‘Am I famous?’ Celebrating children’s writing in the Tenderloin

Scroll down to read student poetry.

A gaggle of children filed into what was once a liquor store on a Tenderloin street corner. Wooden barriers outside blocked traffic along Golden Gate Avenue, a bulwark against the city beyond. 

Every Thursday, Esteban O. walks from the Tenderloin Community School to the Tenderloin Center of 826 Valencia, a whimsical writing center where kids can play, write, and have a say in their neighborhood. 

Money from the San Francisco City Planning Commission allowed the nonprofit to revamp its mural — a process that began in April and finished this month. On the walls facing Golden Gate Avenue and Leavenworth Street, cartoon fish swim below a great kraken among snippets of student poetry, broadcasting the children’s words to the community.

Ten years ago, 826 Valencia, a Mission District-based nonprofit that teaches writing skills to kids in poor communities, took over Big Boy Market, a liquor and grocery store in the Tenderloin. Metal bars fortifying the corner store’s window and front door came down. The fish mural replaced the building’s plain beige exterior. 

Then the pandemic hit. Graffiti covered the original mural. Staff at the writing center boarded up the windows after they were repeatedly broken. Over time, the boards were removed. 

For the mural’s revival, children in several programs around the neighborhood wrote poems about their identities, what they need to feel safe, and how they imagine the Tenderloin would be if they were in charge. And, last Thursday afternoon, Esteban was one of three kids chosen to read their poems aloud at a celebration of the new mural. 

The burgeoning crowd made him nervous. His eyebrows inched toward his forehead. 

“All of these people are going to hear me read?” he said.

Esteban and Ella Glasser, the writing center’s programs manager, receded into the kitchen, a quiet space normally reserved for grownups, to practice his poem. The space did not offer enough privacy for Esteban. 

“Excuse me,” he called up a flight of wooden stairs that led to a mezzanine. “Is there anyone here?” The coast was clear. Esteban ascended, clutching a clipboard with his poem. 

“Do you remember what we talked about last time?” Glasser asked. She offered three pointers on public speaking: speak slowly and clearly. “There’s a third one,” she said.  

“Loudly,” Esteban responded. 

He glued his feet to the floor, as Glasser had taught him, and began to read, pausing after each stanza to look up. The chatter downstairs grew louder as Esteban finished. “I feel really confident,” he said.  

“Esteban, Esteban, Esteban,” a boy said as Esteban emerged from the mezzanine. “You’re so famous. Esteban, you’re so famous!” The boy held Esteban’s shoulder and the two made their way toward the door. 

As they waited for the  celebration to begin, a boy spun a globe on display next to a typewriter. “Mexico,” he said, pointing out the country to another boy, “Los Angeles.”

“You got this,” a girl in a pink hoodie assured Esteban. The boy who called Esteban famous gave him a hug, and, with loud thuds, patted him on the back. 

Outside, a crowd of about 40 formed a semicircle around a green and blue curtain decorated with crisscrossing flags and balloons. Glasser stood before the makeshift stage. 

“I’m going to say ‘Guess what?’” she said, “and you all say ‘What?’...Guess what?” 

“WHAT?” 

“There's only one important thing that we really want you to learn,” she said. “At 826, your writing and your ideas are so important. We think your ideas are so important, they need to be blasted on the speakers. They need to be painted on murals. They need to be published in books. Raise your hand if you've had your writing in a book before.” 

A dozen or so small hands shot up. 

Soon Esteban’s turn came. “If I were in charge of the,” he paused to allow the roar of a jet engine overhead to dissipate. “If, if I were in charge of the Tenderloin, I would cancel homelessness and make everyone feel as lucky as a leprechaun.” He spoke of cheesy pizza, enormous apartments and air free of cigarette smoke. 

Maria A., the next poet, shared dreams of beds soft as a kitten “for everyone.” 

The voice of the next speaker, a boy too short for the microphone, rang out. “Landon,” he said, beginning the poem with his first name, “who loves juicy chewy steak,” he continued. “Who worries about homelessness, not getting enough food and money, people getting hurt.”

With their readings complete, the young poets posed for a photographer. The children headed back inside for chips and Capri-Suns. 

Inside the Center, a chandelier made of multicolored glass floats hangs from the ceiling alongside artwork made of books. A fake fireplace with leather-bound books conceals a trap door that leads to a room with a treehouse-themed jungle gym. 

“Am I famous?” asked a boy named Dylan as he waited for his bag of Takis. He stood next to a spinning bookshelf stacked with editions of 826 Quarterly, the nonprofit’s literary magazine featuring student writing. Dylan’s story about a blind cat is published in one of those books. 

“Yes,” he answered his own question. “Because I am in a book.” 

The kids dispersed into the blaring sunshine of an early October afternoon. The Tenderloin streets returned to their rhythm. A passing car filled the intersection with hip-hop bass. A man standing in front of the mural nodded off, his torso and legs forming a 90-degree angle. A woman rounded the corner.

“You see my baby’s name on the wall?” she asked, and pointed to the name of 11-year-old Nsimba under a poem about rainbows and unicorns. “My baby’s name’s on there.” 

Here is Esteban O.’s full poem:

If I were in charge of the Tenderloin, I’d cancel homelessness and make everyone feel as lucky as a leprechaun.

If I were in charge of the Tenderloin, there would be more cheesy pizza, enormous apartments, schools, and programs                                                         

If I were in charge of the Tenderloin, you wouldn’t have cigarette smoke so you can breathe the freshest air of your life.                  

If I were in charge of the Tenderloin, I would give everyone a levitating car and build futuristic houses.

If I were in charge of the Tenderloin, I would hire a team to clean up all the spoiled trash that they see 

If I were in charge of the Tenderloin, I would feel as happy as the shiny afternoon sun

And a person who sometimes forgot to feel their hot waffles and sometimes forgot to listen to their beautiful music would still be allowed to be in charge of the Tenderloin!