Join us for a night of Flor y Canto aqui en La Misión as we celebrate Aideed Medina’s new book of poesia “Segmented Bodies”. published by Prickly Pear Publishing. Aideed will be joined by her poetry hermanas Adela Najarro and Diosa Xochiquetzalcoatl.

!Palabra, danza y música to invoke the whole heart!

Poet, spoken word artist, and playwright, Aideed Medina’s work has appeared in various publications, including Issue #26 of The Common: Farmworkers Portfolio and Somos Xicanas Anthology, Riot of Roses Publishing House. Her work has been a part of Eclectic Collective theatrical productions, The Opera Remix, Fresno Grand Opera, and 559 Mural Project murals. She is the author of 31 Hummingbird, Editorial Xingao, Segmented Bodies, Prickly Pear Publishing, and a forthcoming binational chapbook, selected poems from Segmented Bodies published by Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, Mexico. 

Diosa Xochiquetzalcóatl, or Diosa X for short, is a multilingual and multidimensional spoken word artist, workshop facilitator, and international poetiza. She is a seasoned language arts educator with a Bachelor’s in English and a Master’s in Cross-Cultural Teaching. Diosa X was selected Regional 2nd Runner Up in Inlandia’s Hillary Gravendyke’s Poetry Prize in 2023 for her poetry collection titled, When the Leaves Come Tumbling Down: An A to Z Poetry Collection About Loss. She was also selected as finalist for Somos en escrito’s Best Raza Short Story Award in 2023 for her piece titled, The Weight of the Scales. Diosa Xochiquetzalcóatl is currently serving as a board member for Círculo de poetas and Writers, works as a Poet-Teacher with California Poets in the Schools, and is a writing coach for Quill & Company. Not only has she been published in a variety of anthologies and literary magazines in the U.S. and in Mexico, she is also the author of six poetry collections, with her seventh being released in 2024. To learn more about Diosa Xochiquetzalcóatl’s work, feel free to visit www.diosax.net.

Adela Najarro is a poet with a social consciousness who is working on a novel. Her extended family left Nicaragua and arrived in San Francisco during the 1940s; after the fall of the Somoza regime, the last of the family settled in the Los Angeles area. She serves on the board of directors for Círculo de poetas and Writers and works with the Latinx community nationwide, promoting the intersection of creative writing and social justice. She has published four poetry collections, and the Letras Latinas/ Red Hen Collaborative has selected Variations in Blue for publication in 2025. The California Arts Council recognized her as an established artist for the Central California Region and appointed her as an Individual Artist Fellow. More information about Adela can be found at her website: www.adelanajarro.com.

Join us for an afternoon of art talk and chisme with the Oakland collectivo Los Pobres Artistas, whose beautiful group show “Home is Where the Heart is” is currently up in our galeria.

Los pobres artistas are a group of artists, educators and friends based in Oakland, CA. They are a group of multidisciplinary artists with a strong practice in muralism, whose work is revolutionary and community-oriented. They strive to break down borders and unite people through art. The group is made up of Sarah Siskin, Keena Romano, Fredericko Alvarado,Thitiwat Phromratanapongse, Rafasz,Thomas Jones, and Stephanie Hooper. They believe that art is vital in the healing and transformation of the communities they serve.

Other Dimensions in Sound is our Friday music series curated and hosted by Boohaabian multi reed player extraordinare David Boyce. Each week David will be inviting different musical guests to join him in our galeria for a night of sonic sustenance and musical medicina.

Tonight’s sonic medicina is being provided by Go Van Gogh 2025

Speaking Axolotl La Area Bahia’s long running monthly Latinx reading series happens the third Thursday of each month. Come gather and hear Decolonized Verses, Spanglish Poesia,, Latine Spoken Word and neighborhood chisme. This month we are over la luna excited to feature a very special Filipinx edition of Speaking Axolotl curated and hosted by the one and only Barbara Jane Reyes. Barbara will be joined by Janice Lobo Sapigao and Michelle Peñaloza.

