entire existence and has been for as long as anyone's known about this.
Jennifer Barone:Hallelujah. Yes. It is such a joy and a pleasure to have read with you, to know you
Andrew Paul Nelson:Thank you. You too.
Jennifer Barone:Collaborate with you and have, like, fun events together. And the the creation of Golden Sardine has been just, like, such an incredible, like, boon for this neighborhood and this community to have this hub that you've created with Caitlin. So thank you for the Golden Sardine, thank you for your friendship.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Yeah. Me too. Thank you.
Jennifer Barone:Thank you so much, Andrew Paul Nelson. Check out his book, How to Draw a Guillotine. Go get it at Golden Sardine. Go get it at your local independent bookstores, including Telegraph Hill Books and others. And for listeners who'd like to learn more about Andrew Paul Nelson and his work, you can visit goldensardinesf.com or on Instagram at golden sardine s f, And you can experience live local poetry events at the Golden Sardine every first Friday, which is a really fun event all throughout this neighborhood.
Jennifer Barone:But definitely go to Golden Sardine at 6PM first Friday of the month for an incredible poetry reading that's personally curated. And come and celebrate the Golden Sardine's two year anniversary. There's gonna be food, incredible wine, incredible poetry. Sunday, January 25, yours truly will be reading there as well as many great other poets. And find, yeah, find his books around the neighborhood at your local independent bookstores.
Jennifer Barone:Thanks, Andrew.
Andrew Paul Nelson:Thank you, Jen and Joseph.
Jennifer Barone:This podcast is brought to you by Telegraph Hill Arts and Literature. If you enjoyed today's episode, please follow, subscribe, and leave us a review. Visit tellhighlit.org to find out about our local If events such as author talks, writing workshops, and more. Consider making a donation to support our public programs. If you you are a Bay Area author interested in being on the show, we'd love to hear from you.
Jennifer Barone:Reach out to us at submissions@TelHiLit.org. Thanks again for tuning in. I'm Jennifer Barone along with Joseph Carboni at Telegraph Hill Arts and Literature. And this has been Voices from the Hill. Until next time, keep reading, keep writing, stay inspired, and come visit us at Telegraph Hill Books in North Beach, San Francisco.