about the poet
my ecuadorian immigrant annapolis naval academy educated father read to me often, bedtime stories about a frog that ate so much he exploded, or jacques cousteau adventures in the sea, or a gull that aspired to fly toward a life beyond normal gull life. this helped me discover what word and imagination could do, how they could record and alter the world i knew.
my ecuadorian immigrant mother learned english by looking at flashcards, simple words and pictures together—apple, baby, ball. i was three. i learned with her. words seemed made less of letters and more by an entire image i recognized and "read." word as image remains an integral part of my aesthetic.
there’s always been the impulse to write, to make sense of the world through remembered bits, observation, imagination, translating the moment into meaning, feeling into beauty, heart and mind into connection, and after my mother and father died, into healing.
AND NOW my poems emerge from the dark of you meeting i. then there is something more than light. there is the listening that makes for feeling seen in life. let’s call it poetry and know it as reflection, connection, an invitation to trust a stranger and see what happens when anonymity meets red royal typewriter keys and invites the art of being human into the present moment to be taken home in your hands in the shape of a poem. tell me about your heart, your hurt, your wish, your imagination, your want, your need. i’m listening.
because in this life there are people wanting secret wishes taking shape as poems; friends connecting 3000 miles of wonder and wisdom and what now’s; lovers giving each other keys to rooms they’ve always wanted to open; rain smells on sidewalks; kites shaped like swallows; yes; no; o; oh!; children laughing as mothers underdog them on swings; harry and betty living in nursing homes writing poems for the first time in their eighty-something years of life, “well,” they say, “how about that.” there is the magic of listening, witnessing, connecting, loving, losing, grieving, being, doing, wanting, needing, surrendering, trying, offering, receiving, learning, repeating, repeating, repeating. like tea-lit pumpkins on porches and thousands of fireflies looking like fallen stars over a field at night, and punctuation changing so many things, this is the stuff of our lives. let me capture your world in words so you can hold all it in your hands.
if you’d like to hire me to write poems at your next event, or teach poetry, contact me at thepoetrystore.poet@gmail.com
thank you so much for your support. yours in poetry and gratitude,
silvi
official bio
Silvi Alcivar received her MFA in Creative Nonfiction writing from The Pennsylvania State University and earned a BA in English and Women’s Studies, with a focus on fine art, from the College Scholar program at Cornell University. Her work has been published in online journals, Poets 11 (a collection of poems edited by Jack Hirschman), and her “Broke-Ass Manifesto” is featured in Broke-Ass Stuart‘s latest book. She has performed her work on stage and radio throughout the San Francisco Bay area, where she’s been living since 2007. As The Poetry Store owner and poet/artist, she writes and sells custom poetry on-demand and makes art. To date, she has written and sold tens of thousands of poems and her artwork has been exhibited at the Femina Potens Gallery, SOMArts Ramp Gallery, Live Worms, The Goods Gallery, Secession Art & Design, La Boutique, Steelgrass Farm in Kauai, City Art Gallery and many more. In 2010, her work with The Poetry Store was featured in The San Francisco Chronicle and Daily Candy SF named The Poetry Store one of the top ten best new finds of the year. Since 2005, Silvi has also been dedicating herself to another passion–teaching poetry classes for the elderly. She used to teach for The Institute on Aging and encourages everyone to visit someone in a nursing home (especially your family and especially the elders who no longer have families).