10 slot open mic slot goes up a las 6;50pm

Janice Lobo Sapigao (she/her) is a Filipina American poet, writer, and independent scholar from the San Francisco Bay Area (unceded Ohlone land). She is a daughter of immigrants who grew up in a house with 12 people. She is the author of the poetry collections like a solid to a shadow (Nightboat Books, 2022) and microchips for millions (PAWA, Inc., 2016), along with two other chapbooks. She contributed three entries to The SAGE Encyclopedia of Filipina/x/o American Studies. She is an earrings collector, an introvert, an avid reader, and a July Leo. She is working on a novel. She is a 2023-2026 Lucas Arts Resident in Literary Arts at the Montalvo Arts Center. She was a Visiting Scholar at the Newberry Library in Chicago, IL, an AWP Writer-to-Writer Mentee in fiction, the 2020-2021 Santa Clara County Poet Laureate, and a Poet Laureate Fellow with the Academy of American Poets. She is a tenured Associate Professor of English at Skyline College where she works with community college students and directs the Honors Transfer Program. There, she received the Meyer Excellence in Teaching Award in 2023. She co-founded Santa Clara County’s Youth Poet Laureate Program as a chapter with Urban Word NYC, and she co-founded Sunday Jump Open Mic in Los Angeles’s Historic Filipinotown. She received a Ralph C. and Mary Lynn Heid Rare Materials Research Fellowship at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and she studied the Philippine History Special Collection archives in 2024. She will be a Mendel Fellow at Indiana University’s Lilly Library in 2025.

Michelle Peñaloza is the author of All The Words I Can Remember Are Poems, winner of the 2024 Lexi Rudnitsky Editor’s Choice Award and the James Laughlin Award, awarded by The Academy of American Poets to recognize and support a second book of poetry forthcoming in the next calendar year. (Persea Books, 2025). She is also the author of Former Possessions of the Spanish Empire, winner of the 2018 Hillary Gravendyk National Poetry Prize (Inlandia Books, 2019), and two chapbooks, landscape/heartbreak (Two Sylvias, 2015), and Last Night I Dreamt of Volcanoes (Organic Weapon Arts, 2015). Some of her honors include the Frederick Bock Prize from the Poetry Foundation as well as grants from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, the Community Foundation of Mendocino County, Upstate Creative Corps, 4Culture, Artist Trust, Literary Arts, and PAWA (Philippine American Writers and Artists). You can find her work at The Seventh Wave, Poetry, Honey Literary, Bellingham Review, New England Review, Lantern Review, and featured in American Life in Poetry. The proud daughter of Filipino immigrants, Michelle was born in the suburbs of Detroit, MI and raised in Nashville, TN. She now lives in Covelo, CA.

Barbara Jane Reyes was born in Manila, Philippines, raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, and is the author of Gravities of Center (Arkipelago Books, 2003), Poeta en San Francisco (TinFish Press, 2005), Diwata (BOA Editions, Ltd., 2010), To Love as Aswang (Philippine American Writers and Artists, Inc., 2015), Invocation to Daughters (City Lights Publishing, 2017), Letters to a Young Brown Girl (BOA Editions, Ltd., 2020), and Wanna Peek Into My Notebook?: Notes on Pinay Liminality (Paloma Press, 2022). Poems and essays have appeared in Asian Pacific American Journal, Chain, Hambone, Huizache, Maganda, Marías at Sampaguitas, Meridians, Ms. Magazine, New American Writing, New England Review, North American Review, Notre Dame Review, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, San Francisco Chronicle, Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, South Dakota Review, Southern Humanities Review, The New York Times, World Literature Today, and elsewhere. An Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellow, a recipient of the James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets, the Global Filipino Literary Award, and a San Francisco Press Club Journalism Award, she received her BA in Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley, her MFA at San Francisco State University, and she teaches in the Yuchengco Philippine Studies Program at University of San Francisco. 

