New Voice Series: featuring Jennifer S. Cheng, with Karla Myn Khine and Evelyn Jo, plus music by Neblinas del Pacífico
Overview
The Poetry Center presents the fourth iteration of its New Voice Series, featuring poet Jennifer S. Cheng, with Karla Myn Khine, and Evelyn Jo. The New Voice Series brings together a poet alum of SF State's Creative Writing MFA (or MA) program, a current graduate student in that program, and an undergrad poet (any major) selected from across the SF State campus. Poetry Center student staff select the undergraduate poet, based on an open call for work, and introduce the writers. Following the poets, we'll turn it into a party with music by Neblinas del Pacífico (whose members include current MFA candidate in Creative Writing May-Li Khoe and Federico Ardila, Professor of Mathematics at SF State). Join us!
The Poetry Center reading room is located on the fifth floor of the Humanities Building at SF State, and is wheelchair accessible.
VIDEO for this program will be posted after editing at Poetry Center Digital Archive.
Evelyn Jo is a soon-to-be graduating senior at San Francisco State University with a double major in International Business and Creative Writing and a double minor in Marketing and Women and Gender Studies. Her passion for writing ignited during her first-grade daily writing assignments when her teacher stealthily slid her a thesaurus in a successful endeavor to replace the infinite "sooooooooo..."- synonyms: very, really, tremendously. She aspires to create a space for fellow realism escapists struggling to live and needing a reprieve through her writing.
Karla Myn Khine is a Filipino-Burmese poet and writer from South Texas, currently pursuing her MFA at San Francisco State where she also teaches and is a recent recipient of the Daniel Langton Poetry Prize, an Academy of American Poets University Award, and a Marcus Graduate Scholar. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Pinch, Sho Poetry Journal, Poets.org, Radar Poetry, and elsewhere. You can find out more at karlakhine.com.
Jennifer S. Cheng received her BA from Brown University, MFA in Nonfiction Writing from the University of Iowa, and MFA in Poetry from San Francisco State University. She is the author of: MOON: Letters, Maps, Poems (2018), selected by Bhanu Kapil as winner of the Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize and named a Publishers Weekly “Best Book of 2018”; House A (2016), selected by Claudia Rankine as winner of the Omnidawn Poetry Book Prize; and Invocation: An Essay (2010), an image-text chapbook published by New Michigan Press. Her poetry, lyric essays, and image-text compositions appear in Tin House, The Atlantic, POETRY Magazine, The Nation, Catapult, Lit Hub, The Normal School, Hong Kong 20/20 (a PEN HK anthology), Bettering American Poetry, The Best of Tupelo Quarterly, and elsewhere. Having grown up in Texas, Hong Kong, and Connecticut, she lives in rapture of the coastal prairies of northern California. Cheng is a founding member of The Ruby, a gathering space for women and non-binary artists and writers, as well as a founding editor of Drop Leaf Press, a women-run experiment in textual, tactile objects. Occasionally she teaches creative writing in graduate programs and community settings. More at jenniferscheng.com Photo by Gary Tsang.
Neblinas del Pacífico weaves a sonic tapestry of marimba de chonta music from the Afro-Colombian Pacific coast: music of rivers and mangroves, of percussive polyrhythms and multi-part harmonies, of spirituality and everyday life, of ancestors and tradition, of celebration and resistance.
Neblinas del Pacífico presenta un tejido sonoro de música de marimba de chonta del Pacífico Afro-Colombiano: música de ríos y manglares, de poliritmos y armonías, de espiritualidad y cotidianidada, de ancestrxs y tradición, de celebración y resistencia.
Based in La Mission and East Oakland, the members of Neblinas have roots in Colombia, Indonesia, and China. They’ve collaborated with Acción Latina, People’s Kitchen Collective, Youth Speaks, Colectivo Colombia Resiste, Fred Moten, Guache, and the Matatu Festival, among others, as well as the vibrant community of musicians in La Mission. Neblinas del Pacífico partners with and contributes 50% of all proceeds to Black-led grassroots community initiatives in Buenaventura, Guapi, Timbiquí, Tumaco, Quibdó, and Cali, Colombia.
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