by Broc Rossell

“Alameda” is the Spanish word for a grove of poplars, and it’s also California municipal nomenclature: the county, the city, the desert town, the park, the Street. In Homer's Odyssey entrances to the underworld are marked by groves of dark trees, what Fitzgerald translates as black poplars. In its excavating search for justice and for voice, Alameda steps and stumbles into the subaltern chorus.