San Francisco Solidarity Collective hosts Letter Writing and Correspondence Night

Our focus is on prison abolitionist work centered on the struggle of people in prison, jails, and immigrant and juvenile detention centers locally and worldwide. Join us for exchanging letters, starting a pen-pal, or just one-time birthday cards. No commitment necessary We will provide statements from incarcerated individuals, addresses, stamps, and envelopes. We got you, come write with us familia.

Colectivo de Solidaridad de San Francisco
 Noche de Escritura de Cartas y Correspondencias.
 Nuestro enfoque está en el trabajo abolicionista de las prisiones,
centrado en la lucha de las personas en prisiones, cárceles y centros
de detención juvenil y de inmigrantes a nivel local y mundial. Únase con nosotros para intercambiar cartas, iniciar amistades por correspondencia o simplemente escribir tarjetas de cumpleaños. No es necesario comprometerse. Nosotros proveeremos declaraciones de las personas encarceladas, direcciones, sellos y sobres.
¡Estamos para ti! Vengan a escribir con nosotros familia!

Other Dimensions in Sound is our Friday music series curated and hosted by Boohaabian multi reed player extraordinare David Boyce. Each week David will be inviting different musical guests to join him in our galeria for a night of sonic sustenance and musical medicina.

Tonight’s musical medicina is being provided by Ben Davis/Fred Lonberg Holm Duo

Join us for an evening of poetry with Enero Zapatista, honoring over a year of Palestinian resistance. Share your work as we unite around collective struggles and the fight for liberation in Palestine. Featured poets and musicians TBA. This evento is part of Enero Zapatista 2025. To view the Enero Zapatista 2025 schedule go to their IG account @enerozapatista.bayarea

San Francisco Solidarity Collective hosts Letter Writing and Correspondence Night

Our focus is on prison abolitionist work centered on the struggle of people in prison, jails, and immigrant and juvenile detention centers locally and worldwide. Join us for exchanging letters, starting a pen-pal, or just one-time birthday cards. No commitment necessary We will provide statements from incarcerated individuals, addresses, stamps, and envelopes. We got you, come write with us familia.

Colectivo de Solidaridad de San Francisco
 Noche de Escritura de Cartas y Correspondencias.
 Nuestro enfoque está en el trabajo abolicionista de las prisiones,
centrado en la lucha de las personas en prisiones, cárceles y centros
de detención juvenil y de inmigrantes a nivel local y mundial. Únase con nosotros para intercambiar cartas, iniciar amistades por correspondencia o simplemente escribir tarjetas de cumpleaños. No es necesario comprometerse. Nosotros proveeremos declaraciones de las personas encarceladas, direcciones, sellos y sobres.
¡Estamos para ti! Vengan a escribir con nosotros familia!

No Kings! No Queens! is the super-chill community chess club that gathers the 1st Sunday of every month in the galeria. Hosted by Danny Cao, all ages and skill levels are encouraged to come. Never played chess? We'll teach you! Come hang out, talk chess and play a few games.

From Chiapas to Palestine, the struggle for liberation unites us. Join us for our opening event for Enero Zapatista Bay Area 2025 in collaboration with Chiapas Support Committee (CSC). As we open up the month-long events, we pick up right where we left off, deepening our solidarity with Palestine by showcasing short films from Palestinian filmmakers. The event will include a report back from a CSC member who will present on their recent trip to Palestine, followed by a dialogue about the connections between Zapatismo and Palestine. 󠁭Come by for tamales at 6:30pm. Our program will begin at 7pm.

Other Dimensions in Sound is our Friday music series curated and hosted by Boohaabian multi reed player extraordinare David Boyce. Each week David will be inviting different musical guests to join him in our galeria for a night of sonic sustenance and musical medicina.

