“I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.”
- Audre Lord
In Defense of Food: A Spoken Word Affair
We all have a certain relationship with the foods we love: chocolate, a juicy piece of chicken, ice cream, that barbequed slab of ribs, or the reasons we’ve become vegetarian or vegan. Come hear top Bay Area spoken word artists perform pieces that tug at your emotional heartstrings and echo your very sentiments regarding the ways you relate to the foods you love (or hate).
Hosted by the multi-talented, award-winning poet, Poetri. Star of the original Def Poetry Jam on Broadway. Wine tastings beginning at 6:00PM to precede performances starting at 8:00PM.
Co-Presented by: Museum of the African Diaspora
Poetri performing a quintessential piece on his relationship with Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
The Poets
Josh Healey is a writer, educator, and community organizer who believes in laughter and liberation. Author of Hammertime: Poems and Possibilities, Healey has shared his work at UC Berkeley, Harvard, National Poetry Slam, Contemporary Jewish Museum, and the Arab Cultural Center. He lives in Oakland, CA and works with Youth Speaks to empower young artists and activists.
Kirya Traber is a social misfit, a country girl in the big city, and one of the most compelling poetic voices of her generation. She is a 2004 BNV Poetry Slam Champion, winner of a Robert Redford Sundance Summit Award, and has shared stages with various literary luminaries, including The Last Poets, Rhodessa Jones, Kim Addonizio, and Devorah Major. Her work has been featured at the Living Word Festival, San Francisco’s Lit Quake, The Stern Grove Festival, and the International Queer Arts Festival, and on tour across the nation with Sister Spit: The Next Generation. Kirya works currently as the Residency Program Manager at Youth Speaks.
Lynne Alicia Elman graduated from New York University with a BFA in film, there she won an award for a documentary called Homeless But Not Helpless. Lynne has been writing poetry and doing photography since she was in grammar school, she won an award for a poem entitled In Forms of Truth, she has written for the poetry slams and for people that need advocacy; she likes to use her writing to express feelings often hard to put into words and contribute to the world to promote harmony. She dedicates all her care about life to her mother and best supporter Joan Helen Elman.
Joshua Merchant is a Senior at Metwest High School in Oakland California. He is a spoken word/slam poet and has been writing since he was in the eighth grade. He says that when he first started writing, all of his poetry was about his broken relationship with his father. He didn’t discover that his words could have a dramatic affect on the world around him until he joined a non-profit youth poetry leadership organization called “I Go!” in the ninth grade. He is still a full time member and supporter of “I Go!” and has recently joined a collective of poets called the Paid Poet Society. He has also started performing at Youth Speaks events such as the The Youth Speaks teen poetry Slam and the Life is Living Festival.
Ramona “Mona” Webb is a Performance Artist who moved to the Bay Area from Baton Rouge Louisiana where she was co-founder and president of The Baton Rouge Poetry Alliance for 8yrs. Webb is the Artistic Director of Lyrical Minded for A.B.L.E., which is an art-based learning for equity hip hop, theater and performance poetry curriculum implemented in the San Francisco School District. She is a full time working artist in San Francisco pursuing an MFA degree in writing for stage and screen with an emphasis in Experimental Performance. Mona is affiliated with the Nursha Project.
Museum of the African Diaspora
685 Mission Street @ 3rd
Thursday, February 25, 2010
6:00-10:00PM
$20
$10 MoAD Member Price (Click here for MoAD membership information)
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Posted January 15th, 2010 by admin