The Ventura County Poetry Project invited writers from Ventura County and surrounding counties in Southern California to respond to their “Dear America, We Can’t Turn a Blind Eye” initiative and share their work. This short video includes excerpts from W. David Hall, Sojourner Kincaid Rolle, Veronica Reyes, Julius Sokenu, Amy Uyematsu, and others.

“Let us bridge the generations and remind all who will listen that it only takes one woman sitting on a bus to inspire hundreds…” Amy Uyematsu, the author most recently of Basic Vocabulary (Red Hen Press, 2016), reads her poem “As American As” at the third annual Writers Resist Los Angeles reading at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center in Venice, California.