A few weeks ago our friend Andrew Sofie had mentioned another friend of his, an amazing poet named Zach Houston who writes poetry on crowded streets for a living. He will write on a topic of your choice, with no topic off limits, for a donation. Andy is an artist himself and a man always with his ear to the ground and we love learning interesting facts from him. As a surprise for our wedding, Andy had wanted to invite Zach to write poems for our guests but decided against it because he didn't want it to be a distraction from our wedding. But after his description of Zach Houston and showing us his YouTube videos, he had peaked our interest and we were cursing him for not inviting Zach so we too could see this artist at work. We wondered if we would ever met this elusive poet?
However, last weekend at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival when we ran into a young man sitting on a corner, hunched over a small ancient machine, chicken pecking his way to a living, we knew Zach Houston had to be his name.
He is slowly rising in fame as a street performer through youtube videos and simply his presence on the streets of San Francisco. He was reading his poems into iPhones and sharing stories with other patrons, becoming a bit of a local celebrity. We were very excited to meet him and he couldn't have been a nicer guy. We hope he continues to receive recognition for his work. I asked him to write a poem on food and here is what he delivered:
the true foe
of human is
needing to
daily eat
up keep
take your
time with
groups do
the growing
and the farm
holds its own
doesnt keep
track of how
much agriculture
there is in these
more perfect forms
of worship than
needing to be
what we eat
chemistry
argues
with the
organics
and loses
thoroughly
human coup
of how to
finally
be the
light
we seek
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