Yesh (Y) Salz

Yesh ( Y ) (they/them) is a poet, facilitator, storyteller and community organizer whose life and passion is dedicated to building collective resilience in times of deep change. Yesh serves as Co-Director for the Restoring Lifeways network and is completing their MFA in Poetry at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Y’s work meets at the confluence of trans-local coalition-building, queer ecology and cultivating cultural resilience through ceremony and ritual. Yesh comes from a background of climate justice organizing in the Bay Area, and received their B.A. from UC Berkeley in Interdisciplinary Studies, combining fields to examine the role of narrative and storytelling in movements for environmental justice and social change. Y now applies this background into their work as guide, poet, wild-tender and community web-weaver of projects across Turtle Island.

Y strives to live into their inherited name, Soloveichik or “Nightingale” – learning to bring song, storytelling and ceremony into (and up from) the darkest places.  Their ecological kin can be found in the mountains and deserts of the Eastern Sierra, Southern California, Northern Baja and Northern New Mexico where they currently are learning to be a good guest.