Part of Celebrating the Beats at Top of the Mark Genny Lim is a noted poet performer who’s collaborated with the late Max Roach and bassist, Herbie Lewis. Lim has performed at numerous jazz festivals and venues coast to coast, including the SF Jazz Poetry Festival and World Poetry Festivals in Venezuela, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Italy. Her poetry […]

Part of Celebrating the Beats at Top of the Mark Charles Curtis Blackwell, jazz poet, painter, and playwright, was born in San Francisco in 1950. His lifelong love for jazz and blues has helped him overcome the obstacle of near-blindness. He is published both nationally and internationally in a variety of magazines and publications including […]

Part of Celebrating the Beats at Top of the Mark q. r. hand, jr. (voice and poetry), moved to the SF Bay Area from NYC about forty years ago. Originally published in the 1968 classic, Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro American Writing, edited by Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones) and Larry Neal, which has recently […]

Part of Celebrating the Beats at Top of the Mark Royal Kent’s love of poetry goes back to his formative high school years. Originally inspired by the legendary Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron, he has performed with dancers, theatrical troupes, poets, and many bands including the Vancouver-based Band of Angels and Czech Republic-based Pseudo Pseudo. […]

Herb Caen called her “The Beat Generation Goddess”—ruth weiss performs with Doug O’Connor (acoustic bass), Rent Romus (saxophone), and Hal Davis (percussion). ruth weiss STATE MEANT for me poetry is teacher, healer & disciplinarian. poetry is the messenger of language, the tuner that vibrates the communication chord. this is my chosen path & assignment ruth […]

Former San Francisco Poet Laureate, painter & translator, Jack Hirschman performs with Swedish-born San Francisco poet, Agneta Falk and special guest, George Long on saxophone. Jack Hirschman is a poet and painter and has translated over two dozen books from German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Albanian, and Greek. He is an assistant editor at the […]

The wordWind chorus performs with q.r. hand jr. (poetry, voice), Lewis Jordan (saxophone, poetry, voice), and Brian Auerbach (poetry, voice). q. r. hand, jr. voice and poetry, moved to the SF Bay Area from NYC about forty years ago. Originally published in the 1968 classic, Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro American Writing, edited by […]

Michelle Tea presents RADAR: An Evening of Edgy Literary Performance from San Francisco’s Underground. Michelle Tea is the author of five memoirs, most recently How to Grow Up, published by Penguin/Plume. She has written three novels, including a Young Adult fantasy trilogy currently being released by McSweeney’s, and her poetry chapbooks have been collected into […]

COPUS, spoken word/world-beat ensemble featuring San Francisco poet Royal Kent, and composer Wendy Loomis. Royal Kent‘s love of poetry goes back to his formative high school years. Originally inspired by the legendary Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron, he has performed with dancers, theatrical troupes, poets, and many bands including the Vancouver-based Band of Angels and […]

Poetry & Jazz featuring poets and musicians from The Word Party series and the Nova Jazz Band, including Jennifer Barone (poet and host), Daniel Heffez (saxophone), and Ingrid Keir, Cara Vida, and Natasha Dennerstein. Jennifer Barone is an author of three books of poetry, her most recent titled Saporoso – poems of Italian Food & […]

San Francisco Poetry Through the Generations with San Francisco poets A.D.Winans, Neeli Cherkovski, William Taylor, Jr., and Cassandra Dallett. A.D. Winans is a native San Francisco poet and writer. He is the author of over 60 books and chapbooks of poetry and prose. His work has been translated into nine languages. He edited and published […]