Sharing works that delight, provoke, inspire and rouse, the twice monthly Poetic Tuesdays series runs from May through August, turning lunchtime into an oasis of creative expression. Lighting up the Gardens with a fabulously curated line-up of poets and musicians, Poetic Tuesdays offer a vivifying midday breather for neighborhood groups, students, office workers on break and even out-of-towners looking for respite from The City’s hustle and bustle.

‍

Featured artists include Nairobi Williese Barnes, Josiah Luis Alderete, Aleah Bradshaw, Ayisha Knight-Shaw, and CIN.

‍

‍

Featured Artists

‍

Nairobi Williese Barnes is the 2023 Oakland Youth Poet Laureate. Nairobi attends Merritt College and her many accomplishments include winning the Superior and Impressive Writing Chops award at her high school, a published op-ed in Teen Vogue, and a published poem in 2016 book Accomplished, a collection of poems by The American Library of Poetry. Nairobi defines herself as a poet, artist, and activist. She has created educational videos and press releases about topics including voting rights, discrimination against Black women, and Black hair and how it defines her culture. As a woman who leads with her heart, her words have never steered her wrong and with every new journey she embarks on, a poem follows.

‍

Josiah Luis Alderete is a full blooded Pocho spanglish speaking poeta y left handed callejero de Aztlan. He is the curator and host of the long running  monthly Latinx reading series Speaking Axolotl. Josiah has published two books of poesia; Baby Axolotls & Old Pochos(2022 Black Freighter Press) and the chapbook Fuchi Faces de los Estados Jodidos (pinch pandemico poemas y other nalga-hyde chismes)(For The Pueblo 2023). Currently he tends the portal known as Medicine For Nightmares Bookstore & Galeria.

‍

Aleah Bradshaw, known performatively as Nyfe, is a 27 year old performing artist, writer and educator with a passion for poetry and hip hop as tools of liberation and creative expression. They were born and raised in Aurora, Colorado by two Trinidadian American immigrant parents and a community of poets and activists who inspired creativity in both their work and their conscious imagining of a new world. They now live in Oakland, California, where they work as a performing artist and educator while managing their own small business and collective musical project closegood.

‍

‍

‍

Ayisha Knight-Shaw is a California based Deaf multimedia artist, poet, educator and Reiki Master Teacher who is thrilled to be performing at this month’s event. The daughter of a White Jewish mother and Black Cherokee father, she was raised by her mother in an ethnically diverse community of poets, painters, sculptors, photographers and storytellers who taught her that creating and sharing art is as much a political act as a thing of beauty. As a poet, she has been seen at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Teatro Pregones, La Mama theater in NYC, Rhode Island School of Design, Amherst 20th anniversary of the ADA, Northampton Pride, and Wake Up The Earth. Television appearances include HBO Def Poetry Jam Season 4 as the first Deaf poet, Basic Black, and Urban Update.  Her 2004 show at Wheelock Family Theater, Hey Sistah, Welcome Home, led to a grant by the Cambridge Arts Council. Over the years, her passion for art, storytelling, theater, Reiki and education has been forming a tapestry that continues today.  If you would like to see more of her work or would like to know more, you can visit www.deafayisha.com or contact deafayisha@gmail.com.

‍

CIN is an Afro Mexicana, queer artist whose work focuses on visibility and vulnerability. Her genre could be described as alternative r&b with a zest of sing rap. Her art from poetry to music is directly tied to her activism in the community and creating more safe healing spaces and visibility of Black and Brown communities. Her freestyles become the songs that take you to a moment in her life. A fraction of time from heart ache, to triumph and the angst of the human experience rooted in a spiritual foundation.  

‍

‍

About the Curators

‍

Nia McAllister is an award-winning poet, writer, and environmental justice advocate working at the intersection of art, activism, and public engagement. As Senior Public Programs Manager at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) in San Francisco, Nia creates participatory spaces for creative expression and literary dialogue. Nia’s writing and poetry have been featured on Poets of Color Podcast, Bay Poets | KALW Public Media, and published in Doek! Literary Magazine, Radicle Magazine, Meridians Journal and Painting the Streets: Oakland Uprising in the Time of Rebellion (Nomadic Press, 2022). She is a recipient of the 2023 San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Awards. Learn more about Nia’s work at niamcallister.com

‍

Karla Brundage is author of two books of poetry, including Swallowing Watermelons and co-author of Mulatta–Not So Tragic. Her work as editor and publisher for Pacific Raven Press has included authors in the Bay Area, Hawaii, Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya in the following anthologies: Sisters Across Oceans, Our Spirits Carry Our Voices and Black Rootedness: 54 Poets from Africa to America. Media credits include Sister Power on ThinkTech Hawaii, C-SPAN, LitSeen, Wanda’s Picks and Chills at Will Podcast. Her poetry, essays and short stories can be found in Konch, Literary Magazine, sPARKLE & bLINK, MiGoZine, Black Fire This Time, Essential Truths and A Gathering of Tribes: Black Lives Matter Issue and her upcoming book Blood Lies: Race Trait(d)or (Finishing Line Press 2024). A graduate of Vassar College, Mills College MFA Program and San Francisco State Clinical Schools Project, Karla is founder of West Oakland to West Africa Poetry Exchange.

‍

Co-Presented by: Yerba Buena Gardens Festival

‍

This program is in-person at Jessie Square located directly across the street from the Yerba Buena Gardens and is part of Yerba Buena Gardens Festival's Poetic Tuesday series. For the full program schedule, visit www.ybgfestival.org.

‍