Tonight’s double dose of sonic medicina is being provided by Nikita Manin(with Ben Davis, cello, Jon Raskin, saxophone, Jordan Glenn, percussion) and Under The Bridge with very special guest Marshal Trammell(John Dovales Flores - Guitars, electronics, Julian Lopez - Keyboards, synthesizers, electronics, Leonardo Rivera - Electronics, drum machines)

San Francisco Solidarity Collective hosts Letter Writing and Correspondence Night

Our focus is on prison abolitionist work centered on the struggle of people in prison, jails, and immigrant and juvenile detention centers locally and worldwide. Join us for exchanging letters, starting a pen-pal, or just one-time birthday cards. No commitment necessary We will provide statements from incarcerated individuals, addresses, stamps, and envelopes. We got you, come write with us familia.

Colectivo de Solidaridad de San Francisco
 Noche de Escritura de Cartas y Correspondencias.
 Nuestro enfoque está en el trabajo abolicionista de las prisiones,
centrado en la lucha de las personas en prisiones, cárceles y centros
de detención juvenil y de inmigrantes a nivel local y mundial. Únase con nosotros para intercambiar cartas, iniciar amistades por correspondencia o simplemente escribir tarjetas de cumpleaños. No es necesario comprometerse. Nosotros proveeremos declaraciones de las personas encarceladas, direcciones, sellos y sobres.
¡Estamos para ti! Vengan a escribir con nosotros familia!

Other Dimensions in Sound is our Friday music series curated and hosted by Boohaabian multi reed player extraordinare David Boyce. Each week David will be inviting different musical guests to join him in our galeria for a night of sonic sustenance and musical medicina.

Tonight’s sonic medicina is a very special set featuring David Boyce, David James, and Warren Heugel.

Nostalgic for Nothing Cinemas's December screening is THE HOUR OF THE FURNACES (La hora de los hornos, 1968), the classic of revolutionary and anti-colonial Argentinian cinema.

Made under the guise of the Cine Liberación Group in the years preceding what came to be known as the Dirty War, The Hour of the Furnaces was simultaneously groundbreaking cinema and a guerilla-style call for the overthrow of Argentina’s dictatorship. Newsreels depicting the country’s sociopolitical fury between 1945 and 1968 interweave powerful testimonies of Peronist Resistance fighters and everyday people with the words of revolutionary heroes including José Marti — whose phrase referring to Cuba’s liberation from Spanish colonialism lends its title to the film — Che Guevara, Frantz Fanon, and José Carlos Mariátegui, a Peruvian Marxist philosopher who advocated for revolution rooted in local practises.

Shown clandestinely to sympathetic audiences that would interrupt screenings to debate, The Hour of the Furnaces is a cornerstone of so-called Third Cinema — a movement and theory conceived by the filmmakers, Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, who advocated subversive and non-commercialized cinema challenging Hollywood’s bourgeois excesses and called for socialist mobilization in their homeland. (Dorota Lech)

Masks required!

San Francisco Solidarity Collective hosts Letter Writing and Correspondence Night

Our focus is on prison abolitionist work centered on the struggle of people in prison, jails, and immigrant and juvenile detention centers locally and worldwide. Join us for exchanging letters, starting a pen-pal, or just one-time birthday cards. No commitment necessary We will provide statements from incarcerated individuals, addresses, stamps, and envelopes. We got you, come write with us familia.

Colectivo de Solidaridad de San Francisco
 Noche de Escritura de Cartas y Correspondencias.
 Nuestro enfoque está en el trabajo abolicionista de las prisiones,
centrado en la lucha de las personas en prisiones, cárceles y centros
de detención juvenil y de inmigrantes a nivel local y mundial. Únase con nosotros para intercambiar cartas, iniciar amistades por correspondencia o simplemente escribir tarjetas de cumpleaños. No es necesario comprometerse. Nosotros proveeremos declaraciones de las personas encarceladas, direcciones, sellos y sobres.
¡Estamos para ti! Vengan a escribir con nosotros familia!

!Your holidaze dream came true Poetry in the Window is back!

