{"id":89844,"date":"2025-12-11T00:38:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T00:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/89844\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T00:38:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T00:38:09","slug":"meet-the-long-beach-typewriter-poet-helping-strangers-navigate-heartbreak-san-bernardino-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/89844\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Long Beach typewriter poet helping strangers navigate heartbreak \u2013 San Bernardino Sun"},"content":{"rendered":"

Outside a bank on Long Beach\u2019s 2nd Street, a woman is crying.<\/p>\n

Nico Patino, a street poet sitting at an antique table, takes in her turmoil. \u201cProud of you,\u201d he says before turning back to his old Olympia typewriter and beginning to pound away at the keys.<\/p>\n

In a video posted to Instagram<\/a>, an unnamed woman off-camera has just offered him a prompt for a poem. \u201cStarting over late. I\u2019m 57, got divorced, struggling a little,\u201d she says. \u201cI left almost five years ago, and I\u2019m still kind of floundering. It\u2019s weird to feel so untethered.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can only imagine,\u201d Patino says. A few minutes later, he produces the poem, a narrative meditation on time and age with lines including, \u201cWhen I was five, I imagined living to 100, but I never thought about 57. I couldn\u2019t count that high,\u201d and \u201cI may count the years, but the years can\u2019t count. I\u2019m so much more than them, than men.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Instagram video of their exchange has surpassed a million views.<\/p>\n

Patino, 28, knows a thing or two about loss, reinvention and feeling untethered. The street poet, who has spent time as a pro stunt pogostick performer, life coach and Crypto trader, is dead set on never working a \u201creal job.\u201d He plans to write poetry for strangers until he becomes a published poet or winds up homeless.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came to a point where it was either time for me to get a real job or to double down,\u201d Patino says during a recent interview.<\/p>\n

If you spot him on the streets of Long Beach, there\u2019s a good chance he\u2019ll have a cigarette perched in his mouth, and his relaxed shirt will have at least three buttons undone. His Instagram bio reads, \u201cImpossible love child of Rumi & Bukowski,\u201d referencing the 13th-century Sufi mystic poet and gritty L.A. author and poet Charles Bukowski.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s some quote \u2014 I don\u2019t know where it comes from \u2014 but if you would rather die than go the rest of your life without writing, then that\u2019s it. You\u2019re trapped. You\u2019re a writer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Street<\/p>\n

Street poet Nico Patino offers passerbys original poems on 2nd St. in Belmont Shore on Wednesday, December 3, 2025. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

\"Street<\/p>\n

Street poet Nico Patino offers passerbys original poems on 2nd St. in Belmont Shore on Wednesday, December 3, 2025. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

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Street poet Nico Patino offers passerbys original poems on 2nd St. in Belmont Shore on Wednesday, December 3, 2025. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

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SEE ALSO:\u00a0Inside LA\u2019s viral no-phone party. Meet the TikToker trying to reboot your tech habits<\/a><\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t always the poet\u2019s mentality, though. In 2020, he graduated from Temple University in Philadelphia with a bachelor\u2019s degree in business. \u201cI did management information systems, so I literally Googled \u2018most lucrative business major\u2019 in 2016, and I just went with that one,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was so disenchanted immediately, because every professor and guest speaker came in and said the same thing as a preface to their lecture \u2013 \u2018By the time you graduate, everything I teach you today will be obsolete because of the rate at which technology is advancing.\u2019 And so there was nothing to listen to, and for four years I spent that time doodling and writing poetry in the margins.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he graduated, the world had shut down due to the pandemic, and job prospects for a recent graduate were bleak. Stuck in limbo, he threw himself into reading about spirituality, existentialism and philosophy, and even completed an eight-day, nine-night darkness retreat in Lake Atitl\u00e1n in Guatemala.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spent nine days in complete darkness in this half submerged stone room that you have to enter through a trap door, and in that room is nothing but a tile floor, stone walls and ceiling, a compost toilet, cold shower, sink and bed with some meditation mats,\u201d he says, holding up a notepad he brought with him to the retreat. Haphazard lines are scribbled at varying angles.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the most difficult thing I\u2019ve ever done, but it was incredibly profound. That was when I realized my inner being speaks in poems.\u201d<\/p>\n

SEE ALSO:\u00a0Author Tod Goldberg is fascinated by characters who make poor decisions<\/a><\/p>\n

