Join us for an afternoon of poetry in the Yerba Buena Gardens in partnership with Litquake and Nomadic Press. Hear from a lineup of poets featured in the new poetry collection Patrice Lumumba: An Anthology of Writers on Black Liberation (Nomadic Press).‍

Patrice Lumumba: An Anthology of Writers on Black Liberation collects the liberatory words of 24 authors—explorations of contemporary colonization, the racial/physical/mental/physic abuses of power, locations of home, alternative modes of work, the health profession, and the healing powers of history.

‍Please note that this is an outdoor in-person event that will not be livestreamed.

‍Copies of Patrice Lumumba: An Anthology of Writers on Black Liberation are available for purchase at the MoAD Bookstore.

‍Featured Poets:

adrienne danyelle oliver is a poet-educator, hip-hop scholar from Little Rock, AR currently living in the SF Bay Area. Her previous work has appeared in Storytelling, Self & Society (Wayne State University Press, 2018), Patrice Lumumba: An Anthology of Writers on Black Liberation (Nomadic Press, 2021) and Write Now! SF Bay’s anthology Essential Truths: The Bay Area in Color (Pease Press, 2021). Adrienne enjoys writing about intergenerational healing. Her chapbook The Body Has Memories (Nomadic Press, 2022) explores this theme.

When she is not writing, Adrienne is reading or watching documentaries. She also leads a monthly healing writing circle for Black women.

Ayodele "WordSlanger" Nzinga is a renaissance woman. She’s an author, director, producer, actress, dramaturge, playwright, member of Alameda County Women's Hall of Fame, and the Inaugural Poet Laureate of Oakland. With an MFA in Writing & Consciousness and a Ph.D. in Transformative Education and Change, Nzinga is a Cultural Architect invested in designing structures that support cultural production.

Working at the intersections of community well-being and cultural sovereignty, Nzinga is the founder of the Lower Bottom Playaz, Inc, and the Black Arts Movement Business District, Community Development Corporation of Oakland. She is a 2021 Map Fund Fellow and a member of the YBCA 10.

Her books SorrowLand Oracle and The Horse Eaters are available from Nomadic Press. Her book Incandescent is available from Not a Pipeline Publishing.

Brandon Logans is a poet from Oakland, California. He has his MFA in Poetry from Mills College. His work has been published in the Patrice Lumumba Anthology and Variety Pack's Special Issue Black Voices of Pride. He might describe himself as a rectangular sheet of honey 30” x 62”, 6” above any surface.

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By night, Jeneé Darden is a superhero who suits up to sit on her couch in cute boots and encourages other Black women to remove their capes and chill. By day, she's an award-winning journalist, documentarian, public speaker, mental health advocate and proud Oakland native. She has reported for NPR, Time, Ebony, KQED, Los Angeles Times, and more.

Jeneé hosts KALW’s arts segment "Sights & Sounds," and is also their East Oakland reporter. Watch her documentary Where is East Oakland. Her first book When a Purple Rose Blooms (Nomadic Press) is a womanist collection of poetry and essays.

She writes about her personal experiences with love, sex and mental health as a Black woman. Jeneé hosts the blog CocoaFly.com and curates "Let Her Tell It," a reading about Black women and mental health. She holds a BA in ethnic studies from UC San Diego and a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Southern California.

Story Medicine Woman and award-winning poet Tureeda Mikell has been called an activist for holism, hell-bent on asserting life. She is a ChiGong energy consultant for over 36 years, a Poets in the School poet teacher for over 30 years, and Area Coordinator for Alameda County Poets in the Schools for 11 years. She has published 72 student anthologies including at-risk youth from throughout the East and West Bay Area, Hunter’s Point, and S.F. Western Addition, including the Wajumbe Cultural Institution.

She was a NuWa poet/storytelling delegate in Beijing, China with Eth Noh Tec International in 2018. Tureeda’s work has been chosen for the 2021 Harlem Book Fair, in N.Y., and the 55-year celebration of the Unveiling of Black Panther Party Mural, by Refa Senay. Online zine publications include The Maynard (2020), Poetry is Bread (2021), Word Press/Digital Papers (2021), Warmth of Oakland Sun (2021), and Published in Building Socialism II (2021). Her book Synchronicity: The Oracle of Sun Medicine (2020, Nomadic Press) was nominated for the California Book Award, and she is co-curator of the Patrice Lumumba Anthology, with East Side Arts Alliance (January 2021).

‍Sponsored by Yerba Buena Gardens Festival.

Learn more about LItquake 2021!