Sharing works that delight, provoke, inspire and rouse, the monthly Poetic Tuesdays series runs from May through October, turning lunchtime into an oasis of creative expression. Lighting up Jessie Square 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 out-of-towners looking for respite from The City’s hustle and bustle.

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This month's featured artists include Darius Simpson, Maddy Clifford, Ashante Ford, shah noor hussein, and Honey Gold Jasmine.

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Featured Artists

‍Darius Simpson is a New Afrikan writer, educator, performer, and skilled living room dancer from Akron, Ohio. Much like the means of production, he believes poetry must be used for the positive social, political, and economic development of the majority of society. He aims to inspire those chills that make you frown and slightly twist up ya face in approval. His book, Never Catch Me, is out now and available at buttonpoetry.com. Darius believes in the dissolution of empire and the total liberation of Africans and all oppressed people by any means available. Free All Political Prisoners. Free The People. Free The Land.

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Maddy Clifford is an Oakland-based writer, musician, and activist. She has a notable career highlighted by her eight-year tenure as a Poet in Residence at the San Francisco Juvenile Justice Center. Following this, Maddy released a solo album titled "downCHANTS" and composed a forty-minute musical score for the aerial dance piece "Apparatus of Repair" in collaboration with Flyaway Productions. Her latest project is a video podcast called "What's Pimpin'?" produced with KQED Arts. Maddy's artistry is anchored in Black feminist praxis, adopting bold and playful tactics to recognize commonalities in our collective struggles. Her mission is to foster a future where confronting hard truths is embraced with less fear. Find her writings in Prism Reports, Truthout, and 48hills.

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Ashante J. Ford, also known as “angel ash” (they/she) is a queer multidisciplinary artist, facilitator, and healer residing in Oakland, California. Her artistic expression becomes a spiritual odyssey, each poem a metaphysical dance with the surreal as she focuses on themes of healing, growth, and community. She creates offerings for the powers that be. The expansiveness of their poetry has led them to four galleries so far and on the big screen. ash was selected to be a QWOCMAP fellow last year and created her first poetic short film, “Line Of Reverence” scheduled to premiere at the Presidio Theatre in San Francisco on June 15th, 2024. As for her gallery works, this year, she showed her poetic “Coat of Arms” at Abrams Claghorn Gallery in Albany and her digital photography with handwritten poems titled, “Iris Tongue” at  PLAySPACE Gallery in San Francisco. Last year, two of her poems, “The Navigator'' and “Furiously shaking my hips'' were displayed in the Multi-Cultural Center in Berkeley, California. A piece titled, “Obatala offers peace” was also exhibited in San Francisco at the Drawing Room Annex. Previous “Rooted and Written” fellow and DrawBridge Community Artist, angel ash floats around the Bay Area sharing her gifts. They have been published in Epiphany Magazine, SKEW Magazine, the 1619 Speaks Anthology, Anti Fragile Magazine, Pensive Magazine, Petrichor Magazine, and more. You can visit her writing on her website @ashanteswrite.blog." 

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shah noor hussein is a Sudanese writer, multimedia visual artist, and public scholar crafting narratives at the nexus of Black feminist thought and Queer diaspora studies. They serve as a Cota-Robles Fellow in the Departments of Anthropology and Critical Race & Ethnic Studies at UC Santa Cruz and an Adjunct Professor at California College of the Arts.

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shah’s writing has been featured in numerous anthologies, including a forthcoming collection of Black feminist writing, When We Exhale (2024), alongside the works of Maya Angelou, Sonia Sanchez, and June Jordan. Their academic work has been published in The Black Aesthetic Volume II (2018), a collection of essays engaging Black art and visual media and Color Theory (2019), an anthology of women of color reflecting on art, academia, and the non-profit industrial complex.

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shah’s poetry has been in The Arrow Journal (2023), Fog Lifter Press (2022), LA Review of Books (2020), Umber (2019), and CUNJUH (2017). They have performed their creative writing at the Museum of the African Diaspora (2020 - 2022), Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive (2018), Eastside Arts Alliance (2017).

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shah’s research illuminates the significance of women’s cultural remixes through a multimedia study of popular culture in the African diaspora. Through this lens, Sudanese women’s adaptability to shifting political landscapes create contested spaces where national, political agendas can be unsettled, renegotiated, or reinforced.

Follow shah on Instagram at: @shah__noor or through their website: shahnoorhussein.com

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SF Bay Area bred Hip Hop soul singer-songwriter, actress, grant writer, and event curator, Honey Gold Jasmine has an infectious, inspirational passion for life that shines through every project she gets her hands on. A true libra born on 10/10, Honey Gold Jasmine has balanced her eclectic self expression with the rigorous, deadline-driven world of grant writing and business development. In her pursuit for knowledge and connection, she's pushed past her limits and worked diligently, earning a double major in Ethnomusicology and Psychology from the prestigious historically women's university Mills College all while being a mother and cultivating an arts community rooted in the Bay. After working with Youth Impact Hub for 6 years and mentoring over 100 entrepreneurs and artists, she founded her Black women-led grant writing collective Grant Mama and as of 2024, has raised over $250k for her clients. For Honey Gold Jasmine, it's bigger than the music. She's here to show other Black queer women that they can accomplish anything they put their minds to. She is all financial and spiritual liberation, starting with her beloved Bay Area community.

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About the Curator

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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.

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This program is co-presented by the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival. The event will be hosted 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.‍

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