Holding HIV
Poems of HOPE
by Pauline Sameshima , Emily Turner and Dazié Grego-Sykes

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What could an HIV cure mean? Holding HIV shares the raw, poetic voices of 27 San Francisco community members living with or affected by HIV. Born from the HOPE Research Collaboratory’s Community Arts Integrated Research program, this collection reveals poetry’s power to distill life’s profound joys, deep anguish, and everyday realities into a roadmap for cure research—where hope and fear collide, and resilience becomes the heart of progress. As part of an HIV cure research project, participants created clay “holders” as artistic responses to the “Block-Lock-Stop” strategy (an epigenetic approach to permanently inactivate HIV) and to two questions—“What excites you about an HIV cure?” and “What are your fears regarding an HIV cure?" Three poets then translated participants’ discussions about their art, contextualizing hopes and anxieties alongside the devastating 2025 United States’ federal HIV funding cuts. These narratives are more important than ever as ongoing challenges to HIV research and prevention threaten the significant progress of recent decades.

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This is amazing. I read all the poems and they are so moving. This book could not be more timely. Dr. Melanie Ott, Director of the Gladstone Institute of Virology and the Michael Hulton Center for HIV Cure Research. Senior Vice President, Gladstone Institutes. Primary Investigator, HOPE MDC Collaboratory. WOW! Just incredible and powerful messaging! Magnificent and timely! Read this! Dr. Lishomwa Ndhlovu, Professor of Immunology in Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine. Congratulations! This is amazing and beautiful! Dr. Susana Valente, Professor and Chair, Department of Immunology and Microbiology, The Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institutes for Biomedical Innovation & Technology. This is an amazing book! Dive in! Listen to the collective voice that weaves together humanity, anger, community, a sense of belonging, a deep lasting resilience, and above all, love. Dr. Patricia Defechereux, PhD, Community Engagement Coordinator of the HOPE MDC, Gladstone Institutes/University of California San Francisco. Wonderful! I have read every one – deeply moving: the determination, the humour and the poetry! Dr. Douglas Nixon, Professor of Immunology in Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine. When facing an uncertain future, hope is what gets us through. This is recommended reading. Read the words and embrace the feelings. Love heals in a powerful way. Vincent Crisostomo, Director of Aging Services, San Francisco Aids Foundation, Living with HIV since 1987. A tapestry of words woven together by emotion, fear, hope, loss, love, grief and resilience. The experiences of a generation! Paul A. Aguilar, Longtime AIDS Advocate/Activist, Community Liaison, Aging Services, and Longtime AIDS Survivor. These poems carry the collective heartbeat of those affected by HIV; their testimonies are deeply rooted in hope and resilience. They speak to our shared humanity, echoing the essence of who we are and the legacy we imagine beyond a cure. Ebony Gordon, San Francisco AIDS Foundation, Community Partner & Community Advisory Board Coordinator, HOPE Project. I am blown away by this powerful collection of poems — raw, honest, and unapologetic reflections from the San Francisco HIV community. It is a must-read for anyone who wants to better understand the complexities of the HIV journey. Paul Edmonds, The City of Hope Patient, cured of HIV through a stem cell transplant. What moving poems! May they also inspire researchers worldwide to continue the search for the missing piece of the puzzle that will bring HIV cure to everyone. And not just the HIV cure for me and the (currently) ten other people whose cancer cure also brought HIV cure as an added bonus. Marc Franke, The Düsseldorf Patient, cured of HIV through a stem cell transplant.

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Pauline Sameshima (she/her) is an education professor at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. Pauline has been using poetry as a research methodology since the early 2000s. Her haiku was one of 15 selected by the League of Canadian Poets for the 2019 publication Collected Haiku. Her favourite pastimes are cooking with her children and arranging flowers from her garden. solspire.com Emily Turner (she/her) is a graduate student in the Faculty of Education at Lakehead University, Thunder Bay campus, specializing in social justice education. Before starting her degree, she worked for a community-based arts and culture magazine where she developed her passion for storytelling. A lifelong writer of poetry, she intends to use poetic inquiry as a research tool going forward in her career. Dazié Grego-Sykes (he/him) is a California-based poet, performer, and multidisciplinary artist with a passion for artistic expression and storytelling. Over the last two decades, his work has captivated audiences using a unique blend of spoken word, solo performance, music, and community engagement. Holding a B.A. in Experimental Performance and an M.F.A. in Interdisciplinary Arts and Writing, Dazié draws from his experiences living with HIV and explores identity, race, queerness, and social justice. daziégrego.com

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Contributors

Author

Pauline Sameshima

Author

Emily Turner

Author

Dazié Grego-Sykes

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