On February 6th, I walked into San Diego Writers, Ink’s space in Liberty Station. Sniffling writers and San Diego locals filled the warm room, and I wove through over thirty people, all hugging and talking, to grab an orange and sit next to Kristen Fogle, my boss and the Executive Director of SDWI. She asked me to draw a sign for the event: “Jim Moreno Tribute and Reading.” Beside Jim’s name, I drew a bouquet of orange flowers. Born on January 21, 1948, Jim passed away on December 2, 2025, at the age of 77. A little over two months later, it was now time for our writing community to pay our respects and honor his memory.

 

From the front of the room, Fogle called for everyone’s attention. She introduced SDWI and explained that everyone who signed up for the open mic would read a poem by, for, or about Jim Moreno. The crowd took their seats, and I glanced at the list: sixteen readers tonight. Next, Fogle called up Judy Reeves, SDWI’s co-founder and board president.

 

Reeves approached the mic stand, lit a candle, and spoke about Jim’s poetry legacy and local impact. From her, I learned that Jim not only taught poetry classes for SDWI but was also involved with writing communities in San Diego long before San Diego Writers, Ink was established.

 

“I knew Jim even before we started a writing center in the Gaslight Quarter in 1993. I met him in the late ’80s, and we formed a friendship even back then,” Reeves said.

 

Jim was a regular at the writing center, Reeves said, and when the group moved to Liberty Station, he followed. She recalled his inspiring presence at the Blazing Laptops Write-a-thon events fondly. “I can see him standing right there,” Reeves said, pointing at a spot in the room. “Leading us all, and [inspiring us to write] something that we didn’t know we could write. He held many of us to the stage, where he’d stand on the side and smile.”

 

Reeves encouraged the audience to visit Jim’s website, which I did. There, I learned that he had also taught for Arts Education Connection San Diego and the Juvenile Court & Community Schools in the San Diego district. Jim had a passion for bringing poetry to those less fortunate in America: incarcerated youth, immigrants, Native Americans, veterans like himself, and so many more.

 

The open mic readers spoke of Jim’s contributions so lovingly, making me wish I’d had a chance to meet him before he passed. Reeves’s candle ablaze, the readers filed up, each speaking and reading poetry for three minutes.

 

Emilio Arias led with a story about his father’s friendship with Jim and how much the poet had meant to their family. “Jim was a wonderful mentor, an incredible man, and an incredible poet,” Arias said.

 

Lise Breakey followed, reading from her poem “I Love You More Than Death Itself,” which Jim had helped her craft in a poetry class.

 

Next, Donna Castañeda read “The Ocean Refuses No Rivers.” “When I was thinking about Jim, I was thinking what poem I would read for him,” Castañeda said. “One of his characteristics was marvelous kindness, care, and concern for other people.”

 

After a poet sang a Hawaiian song while gently waving the candle around, Michael T. Richard Hart told the audience, “Jim wants us to remember, you are the light in the world.”

 

Three more poets shared poems remembering Jim’s political activism, his warm email sendoffs of “peace in your heart,” and his inclusive teaching style.

 

One poem written for the tribute described Jim as “authentic to your core, warrior for what was right,” and mentioned how  Jim and the poet had “talked of ordinary things quietly.”

 

Janice Alper read a few poems of her own that she said wouldn’t have been possible without Jim’s encouragement. “He would always say, if you don’t keep writing, I’m gonna cry. So I keep writing,” Alper said. 

 

Daniel Bahena read his poem “Marginalia,” which Moreno helped him develop the writing skills to create during an online poetry class in 2024.  “I’m very grateful for that one experience because I haven’t stopped writing poetry since, so thank you, Jim,” Bahena said.

 

Gerald Vanderpot told the audience about Jim’s life outside of writing as a  Vietnam veteran, parent, and football fan. He said that Jim was a lifelong Dolphins fan, and he’d watched him explode with passion during a Superbowl game a few years back. “He jumped off that sofa so fast, I’d never seen him so furious,” Vanderpot said, drawing laughter from others in the room.  

 

Danny Marino, a fellow veteran, talked about how the military had stripped him of his creativity and how Jim had helped him gain it back, pushing him to publish “The American Dream?” in San Diego Poetry Annual. “He had me put a question mark there,” Marino said. Marino also brought up Jim’s support for immigrants during the recent immigration crackdown. “How familiar his soul felt to mine,” Marino said. He then quoted Jim: “We love America like we love our lemonade. No ICE.” 

 

Gina Cameron also shared about Jim’s activism, reading one of Jim’s poems, “Palms Up,” about listening to the poems from a young man in a youth jail. Cameron said that Jim had felt like the boy was his son, and that we were all brothers and sisters, regardless of color.

 

Marjorie Pezzoli shared another poem of her own that Jim had workshopped with her. “It kind of felt like Jim was over my shoulder when I was writing this,” Pezzoli said.

 

Jamie Fitzpatrick approached the mic stand in tears, one of the last poets to read that night. “My friend used to say, when some people leave this world, they leave a hole in the sky,” Fitzpatrick said.

 

Over and over, Jim’s students, fellow poets, and friends recalled how Jim had called himself “a poet among poets” and impacted the creative and personal lives of countless writers. He encouraged before he criticized, they said, yet he pulled great poetry out of everyone he worked with: Forty-two of his incarcerated poetry students published forty-nine poems in the 2016-2017 edition of San Diego Poetry Annual; Jim also worked with indigenous students, fourteen of whom published twenty poems in another journal edited by Jim, Native American Poetry.

 

The poetic testimonies gave space for the poets and friends to share what Jim meant to them through art, and I walked out of the door with peace in my heart as Reeves gently blew out the candle.