Join us for a very special poetry reading in honor of World Poetry Day in collaboration with El Martillo Press.
Artists presenting include Matt Sedillo, Alyesha Wise, Matthew Cuban Hernandez, Sonia Gutiérrez, and Felicia ‘Fe’ Montes.
Free admission. First come first served.
Matt Sedillo
Matt Sedillo
Matt Sedillo has been described as the "best political poet in America" as well as "the poet laureate of the struggle." His work has drawn comparisons in print to Bertolt Brecht, Roque Dalton, Amiri Baraka, Allen Ginsberg, Carl Sandburg, and various other legends of the past. Sedillo was the recipient of the 2017 Joe Hill Labor Poetry award, a panelist at the 2020 Texas book festival, a participant in the 2012 San Francisco International Poetry Festival, the 2022 Elba Poetry Festival, the 2024 Medellin Poetry Festival and the recipient of the 2022 Dante's Laurel. Sedillo has appeared on CSPAN and has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, NPR, Axios, the Associated Press among other publications. Sedillo has spoken at Casa de las Americas in Havana, Cuba, at numerous conferences and forums such as the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, the National Conference on Race & Ethnicity in American Higher Education, the National Association of Chicana/Chicano Studies, the Left Forum, the US Social Forum, and at over a hundred universities and colleges, including the University of Cambridge, among many others. Matt Sedillo is the author of Mowing Leaves of Grass (FlowerSong Press, 2019) and City on the Second Floor (FlowerSong Press, 2022). Both of which are taught at universities throughout the country as well as the upcoming Mexican Style (FlowerSong 2025). Sedillo is the current Literary Director of The Mexican Cultural Institute of Los Angeles, the National Coordinator of the World Poetry Movement US, and radio host of La Raza Radio on KPFK 9.07.
Alyesha Wise
Alyesha Wise
Alyesha Wise is a poet, teaching artist & TEDx speaker from Camden, N.J. Alyesha currently resides in Los Angeles where she is the co-founder of Spoken Literature Art Movement - an organization providing poetry education and extensive programming for poets, and The Director of Program Development for Street Poets - a non-profit mostly serving juvenile injustice-involved youth. Alyesha served as the Da Poetry Lounge slam team head coach from 2017-18, co-coaching both teams to final stage at The National Poetry Slam. She also served as the Get Lit-Words Ignite youth slam team co-coach from 2014-2017. Wise is a 2-time Women of the World Poetry Slam finalist and has been featured on different platforms and publications such as OWN, BET, Huffington Post, Afropunk, PBS, LA Times, Buzzfeed, Free Speech TV and more. She has collaborated with The Nantucket Project, the ACLU of Southern California, Brave New Films and additional major platforms, having featured in the Google Interstellar Project, in conjunction with the hit film Interstellar. Ron Howard once wrote about Alyesha's work, "Very Powerful."
Matthew Cuban Hernandez
Matthew Cuban Hernandez
Matthew Cuban Hernandez is a poet, emcee, speaker, actor, and performance coach from Jacksonville, Florida. He has toured as far as Abu Dhabi and nearly every major city in the United States and Europe, performing, teaching and coaching poetry. A teaching artist for over 15 years, Matthew has spent the 10 ten years working in youth detention centers across Los Angeles County, currently serving as the Director of Juvenile Programming for Street Poets, Inc. In addition, he is a current Lead Teacher and Co-Founder of Spoken Literature Art Movement. Cuban has opened for artists such as Wu-Tang, performed for platforms such as BuzzFeed and NPR and even appeared on the award-winning television show, Better Things. Matthew is also a three-time Southern Fried poetry slam champion and an award-winning poetry coach. Cuban’s favorite activity is making people feel great; sometimes he does this through hip hop and poetry.
Sonia Gutiérrez
Sonia Gutiérrez
Sonia Gutiérrez is the author of two full-length bilingual poetry collections, Spider Woman / La Mujer Araña (Olmeca Press, 2013) and Paper Birds: Feather by Feather / Pájaros de papel: Pluma por pluma (El Martillo Press, 2024), recipient of an honorable mention for the ILBA’s The Juan Felipe Herrera Best Poetry Book Award—One Author—Bilingual, and the novel, Dreaming with Mariposas (FlowerSong Press, 2020), winner of the Tomás Rivera Book Award 2021, the International Latino Book Awards 2022, and the ILBA Book into Movie Awards 2023. She teaches composition, critical thinking and writing, and creative writing. Sonia Gutiérrez is currently working on her first illustrated book, The Adventures of a Burrito Flying Saucer and Sana Sana Colita de Rana: Poems to Not Perish / Sana sana colita de rana: Poemas para no morir, a bilingual poetry collection. She lives in the Californias.
Felicia ‘Fe’ Montes
Felicia ‘Fe’ Montes
Felicia ‘Fe’ Montes (M.A./M.F.A.) is a MeXicana Indigenous holistic artivist, femcee, designer, poet, professor, public scholar, and practitioner of the healing arts from East Los Angeles. She is the co-founder and director of Mujeres de Maiz, In Lak Ech, Botanica del Barrio and El MERCADO y Mas and an Assistant Professor in Chicanx/Latinx Arts and Social Practice at Cal State University Long Beach. She has published in the books Fleshing the Spirit, Voices from the Ancestors, and MeXicana Fashions and is the co editor of the book Mujeres de Maiz en Movimiento: Spiritual Artivism, Healing Justice and Feminist Praxis (University of Arizona Press, 2024) .