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 Tyson Amir, Briana Victoria Leung, SevanKelee Boult, Chasity Hale, and Scott Oshiro

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Featured Artists

‍Tyson Amir (@tyamir) is an author, musician, educator, community organizer, and freedom fighter born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. Tyson is the author of the books Black Boy Poems, Carry on Tradition, and the Black Boy Poems Curriculum. He is also the founder/director of the Black Literary Collective and the revolutionary education consultancy firm Freedom Soul Media Education Initiatives (FSMEI). As of May 1, 2024, FSMEI has worked with over 150 school partners, delivered more than 350 programs, and served more than 36,000 students. Tyson’s Building Leaders & Activists with Collective Knowledge (BLACK) Program finished serving more than 1,000 Black students in the 23-24 school year. You can find out more about Tyson Amir at: www.tysonamir.com and www.fsmei.org

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Briana Victoria Leung is a 20 y/o Bay Area-based queer non-binary Afro Asian Latinx storyteller and healer who has been writing, performing, and competing in the local slam poetry scene for the last nine years. Briana describes themselves as an “artivist” (a combination of artist and activist) and oral historian, using poetry and storytelling to explore political and social issues. They have found themselves more than once on the final stage of the Youth Speaks Teen Poetry Competition. In 2018 they represented the Bay Area on an all BIPOC femme team during the Brave New Voice National Poetry Competition in Houston, Texas. Their poetry has also been featured on local Bay Area radio stations, including 106.KMEL. Today, they can be found working
as a poet mentor teaching youth poetry workshops with Bay Area Creative's SPARC Poetry Foundation, which is the same program that initially introduced Briana to poetry in elementary school. They are currently studying Psychology and Critical Diversity Studies at the University of San Francisco hoping to eventually teach high school Ethnic Studies.

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SevanKelee “Lucky 7” Boult (@sevankelee) is an established Bay Area poet and performance artist. Hailing from East Palo Alto, California, and writing since childhood, A Poetry for the People Alum (Under the late June Jordan) and 2017 QCC Emerging Artist, her performances are said to be “amazing … thought provoking ... and mesmerizing.” This multifaceted artist has graced such stages as Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, De Young Museum, and the Brava and Marsh Theaters in San Francisco, California. SevanKelee’s poem “Cucumber” has been seen on HBO Real Sex since 2000, and her poem “Listening to Pain” appears in the spring 2017 issue of Foglifter Journal. In 2020, SevanKelee's original song and video Hope In The Blues (introducing Cora Holmes) debuted at The New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco. Her play Chile! Hood Stories: A Fairy’s Tale, won Best Full Length Play of the 2021 Marsh Solo Festival. She continues to redefine herself as an artist and performer.

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Chasity Hale (@chasityhale) is a poet, essayist, and journalist based in San Francisco. Her work has been published in the American Poetry Review, SWWIM, NPR, The San Franciscan Magazine, and elsewhere. She earned her BA in Communications with a minor in Creative Writing and an MA in Journalism at Stanford University. She can be found online, writing about pop and Internet culture for her newsletter, titled GenZennial Girl, or IRL, hosting a twice-monthly poetry circle at an artist collective in Lower Haight.

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Scott Oshiro (@syoflute) is a Bay Area-based flutist, electronic musician, music researcher, and music technologist. As an African and Okinawan American, Scott’s creative and academic work combines musical elements from his heritage with Jazz, Hip Hop, and Afrofuturism. Scott is also an Asian Improv aRt 2023 Fellow and holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music & Acoustics (CCRMA). He has performed at the Asian and Pacific Islander Cultural Center’s 2021 USAAF Festival, Kearny Street Workshop’s APAture 2023 festival “Sonic Memories” at the SF Lion’s Den, Bird and Beckett, the Bravo Theater, the 2023 New York City Electronic Music Festival (NYCEMF), Berklee College of Music, and many more. He recently debuted his new ensemble, "Deciphering Broken Rhythms Collective,” along with their show, Afro Asian Futures, at the 2024 USAAF festival, illustrating the connections between music, technology, science, and culture.

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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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