Fingerprints of a Hungerstrike

Poetry. Asian & Asian American Studies. San Francisco Arts Commision award-winning poet Tony Robles focuses on a hunger strike held in April and May 2016 in protest of a number of local police killings. Robles also speaks of incarceration with a unique eye within the lens that is Frisco. The continuing displacement and neglect of elderly and low-income residents in the face of property development build another topic of concern, emerging from the poet’s great love of San Francisco and all its inhabitants. Kim Shuck, the current Seventh Poet Laureate of the city, maintains that Robles does the work on the streets and on the pages while he speaks of the city as a relative with a life threatening illness: with love and anger.