Pivoting from googling the most lucrative degree to dedicating himself to the life of a street poet, a gig not exactly known for raking in the big bucks, has shifted Patino\u2019s perception of success. He\u2019s spent much of his twenties rewriting the contract he\u2019d drafted for himself in the wake of his father\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad was killed in a motorcycle accident a month before my 13th birthday,\u201d he says. \u201cAt the death day party, as I call it, where everybody descends upon the family that\u2019s grieving to comfort them, somebody put their hand on my shoulder and said, \u2018You\u2019re the man of the house now. You have to be strong for your mother and your siblings and take care of them.\u2019 And that really possessed me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"From<\/p>\n

From right, street poet Nico Patino and Daniel Warren discuss poetry on 2nd St. in Belmont Shore on Wednesday, December 3, 2025. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

\"From<\/p>\n

From left, Daniel Warren and Nico Patino discuss poetry on 2nd St. in Belmont Shore on Wednesday, December 3, 2025. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

\"From<\/p>\n

From right, Nico Patino writes a poem for Natalie Dominguez and two-year-old Kortez Vogels on 2nd St. in Belmont Shore on Wednesday, December 3, 2025. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

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From right, street poet Nico Patino and Daniel Warren discuss poetry on 2nd St. in Belmont Shore on Wednesday, December 3, 2025. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

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In Philadelphia, he started to realize that his pursuit of business was done at the expense of his inspiration and spiritual depth. He initially tried to balance the two, but has since concluded, \u201cI really am not capable of putting on a tie and marching into an office to analyze their software architecture infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amidst his soul searching, he noted the way he was able to channel the grief and energy after his dad\u2019s death into pogo-sticking. He was ultimately signed to XPogo, a stunt team agency, and traveled the world performing the extreme sport. \u201cLife has shown me that the less I worry about the outcomes when it comes to success, or defining success in terms of the classic things such as wealth, the more I prosper spiritually,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

He may have a point.<\/p>\n

It was only a few months ago that he decided to take his poetry to the streets. He\u2019d remembered a street poet he encountered at Rittenhouse Park\u00a0when he was studying business. He\u2019d paid a few bucks for a poem, and although he wasn\u2019t blown away by the work, he stored the experience in his back pocket for later use.<\/p>\n

SEE ALSO: How three best friends accidentally became one of indie folk\u2019s buzziest new acts<\/a><\/p>\n

In October, he ordered his Olympia SF typewriter from an antique restorer in Valencia, Spain. It arrived two weeks later, and he hit the pavement and set up his phone to record. His unlikely claim to fame? Writing that poem for a woman crying at the bank. The Instagram reel went viral, and the subsequent invitations from venues around Southern California have flooded his DMs.<\/p>\n

As a result, earlier this month, he was the first-ever poet to be featured as a resident artist at Silverlake Jams<\/a>, a popular backyard series that invites artists from varying mediums to perform (Jack Quaid<\/a> performed music at a session earlier this year).<\/p>\n

But Patino almost didn\u2019t make it there.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy van, a 1983 Volkswagen Vanagon, broke down. I was on the 710 headed north, and all the lights came on. The van overheated significantly, and it was an Indiana Jones kind of escapade to get to Silverlake Jams,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\"Street<\/p>\n

Street poet Nico Patino writes a poem on 2nd St. in Belmont Shore on Wednesday, December 3, 2025. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

\"Street<\/p>\n

Street poet Nico Patino writes an original poem on 2nd St. in Belmont Shore on Wednesday, December 3, 2025. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

Show Caption<\/p>\n

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Street poet Nico Patino writes a poem on 2nd St. in Belmont Shore on Wednesday, December 3, 2025. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Press-Telegram\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n

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First, he grabbed his sign, which typically reads \u201cAsk me for a poem,\u201d and refashioned it to read \u201cNeed water or coolant.\u201d No one stopped to help, so he rode his skateboard two miles to a gas station, hopping train tracks and falling along the way. When he returned to the van, the water in his tank only got him as far as a liquor store.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Uber showed up, and I carted all my things [to Silverlake Jams], covered in grease and blood and sweat, but I f\u2014\u2014- made it on time. A little drunk and bloody, but it was just another sort of beautiful test from the universe.<\/p>\n

It was Patino\u2019s first time reading his poetry aloud in front of an audience.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like, \u2018All right, let\u2019s see how much you really want this,\u201d he continues. \u201cAre you going to have the faith and perseverance and grit to get through?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

With a skateboard and a cigar box full of poems, it looks like the possibilities are endless.<\/p>\n

On Dec. 13, he\u2019ll be crafting custom poems for the Cowboy Poetry L.A.<\/a> fundraiser in partnership with Sandbar Sanctuary<\/a> from noon to 5 p.m. in Sun Valley to raise money for rescue horses used in therapy programs for domestic abuse survivors.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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