IMPORTANT UPDATE: THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELED!

Due to the ongoing spike on COVID-19 cases and the expression of concern on part of some of our participating artists, we have decided to CANCEL the event “La Peña Poetry Night.”

As you know, the safety of our community will always be a priority. We apologize for the inconvenience! If you have already made your donation for this event, you will be reimbursed in the coming days.

Past Description of the event:

Come to experience a night of bilingual poetry & music!

La Peña is thrilled to co-present with Hummingword Press our first Poetry Night of 2022! This event is meant to cultivate artistic expression that reflects on its surrounding communities and promotes critical thought, joy, and inspiration.

Featuring six wonderful, award winning Bay Area local authors:

• Tongo Eisen-Martin
• Tony Aldarondo
• Susana Praver-Pérez
• Josiah Luis Alderete
• Manny Martinez
• Naomi Helena Quiñonez

And welcoming all of your contributions through an Open Mic in-person sign up! Make sure you arrive early (7:30pm) to get a spot (spots are of 4 minutes each).

Come and speak your story, share your poetry or music on the mic. Whether you are a performer or in need of inspiration please contribute your energy to this movement grounded in the power of art!

* Learn more about the featured artists below.

FEATURED ARTISTS:

Originally from San Francisco, Tongo Eisen-Martin is a poet, movement worker, and educator. His curriculum on extrajudicial killing of Black people, “We Charge Genocide Again” has been used as an educational and organizing tool throughout the country. His book titled “Someone’s Dead Already” was nominated for a California Book Award. His book “Heaven Is All Goodbyes” was published by the City Lights Pocket Poets series, was shortlisted for the Griffins Poetry Prize, and won a California Book Award and an American Book Award. His latest book “Blood On The Fog” was released this fall in the City Lights Pocket Poet series. He is San Francisco’s eighth poet laureate.

Tony Aldarondo has performed music and poetry in venues throughout the San Francisco Bay Area,  overseas, and once while standing up on a JetBlue airplane. He is also a theatre and film actor, and a voiceover artist. Tony has just released his first full-length poetry book titled “Big Heart Poet”. But most of all, he wants to be known as a great Dad.

Susana Praver-Pérez is a Pushcart-nominated poet and a winner of the San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Prize for Poetry (2021). Born and raised in New York, Susana currently resides in Oakland, California where she works as a Physician Assistant at La Clínica de la Raza. Susana’s work has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies. Her first full-length book of poetry, Hurricanes, Love Affairs and Other Disasters, is now available from Nomadic Press.

Josiah Luis Alderete is a full blooded Pocho, spanglish speaking poeta who first learned how to write poesia in the kitchen of his Mama’s Mexican restaurant. He was one of the founding member of Bay Area outspoken word group “The Molotov Mouths” and is the curator and host of the long running monthly Chicano/Latinx reading series “Speaking Axolotl”. His first book of poems “Baby Axolotl & Old Pochos” was published in 2021 by Black Freighter Press.

Manny Martinez is the author of the short story “Wife-Beater Tank Top”, from Akashic Books 2020 anthology Berkeley Noir. His short story “Papi’s Stroke” and poem “Fragmented” were published in the May 2020 issue of The Acentos Review. He publishes as JM Curét. Manny lives in the Bay Area teaching high school English, Ethnic Studies, and singing salsa.

Dr. Naomi Helena Quiñonez is a poet, educator and activist and author of three collections of poetry, “The Exiled Moon”, “The Smoking Mirror” and “Hummingbird Dream/Sueño de Colibri”. She edited several critical and literary publications including “Invocation L.A: Urban Multicultural Poetry and Decolonial Voices”.  Quiñonez’ work has appeared in the Colorado Review, Infinite Divisions, Voices of our Ancestors and Maestrapeace. She received a Phd in history/cultural studies from Claremont Graduate University and has lectured at colleges and universities throughout the country in the areas of Chicana/o Latina/o Studies and Women’s Studies.  She is a Yerba Buena Center for the Arts 2020 Artist Honoree, a recipient of the 2017 Berkeley Lifetime Achievement Award, and a 2018 Bay Area Emerging Artists and Professionals Fellow. Quiñonez is also the 2001 recipient of a Rockefeller Fellowship and the 1990 American Book Award.  She is featured in Notable Hispanic Women and the Dictionary of Literary Biography.