San Diego, known for its weather, tourist attractions, and beaches, is also the home of a vibrant and creative community: San Diego Poetry Annual.
Bill Harding, an author, novelist, and poet, started the San Diego Poetry Annual in 2005. The first publication invited poets and writers from all around San Diego, serving as a community effort to publish as many writers as possible in the annual.
“Bill Harding is really the driving force; he put together a team of editors over the years, and that’s how it works now. It’s a team effort,” Michael Klam, executive editor and associate publisher of the annual, said.
Olga García serves as an editor, Anthony Blacksher as a publisher, and joining them is a network of regional editors from all over the city and county of San Diego. They all help the annual with their respective areas.
Subsequently, a bilingual edition followed suit, which is an English and Spanish version called Anuario de Poesía. Edited by Olga García, it was originally led by Harding. Lastly, there is also an annual for kids called Kids! San Diego Poetry Annual. There are workshops for kids, and part of the workshops includes publishing in the annual.
Throughout all annuals, they invite poetry of all styles. There is no particular theme, nor is there any particular style. Whether you rhyme or you are a free verse writer, any kind of poetry is welcome.
“I see the annual as community work in the sense that we are inviting folks from all over San Diego and giving them a chance of getting onto the page,” Klam explained. He continued, “But poetry is also about performance. So we put on events as well, which helps our mission of bringing folks from all over the country together at these events.”
This community project has a range of poets and writers, with some who are green and some who are starting out, and this is their first publication. Then there are poet laureates, from Ron Salisbury and Jason Magabo-Perez to the current Poet Laureate, Paola Capó-García. Other poems included are from juvenile hall, poems from the tribes, and native poets.
Local artists are also part of this team. As with every new edition of the annual, it comes with a cover that represents a part of San Diego, with Brian Meyer and Perry Vásquez both having done covers. Photographers have also had their work on the cover.
“We have sort of grown in the sense that people know who we are, and we’ve grown in the sense that people who are publishing with us are from poets who are just starting out to poets who have become poet laureates. We have also become more renowned for a place to come to the events and share your work,” Klam explained.
Although at the start there were some challenges in finding writers who could contribute to the annual, through poetry events, community building, and word of mouth, it became the go-to spot for San Diego poets and writers. They have done readings all around town, from Tijuana all the way up to Oceanside.
To show how quickly the annual has grown, last year’s edition consisted of 364 poems by more than 350 poets. These 350 poems were chosen for the English edition from over 1,000 submissions in total. For the Spanish edition, Anuario de Poesía, 52 poems were chosen from over 74 poets and translators. And for the kids’ edition, it depends on the number of workshops and the number of kids who attend them. This ultimately concludes in the launch event.
“Everybody’s welcome to come to that, not just the anthologized writers, but also anybody who wants to come out. At the book launch, you get a sense of the work that we’re publishing. It’s very diverse, and it’s sort of a who’s who of writers here in San Diego who’ve been writers for a good long time,” Klam said.
They also like to do collaborations with other San Diego groups that share a similar kind of work. These include: San Diego Writers Ink, Poets At The Grove, Spacebar, the San Diego Poetry Slam, San Diego State University, USC, and UCSD. The goal is to spread the word that they are always welcome to attend the events and to partner with them.
“We’ve been absolutely supported by the city of San Diego. The libraries around town have given us spaces. Point Loma Nazarene University gave us cameras and crew so that we could do a conversation with poets,” Klam said.
Based in San Diego, the annual is next door to Tijuana, with the desert to the east, beaches, and Los Angeles to the north. It allows voices from different parts of the city to give their own take on poetry.
“We’ve got poets from every corner, which kind of defines in the way that they see it, the truth that they see about the city, defines what San Diego is all about,” Klam said.
SDPA 2024-2025 featured image cover artist, Fernando Philipi
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