“San Andreas” — The Story of a Poem

In a poem, I like to play around with perspective.

I like to take the reader out of human-scale thinking and put them on another plane, of time or place. Humans think “history” means 1776 or 1849. I want to remind the reader of the history that happened millions of years ago, way before us.

“San Andreas” is a poem I wrote for Siren Call, SF, my 2019 poetry-photography collaboration with San Francisco photographer Dwayne Newton.

“San Andreas” is the opening poem in the book, accompanied by one of Dwayne’s stunning images. His coastline photo is more like an abstract painting.

The poem’s title is associated with a major earthquake fault, running north to south along California’s coast. The San Andreas fault is where the Pacific and North American plates meet. It’s the scene of significant devastation, like the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. The California coastline looks like it does because of the fault.

But then I mix it up for you — the fault line, seen from space, is merely a wrinkle in someone’s forehead, a minor afterthought.

As if it was a bowl or a tub, I ask the reader to fill it with saltwater. I’m asking the reader to create San Francisco Bay in the open space of the fault line. The bay becomes a “teardrop,” seen from above.

San Francisco is now a vibrant, modern city of a close to one million souls (and some cool restaurants and ultra-modern tech companies).

But we know from geology, that the Embarcadero was once a marshy backwater in “earth story” and “earth time.”

The poem ends with ancient, mythical creatures swimming by the Embarcadero, where there are ferry boats and farmers markets now.

I’d forgotten what a playful poem this is.

It leads off the book, and let’s the reader know that this will be a totally different look at San Francisco, compared to the tourist or resident perspective.

That’s my job as a writer, to alter what you think you know.

Siren Call SF: images by Dwayne Newton, poems by Jon Obermeyer. Book design by John Miller and Foreword by Jeff Greenwald.