Avenue 50 Studio proudly presents POESIA PARA LA GENTE: Poesia Under The Freeway.
A site specific one-time event on a Saturday afternoon, to stimulate intercultural understanding and erase social stigmas.
Saturday, May 25 | 10AM-12PM | FREE
featuring poesía in Español & English:
IRIS DE ANDA
REBECCA GONZALES
ABEL SALAS
MATT SEDILLO
and the day laborers from Home Depo
with music accompaniment/poetry by:
JULIO THE CONGA POET
PLUS OPEN MIC!
Special Guest Musical Appearance TBA
hosted by:
JESSICA CEBALLOS
The IDEPSCA Day Laborer Program Cypress Park Community Job Center
@
The Home Depot
2055 North Figueroa Street
Los Angeles, CA 90065
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Meet our Poets:
IRIS DE ANDA is a writer, activist, and practitioner of the healing arts. A native of Los Angeles she believes in the power of spoken word, poetry, storytelling, and dreams. She has been published in Mujeres de Maiz Zine, Loudmouth Zine: Cal State LA, OCCUPY SF poems from the movement, & online @ La Bloga. She is an active contributor to Poets Responding to SB 1070. She performs at community venues & events throughout the Los Angeles area. She hosted The Writers Underground Open Mic 2012 @ Mazatlan Theatre & 100,000 Poets for Change 2012 @ the Eastside Cafe. Her book CODESWITCH: Fires From Mi Corazon will be published in 2013. Follow her story @ http://irisdeanda.typepad.com/la_writer_underground/
JULIO the CONGA POET is a Puerto Rican-Panamanian percusionist, raised in Buffalo NY and has lived in Highland Park California since 1976. He's been writing poetry and lyrics to accompany his Conga, since 2010. " Watch out World, I finally found my niche " !!!
Cultivated by the sun and moon, which peek past the shoes dangling from the phone lines, REBECCA GONZALES was raised One blocks East of El Pino. Rebecca collects the energy of the streets of Boyle Heights, with the passion of poetry and sweetness of her son’s laughter to find positivity and optimism for the future. As a Mother she is humbled as a poet she is obedient and as a women she is unapologetic.
Uniformity always comes in a dress size to small to fit my frame of mind. I play Hop-scotch over land mines of intention, Look pleasure straight in the eye and taste every joy worth it, I will walk on broken glass to get to myself. http://ladydrug.wordpress.com/bio/
ABEL SALAS is a poet and journalist based in Los Angeles. His poems have appeared in The Austin Chronicle, ZYZZYVA: A Journal of West Coast Art & Literature, Washington DC's Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Cipactli, In Motion Magazine, Kuikatl: A XicanIndio Literary & Arts Journal and Huizache, the new literary journal published by Centro Victoria under the direction of Dagoberto Gilb. He currently edits and publishes Brooklyn & Boyle, a community arts newspaper distributed widely in LA’s East Side, and he has shared his poetry with audiences across the U.S., Mexico and Cuba, where he participated in the 13th Annual International Poetry Festival. His work as a journalist has been featured in the Los Angeles Times Magazine, LA Weekly, Latina Magazine, The New York Times, The San Antonio Current, The Brownsville Herald, OYE Magazine, Texas Observer, The Austin Chronicle and The Austin American-Statesman. A Co-founder of Corazon del Pueblo in Boyle Heights, Salas was also an early organizer with Poets Responding to SB1070 and coordinated a public reading on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. Watch his most recent video poem here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKJFodvN3Bc&feature=youtu.be
MATT SEDILLO is a two-time national slam poet, grand slam champion of the Damn Slam Los Angeles 2011 and the author of For What I Might Do Tomorrow published by Caza De Poesia 2010. His poetry has been published in anthologies alongside the likes of such literary giants as Amiri Baraka, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jack Hircshman and Luis Rodriguez. Sedillo is a frequent guest on numerous programs on KPFK 9.07 FM and has also been featured twice on Radio Free Atlanta 8.93 FM. An interview and excerpt of his work was featured in a story that appeared in the Los Angeles Times. Sedillo's poetry is currently a part of the curriculum in the course Illegal: Undocumented Latinos in the US taught by Dr. Robert LeRoux Hernandez at Holy Cross University. Sedillo has appeared as a guest performer and panelist at the following colleges and universities: Loyola Marymount University, Arizona State University, Pasadena City College, Pitzer, Cal State San Bernadino, St. Edward's University, UCLA, Cal State Fullerton, Azusa Pacific University, Redlands University, Cal State San Bernardino, El Camino College, Compton College, Cal State Northridge, Southwest College and SOKA University. In addition to colleges and universities Matt has performed at the 40th and 41st Chicano Moratorium, on the main stage at an Occupy LA rally, at the 16th annual October 22d Coalition Against Police Brutality march and rally, the North Hollywood Music Festival, the Los Angeles International Film Festival, INKSLAM 2010 and 2011, Santa Ana's Noche del alteres 2010 (in front of an estimated 8,000) and 2011 and in countless venues throughout the country. www.mattsedillopoetry.com
JESSICA CEBALLOS is a writer, photo-taker, music-maker, volunteer, community advocate and cultural wanderer. Third generation Southern-Californian, Jessica has been recognized by the City of Los Angeles for her work bringing literary arts to the community. Her work has most recently appeared in Centre Review, Hinchas de Poesia, RA, and the Haight Ashbury Journal, among others. She has featured at places such as La Palabra, The Paloma Room, Beyond Baroque, and at The Last Bookstore in downtown LA. She organizes and hosts two monthly readings, one at Avenue 50 Studios in Highland Park and the other at Beyond Baroque in Venice. She's currently working on a novel and her first book of poetry. www.jessicaceballos.com
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What is Poesia Para La Gente?
Poesia Para La Gente (Poetry for the People) is a program that brings poetry to the people of the community, in non-traditional places. Some of these places have been affected, in one way or another, by economical hardship or various forms of social stigmas. All locations are unique in providing a safe setting for artistic expression.
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Why Home Depot?
We've chosen the Day Labor Program of IDEPSCA (Instituto de Educación Popular del Sur de California) at the Cypress Park Community Job Center, located at the Home Depot of Cypress Park. Our goal is to share the power of poetry with our brothers enlisted in the IDESCA labor program, also known as day laborers. These hard working residents of the community have experienced continuous on-going economic struggle, not only because of the slow growth in development within the industries providing these necessary positions, but also because of on-going social stigmas continually recycled by a misinformed population. By providing a welcoming non-traditional, unique, and one-time-only public platform for sharing the power of the spoken word, we hope to stimulate intercultural understanding within the diverse population of the North East Los Angeles area...and beyond.
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Poesia Para La Gente is a program of the Avenue 50 Studio's monthly La Palabra Poetry. This program has been made possible by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation.
Sunday, May 26, 2013 starting at 2:00 pm
