Barbara Jane Reyes + Guests: Full program
Barbara Jane Reyes reads "To Pray to the Goddess of Lost Things"
Javier O. Huerta, Lehua M. Taitano, Angela Narciso Torres: Full program
Javier O. Huerta reads from a new work on Nueva Laredo |Lehua M. Taitano reads from "Sonoma" | Angela Narciso Torres reads from "Araceles"
Arlene Biala, Urayoán Noel, Aimee Suzara: Full program
Arlene Biala sings an invocation and reads her poem "Yemaya" | Urayoán Noel reads "hear me out human..." | Aimee Suzara reads her eulogy for Prince
Kuwentuhan (Talkstory), Collective Performance experimental short film
“How one creates a poem is as interesting as the spaces in one’s life.” —Al Robles (1930–2009)
Our three-day Kuwentuhan (Talkstory) residency, featuring seven poet/writer/performers, with multiple events at various San Francisco venues, culminating in a Collective Performance on Saturday night in the beautiful loft space at McRoskey Mattress Co.
Barbara Jane Reyes + guests
Thursday APRIL 21 @ The Poetry Center 3:30 pm, HUM 512, SFSU, free
Javier O. Huerta, Lehua M. Taitano, Angela Narciso Torres
Thursday APRIL 21 @ Alley Cat Books 7:00 pm, 3036 24th Street (btw Treat & Harrison), San Francisco, free
Arlene Biala, Urayoán Noel, Aimee Suzara
Friday APRIL 22 @ Bayanahan Community Center 7:00 pm, 1010 Mission Street (at 6th), San Francisco, free
Kuwentuhan Collective Performance
Saturday APRIL 23 @ McRoskey Mattress Co. 1687 Market Street (at Gough), San Francisco, 7:00 pm, $10* hosted by McRoskey Mattress Co. co-sponsored by The Poetry Center and The Green Arcade *$5 low income, free to SFSU students and Poetry Center members, no one turned away for lack of funds.
Kuwentuhan (Talkstory) takes the Tagalog term, a phoneticized form adapted through the colonial Spanish, as its title, proposition, and starting point. Kuwentuhan (“necessary step towards big talk,” by one definition) is orally based, informal in nature, usually spontaneous, and is always an opportunity for people to converge and share. It occurs in all kinds of social spaces as talkstory circle. We envision this collaboration between artist(s), audiences, and the Poetry Center, as a way of enlarging this circle beyond ethnic boundaries, in contested urban spaces.
The project’s aim is to open up precisely the kind of human space that barely exists in our technological and “globalized” culture, by allowing a select group of American poets out of widely disparate and polyglot cultural and geographic backgrounds to actually talk face-to-face, sharing stories, poetry, and conversations among themselves and with audiences. We are interested in work that originates from a communal basis, and in shaping a project that encourages collective creation, by putting into action mechanisms for creating “live” person-to-person exchange between and among artists and audiences.
Many thanks to the Manilatown Heritage Foundation at I-Hotel, Alley Cat Books, the Bayanihan Community Center, McRoskey Mattress Co., The Green Arcade, DocFilm Institute, poster artist Trinidad Escobar, and the Creative Work Fund