Medicina Para Pesadillas is keeping the very special Mission tradition of poets reading on the street alive and well with this literary series. Come hang and enjoy poets reading their work to Calle Veinte Cuatro.

This month’;s features are soledad con carne, Thomas Dunn, and James Cagney

soledad con carne is a casually queer, intergalactic Oakland/Ohlone-based chicanx punk poet, working/poor multiple high school drop-out, analog zinester, co-host of the City Lights First Fridays series, poet laureate of the San Fernando Valley, and blatant smoker sharing-trauma-with-their-mother. Their debut chapbook "SFV or Die, Foo'" is available through Lilac Press

Thomas Dunn is a multi-media artist, poet, and experimental filmmaker from Midland, Michigan. A proud graduate of Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Thomas is a Cave Canem Fellow and has attended the Community of Writers' Poetry Workshop. With forthcoming poetry appearing in Poetry Lore, Allium, Trinity University's Ecopoetry Anthology, Defunkt Magazine, and others, Thomas recently graduated with an MFA in Writing from the California College of the Arts.

Oakland born poet James Cagney is the author of two books of poetry, including MARTIAN: The Saint of Loneliness, winner of 2021 James Laughlin Award from Academy of American Poets. Please Visit JamesCagneyPoet.com

Join us for an afternoon of stitching Tatreez, Palestinian embroidery, in community with other stitchers. Palestinian and non-Palestinian allies are welcome at any experience level, but please note that this is not a class/workshop. 

Organized by the SF Bay Area Tatreez Circle, a volunteer group of Bay Area diaspora Palestinians and non-Palestinian allies. 

Other Dimensions in Sond is our Friday music series curated and hosted by Boohaabian multi reed player extraordinare David Boyce. Each week David will be inviting different musical guests to join him in our galeria for a night of sonic sustenance and musical medicina.

Tonight’s musical medicina is being provided by Emplifier

Come gather and hear Decolonized Verses, Spanglish Poesia,, Latinx Spoken Word and neighborhood chisme at Speaking Axolotl, the Bay Area’s long running monthly Latinx Reading series.

!This month our feature is none other than Lorna Dee Cervantes!

Born in San Francisco, raised in San José, Barrio Horseshoe, Lorna Dee Cervantes was a self-taught activist by 15, taught herself how to run her own printing press and was Founding Editor/Publisher of MANGO Publications at 20, and the author of EMPLUMADA at 24. A XícanIndX poet (Chumash/Purépecha), Cervantes (PhD, History of Consciousness) was a Professor of English for 20 years at CU Boulder, serving as Director of Creative Writing. Awarded 2 NEA Fellowships, 2 Pushcart Prizes, a Lila Wallace/Readers Digest Award, state arts grants, Best Book awards for 6 books of poetry including EMPLUMADA and APRIL ON OLYMPIA, Cervantes now lives and writes in Seattle.

Open mic lista goes up a las 6:50pm first come first served.

San Francisco Solidarity Collective hosts Letter Writing and Correspondence Night

Our focus is on prison abolitionist work centered on the struggle of people in prison, jails, and immigrant and juvenile detention centers locally and worldwide. Join us for exchanging letters, starting a pen-pal, or just one-time birthday cards. No commitment necessary We will provide statements from incarcerated individuals, addresses, stamps, and envelopes. We got you, come write with us familia.

Colectivo de Solidaridad de San Francisco
 Noche de Escritura de Cartas y Correspondencias.
 Nuestro enfoque está en el trabajo abolicionista de las prisiones,
centrado en la lucha de las personas en prisiones, cárceles y centros
de detención juvenil y de inmigrantes a nivel local y mundial. Únase con nosotros para intercambiar cartas, iniciar amistades por correspondencia o simplemente escribir tarjetas de cumpleaños. No es necesario comprometerse. Nosotros proveeremos declaraciones de las personas encarceladas, direcciones, sellos y sobres.
¡Estamos para ti! Vengan a escribir con nosotros familia!

