Three Poets and Their Music: LOAN, Contraband, and Fried Axolotl

Music, poetry, history, and future converge powerfully when three poets–Tongo Eisen-Martin, Bonnie Kwong, and Josiah Luis Alderete–explore themes of immigration, migration, language, cultural identity, social justice, revolution, and love through collaborations with guitarists Peck the Town Crier, Oliver Mok, and Eli Carlton-Pearson.

Featuring:
LOAN (Tongo Eisen-Martin, poetry; Peck the Town Crier, guitar)
Contraband (Bonnie Kwong, poetry; Oliver Mok, guitar)
Fried Axolotl (Josiah Luis Alderete, poetry; Eli Carlton-Pearson, guitar)

Tongo Eisen-Martin is a movement worker, educator, and poet who has organized against mass incarceration and extra judicial killing of black people throughout the United States. His latest curriculum, We Charge Genocide Again, has been used as an educational and organizing tool throughout the country.

Peck The Town Crier has been recording and performing “hist-hop” and “song-rap” since 1994. His music has been featured on MTV UK, Current TV, and the Wall Street Journal online. Peck teaches guitar in San Rafael and can often be found crying a capella on the corner of 16th and Mission.

Bonnie Wai-Lee Kwong is an artist in many mediums and languages: Cantonese, English, Mandarin, Japanese, Ruby, and Javascript. Her first book of poetry, ravel, is a finalist for New Rivers Press’ Many Voices Project and the White Pine Press Poetry Prize. Her work has garnered a number of Pushcart nominations and an artist residency at Stanford University.

Josiah Luis Alderete is a full-blooded Pocho Indio who refries his beans and poems in Spanglish. He was a founding member of outspoken word group the Molotov Mouths and is currently living on the border of Oakland and Berkeley waiting for Quetzalcoatl to arrive.

Eli Carlton-Pearson is an instrumentalist extraordinaire, musical visionary, and inventor of many strange musical objects.
 

 
Time: Doors 7:30PM / Show 8:00PM
Admission: $15-20 sliding scale
Tickets will not be sold in advance for this event – please arrive at the Red Poppy when doors open to purchase tickets. All ages are welcome.

Join the conversation at the Poppy – volunteer for this event!