Join us for the culminating event of our 2022 Poets-in-Residence program. We invite you to an evening of poetry readings by Poets-in-Residence Tureeda Mikell and Nefertiti Asanti, and Ruth Asawa School of the Arts Spoken Arts Director tanea lunsford-lynx.

‍

About the Artists

Tureeda Mikell, to-read-ah, story medicine woman, award-winning poet, mental health advocate, lyricist, Qigong therapist, and U. C. BAWP Fellow. As a survivor of child abuse, her passion for youth’s voices to be heard caused her to publish over seventy at-risk student anthologies from five Bay Area counties via California Poets in the Schools.  She has Zoomed or traveled nationally and internationally across five continents, from China, Europe, the UK, to Africa. Tureeda was featured in Octavia Butler’s 7 birthday, Black Panther’s 55anniversary, Afrofuturism, and the de Young Museum’s Soul of a Nation. Her full-length publication, Synchronicity, The Oracle of Sun Medicine, released in 2/2020, was nominated for the California Book Award. She is co-author and curator with Elena Serrano of EastSide Arts Alliance, Patrice Lumumba Anthology, released in January 2021, both published by Nomadic Press.

‍

‍

Nefertiti Asanti is a poet originally from the Bronx and recipient of fellowships from the Watering Hole, Lambda Literary, Anaphora Arts, Winter Tangerine, and PEN America. Nefertiti’s debut chapbook fist of wind won the inaugural Start a Riot! Chapbook Prize. Nefertiti’s work can be found at Foglifter, Apiary, Split Lip Magazine, and elsewhere. Nefertiti serves as prose poetry editor of Stellium Literary Magazine.

‍

tanea lunsford lynx is a fourth-generation Black San Franciscan on both sides. They are Chair of the Spoken Arts Department at Ruth Asawa School of the Arts and teach Ethnic Studies and Social Justice courses at City College of San Francisco. This year she will work on a text of creative nonfiction through the Brown-Handler residency in collaboration with Friends of the SF Public Library. You can also find them at the Main Library where tanea is an inaugural artist in residence in collaboration with SFPL & the SF Arts Commission. You can find her work online at tanealunsfordlynx.com.

‍

‍

About the Poets-in-Residence Program

The Museum of the African Diaspora Poets-in-Residence program was founded in 2018. This program provides writers with opportunities to respond to contemporary art of the African Diaspora and extend the reach of the museum through programming and educational workshops with local high school students. The residency welcomes writers to pursue their own writing projects in addition to responding to the artistic collections. The residency does require that writers implement a school-based writing program in partnership with Ruth Asawa School of the Arts. Residencies last for one academic semester or 4 months. The workshops include at least 6 site visits and one visit with students at the museum. There are also two culminating public programs: a student reading and a Poet-in-Residence reading.

‍

‍