As our year comes to a close, we feel called to take a moment this season to thank every single present that has come to our lives We invite our community to join us for a cozy afternoon to celebrate one another this holiday season. We will open the mic to our community for short sharings: we’d love to hear who or what you’d like us to celebrate with you We celebrate:– Our Sagittarius birthdays, as well as the arrival of new precious beings to our Earth – The growing success of Bayanihan Boxing: an affordable, inclusive and holistic martial arts program in our community – The soft launch of our multi-medium production company, Versus Odds We also celebrate & thank Arts.Co.Lab, Medicine for Nightmares, and the beautiful web of people who make up our community

Join us for a preview of “Unmuted Echoes of Peace,” the “Unmuted Echoes” film series, and “Paper Trail of FREEDOM”: three projects that are coming out of Versus Odds early next year. Take home an advanced reader of “Unmuted Echoes of Peace.”

follow Versus Odds: @versusodds on IG, youtube.com/VSOdds

www.jxtheo.net/vsodds

Enjoy performances by: Momos Cheeskos, Sol Butta, jxtheo, and more to be announced

And yes, this is a potluck! Please consider bringing any food or drinks to share with at least four other people. Let us know if you are bringing anything. We will share a running menu as we get updates on each item everyone is bringing. There is no expectation to bring anything. Your presence is the best gift

This event is free and open to our entire community Donations or tips to help cover any costs are much appreciated If you are driving, please allow at least 30 minutes to look for parking.

RSVP now at https://bit.ly/cherishedpotluck. The QR code is in our flyer

Biographies

(optional, if there is room)

Versus Odds

"Revolutionary culture epidemic as a weapon, infecting probabilities in systemic oppression."

Versus Odds is a multi-medium production company that aims to democratize art, culture and media. We intend to challenge existing hegemonies and monopolies in these fields by featuring critical voices from communities that deserve more visibility. We are a literary publisher, a social media platform, and a creator of spaces for brilliant, independent Bay Area artists. As a platform by cultural workers, we carry the purpose of empowering people to take action for genuine progress in our world.

Odds are probabilities based on existing dynamics of power. By challenging these odds, we intend to change courses of power towards the people, so that we can build a more equitable, just, progressive and liberated society.

jxtheo

jxtheo (j-thee-o), also known as Jean (JT) Teodoro, is an environmentalist, internationalist, poet and educator. They create art to inspire proficiency in the language of revolutionary action. They were born in QC, Philippines, and raised in both QC & Unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Land (San Francisco, CA). They are a co-founder and vocalist of the hip-hop & rock band Boondock Squad. They founded Bayanihan Boxing – a sports and martial arts program with a holistic approach to the sweet science. They also founded Versus Odds – a multi-medium production company that aims to democratize art, culture and media by featuring critical voices from communities that deserve more visibility. They have worked as an instructor in Filipino language, social sciences and creative writing.

Their debut publication, a graphic poetry book titled “Paper Trail of FREEDOM,” is scheduled for its reissue and released in Spring 2025. Pre-order your copy now!

Join us for a presale reading of Coco Oliver's new collection of poems, dormilona. QR postcards will be available to make advance purchases: all author earnings for this book will be donated to MECA (Middle East Children's Alliance), for more information visit mecaforpeace.org. 

dormilona is a bilingual book of poetry exploring dream states, distance, and the rituals of sleep. In this collection, the fluidity of language reflects the elusive nature of time and memory, centering on matrilineal consciousness and variable notions of home. The ancient forests surrounding Mount Roraima and the bright pink sands of Playa Colorada inhabit the speaker’s dreams, and in these topographies, she finds harmony with brain wave patterns drawn from sleep studies. Meaning both “nightgown” and “sleepyhead” in Venezuelan Spanish, dormilona weaves a neural network linking sleep to matrilineal memory, time, and geography. 

