Unit 1: Basic Grammar

Jonathan Solorio

I was born in Hollister, CA, and I grew up in Sacramento. A life-long California native, I spent 13 years, from the ages of 16 to 29, writing and performing spoken word poetry throughout California. I performed frequently at venues in Sacramento like Luna's Cafe & Juice Bar, Queen of Sheba, and The Sacramento Poetry Center. Also, there were a few in Eureka, CA including: Ramone's Bakery & Cafe and The Ink People Center for the Arts. Moreover, I performed at venues in the San Francisco Bay area including but not limited to: Awaken Cafe & Roasting, The Starry Plough Pub, and The Sacred Grounds Cafe in downtown San Francisco. I have experimented with various styles including: sonnet, haiku, limerick, acrostic, and cleave poem. At those venues, I performed several different, original poems over the years. Some of my most prized were my homages; one is to Rudyard Kipling's poem "If..." simply entitled "When…," and the other is to William Blake's "The Tyger" entitled "The Jester." Furthermore, I have written other titles like: "The Run," "The Slogan of Change," No Soy Todo Blanco," The Decree of the Once & Future Poet," Altered Ego," I Could Say...," and "Beyond Reason." Afterwards, I went to UC Berkeley at the age of 29, and I majored in English with a minor in Creative Writing. Before and during my academic tenure, I held different jobs in the educational industry. Currently, I am married, living in Stockton, and working on my writing career.

1 Course