Join us for Black Love at Strut.
On February 15th we will be hosting a night of poetry and music celebrating Black Queer Voices.
With MCs Na'amen Gobert Tilahun and Black Benatar.
Curated around the event’s central themes of black queerness, love, and survival, Black Love brings together some of the Bay Area’s top Literary performers.
Featuring the literary talents of Maisha Z. Johnson, Gregory Pond, Kwan Booth, and music by Jade Way!
The show is Free, in the second floor lobby of ...
Join us for Black Love at Strut.
On February 15th we will be hosting a night of poetry and music celebrating Black Queer Voices.
With MCs Na'amen Gobert Tilahun and Black Benatar.
Curated around the event’s central themes of black queerness, love, and survival, Black Love brings together some of the Bay Area’s top Literary performers.
Featuring the literary talents of Maisha Z. Johnson, Gregory Pond, Kwan Booth, and music by Jade Way!
The show is Free, in the second floor lobby of Strut. There will be some free light drinks and snacks provided. Show starts at 8pm.
Hope to see you there.
if you have any questions please feel free to contact our community events orgnaizer Baruch Porras Hernandez bporrashernandez@sfaf.org
Now for more about the artists.
Na’amen Tilahun is a writer and poet who has featured and performed his work all over the bay area. From scifi literary conventions to the Shipwreck fanfiction competition, he can be found anywhere from Write Club SF to the SF Queer Open Mic. He is the cohost of the podcast The Adventures of Yellow Peril and the Magical Negro, his Science Fiction Trilogy is coming out this Spring and he makes a mean panna cotta.
Black Benatar, a.k.a. Beatrice Thomas is multi-disciplinary artist, director, curator & performer. She has worked in a variety of philanthropic, curatorial, educational & community based positions for the City of San Francisco, the City of Austin, Austin Community College and local galleries and non-profits. Ms. Thomas participates regularly as an artistic advisor, and director helping make several queer performance art projects happen. She is dedicated to integrating exceptional art into meaningful public experience.
Kwan Booth is an award winning queer black writer and media futurist focusing on the intersection of communications, community, art and technology. He is the editor of “Black Futurists Speak: An Anthology of New Black Writing” and his work has been published in “CHORUS, a literary mixtape”, “Beyond the Frontier: African American Poets for the 21st Century” and the Journal for Pan African Studies. He curates the semi regular Black Futurists Speak Literary series and is the cofounder of The Black Futurist Project. A journalist with over 10 years of professional experience, Kwan cofounded the hyperlocal news website Oakland Local
Maisha Z. Johnson is a queer black writer and activist of Trinidadian descent. She has an MFA in Poetry from Pacific University and leads arts and healing workshops with such powerful groups as survivors of violence and incarcerated women. Her work has been published in numerous journals, nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize, and won competitions including Literary Death Match, The Lit Slam, and Portuguese Artists Colony. As a full-time angry feminist, Maisha writes for Black Girl Dangerous, Everyday Feminism, and Pyragraph Magazine, and she's the author of Through Your Own Words: 51 Writing Prompts for Healing and Self-Care (Inkblot Arts 2014), as well as three poetry chapbooks. Visit her at www.inkblotarts.org.
Jade Way From the day she was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1986. In 2014, Jade released her first 5-titled track EP, A Part Of Me. She has showcased her songs in venues across the San Francisco Bay area. She has performed at Martuni’s, Joyce Gordon Gallery, Hotel Utah, the San Francisco Queer Open Mic, the Oakland Queer Open Mic, Cafe International and the Mission Artist Performance Project (MAPP). Today, and was featured by KQED during their special Pride June showcase. Recently she was named one of SF Weekly’s 16 artist to watch 2016.
Gregory Pond was born in Brooklyn, NY to parents born in Panama and moved to San Francisco in the late 70’s. He’s a single dad and grandfather. Author and publisher of two books of poetry afternoon and Blackened Blue he’s read his poetry all over the bay area. He’s been featured at the My First Love Poetry Festival organized by GuyWriters and SFQueer Open Mic and was featured in the Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal as well as a headlined at The SF Queer Open Mic. He is a volunteer reader and facilitator for Poetically Speaking a weekly, conference call program for seniors. When asked what his deepest darkest secret is? He reveals he’s worked for Comcast Cable for over 25 years.