Coco will be joined by María Esquinca, author of Where Heaven Sinks, a collection of poetry that received the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize and is forthcoming next year., and East Bay poet Niambi Walker.

Coco Oliver is a poet and artist living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her first book of poems, Cosmos A Personal Voyage by Carl Sagan Ann Druyan Steven Soter And Me (Operating System, 2017) is about nuclear disarmament. Her second book, Science Fiction Fiction (Spuyten Duyvil, 2020) is an homage to Miami-Dade County and color photography in the early aughts.

María Esquinca is a poet and journalist. A fronteriza, she was born in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico and grew up in El Paso, Texas. She is currently a producer for The Bay, a podcast out of KQED. Before that, she was a New York Women's Foundation IGNITE Fellow with Latino USA where she produced narrated and non-narrated episodes. In 2019, she was selected as a Report for America Fellow for Radio Bilingue, as the only full time reporter she covered the San Joaquin Valley. She wrote several stories about COVID-outbreaks at places like Avenal State Prison, the Mesa Verde Detention Center, and Foster Farms, one of the largest poultry producers. Before that, she interned with WLRN. In 2024 she won the Andres Montoya Poetry Prize, chosen by Juan Felipe Herrera, for her forthcoming book of poetry Where Heaven Sinks(2025).

Niambi Walker (she/they) is a black, queer, writer, and spoken word artist born in Oakland, Ca and raised in Atlanta, Ga. She released her first chapbook "Accidentally Ordered an Espresso" in 2020. They have championed and featured at numerous slam poetry spaces and were a part of the 2022 Berkeley Slam Poetry Team. She strives to represent and unite her community through the written word focusing on experiences with identity, mental health, and the complexity of being human. Their next book "Cup Full of Bees" is set to release in January 2025.

From the organizing body that brings you the Berkeley Slam and the Oakland Slam, RichOak Events presents a new poetry show in the heart of San Francisco’s Mission District. In partnership with Medicine for Nightmares, the Day Dreamer’s Poetry Showcase is a spoken word event where voices that have often been silenced or overlooked have a chance to shine.

Join us every 2nd Saturday in the Galleria as we invite local and traveling poets to shape and nurture the very dreams we as poets refuse to let die.

Every month, we will be bringing featuring poets from all walks of life to inspire our audience with beauty of story telling and the alchemy of word play. You don't wanna miss this!

Other Dimensions in Sond is our Friday music series curated and hosted by Boohaabian multi reed player extraordinare David Boyce. Each week David will be inviting different musical guests to join him in our galeria for a night of sonic sustenance and musical medicina.

Tonight serious sonic sustenance is being provided by The Lost Shapes

A Book Launch Reading and Solidarity Building Evening. Please join Xochiquetzal Candelaria as she reads from her new collection, Show Me the Bells, and talks about how in the words of June Jordan, “We Are the One’s We’ve Been Waiting For.” 

Xochiquetzal Candelaria is the author of two books of poetry, Empire and Show Me the Bells. Her work has appeared in The Nation, Tin House, Colorado Review and other magazines. She is the recipient of awards including an NEA Fellowship in Poetry and grants from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, and the LEF Foundation. Her poetry and essays have been anthologized, most recently in Other Musics: New Latina Poetry, The Poetry of Capital, and The Awesome Difficult Work of Love: June Jordan’s Legacy. She teaches writing at CCSF and lives in San Francisco, California.

LYNX / Shadow Dances is an eclectic violin duo program that invites us to see beyond the veil of the ordinary. A gateway to the strange and uncharted—featuring Saint-Saen’s Danse Macabre, where death invites the living to a midnight dance, the iconic theme from the 90s sci-fi series The X-Files, and selections from Bartok’s 44 Duos for 2 Violins, known for its unexpected tonalities and asymmetrical rhythms.

LYNX is a violin duo that takes its name from both the distant constellation and the enigmatic animal known for its sharp vision and ability to see in the dark. Both in mythology and in nature, the lynx is a symbol of deep intuition and hidden knowledge, traits that guide us as we explore unexpected linkages between works across a wide variety of genres, time periods, and universes.

San Francisco Solidarity Collective hosts Letter Writing and Correspondence Night

Our focus is on prison abolitionist work centered on the struggle of people in prison, jails, and immigrant and juvenile detention centers locally and worldwide. Join us for exchanging letters, starting a pen-pal, or just one-time birthday cards. No commitment necessary We will provide statements from incarcerated individuals, addresses, stamps, and envelopes. We got you, come write with us familia.

Colectivo de Solidaridad de San Francisco
 Noche de Escritura de Cartas y Correspondencias.
 Nuestro enfoque está en el trabajo abolicionista de las prisiones,
centrado en la lucha de las personas en prisiones, cárceles y centros
de detención juvenil y de inmigrantes a nivel local y mundial. Únase con nosotros para intercambiar cartas, iniciar amistades por correspondencia o simplemente escribir tarjetas de cumpleaños. No es necesario comprometerse. Nosotros proveeremos declaraciones de las personas encarceladas, direcciones, sellos y sobres.
¡Estamos para ti! Vengan a escribir con nosotros familia!

Join us tonight for the opening of Los Pobres Artists collective show “Home Is Where The Heart Is”!

Los pobres artistas are a group of artists, educators and friends based in Oakland, CA. They are a group of multidisciplinary artists with a strong practice in muralism, whose work is revolutionary and community-oriented. They strive to break down borders and unite people through art. The group is made up of Sarah Siskin, Keena Romano, Fredericko Alvarado,Thitiwat Phromratanapongse, Rafasz,Thomas Jones, and Stephanie Hooper. They believe that art is vital in the healing and transformation of the communities they serve.

A student led event with poetry, prison letter writing and panelists to speak about policing and abolition. It is an event to advocate for black and brown youth facing criminalization , police brutality and restorative justice.

Panelists and Participants will include;

Michelle and Ashley Monterrosa (Panelists)

Michelle and Ashley Monterrosa are Sean Monterrosa sisters. Sean Monterrosa was shot and killed by Detective Jarrett Tonn (who was part of Vallejo PD) while protesting the police murder of George Floyd in 2020. The Monterrosa sisters began advocating for the justice of their brother and other families who have suffered police brutality. His family continues to spread awareness about Sean and police brutality in the bay area – they host events, protests, unite with other victims’ families and they created the Sean Monterrosa Project. Michelle recently had gone to the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention to address gun violence in Latino communities. Ashley is a board director at the California Endowments Board. Their resilience stands strong to this day.

CURYJ is a non-profit org that helps youth dream beyond bars. Their goal is to end youth criminalization and mass incarceration by leading programs for youth to be involved such as community garden, murals, cultural celebrations and more. They also teach ethnic studies, facilitate restorative justice circles, and share cultural healing practices. They will be sending someone over to talk about the work they do to end youth criminalization and the importance of community organizing.

SF Solidarity Collective (Prison Letter Writing)

Community Works (Holiday Donation Drive) Community Works is a non-profit organization that focuses on meeting the needs of people who are in the justice system. They have over 25 years of experience in implementing restorative justice programs. They will be helping us facilitate a holiday donation drive for children whose families are incarcerated. They gave us a list of hygiene products, feminine products, school supplies and clothing.

Los Bayuncos (Catering) Los Bayuncos are a family-owned Salvadoran restaurant/business. They will be catering for our event outside of the bookstore. They serve pupusas, putacos and other delicious Salvadoran dishes.

Other Dimensions in Sond is our Friday music series curated and hosted by Boohaabian multi reed player extraordinare David Boyce. Each week David will be inviting different musical guests to join him in our galeria for a night of sonic sustenance and musical medicina.

Tonight double dose of sonic sustenance is being provided by Ghost Dub/Dymaxion Trio