Curated by Heather Bourbeau, three musician-poet pairs each perform a set—one new poem inspired by an original song, one new song inspired by an original poem, and one piece of pure collaboration—on Sunday, October 28, 2018 at the Red Poppy Art House:

• Nick Johnson + Arula

• Heather Bourbeau + Raman Osman

• Maw Shein Win + Evan Karp

Nick Johnson was born and raised near the brackish Chesapeake Bay but now calls the Bay Area waters home. He received his MFA from the California College of the Arts. Johnson’s work has been featured on KPFA’s Rude Awakening and has appeared in The Cincinnati Review, Black Renaissance Noire, Eleven Eleven, Metazen, and other fine journals. His book, music for mussolini, was released by Nomadic Press in 2016 and was a finalist for the 2017 CLMP Firecracker Award.

Arula has been singing and composing songs since childhood. She views sound and movement as sacred expressions of a universal language—a language that connects, empowers, and unites people from all backgrounds. Music and dance have been central themes in her life; of all her gurus, they are the most revered teachers. With haunting vocals amid sensual beats, Arula creates a cohesive yet dynamic spectrum of sound. Her music is a rich interplay of her many influences; her sultry vocals and downtempo melodies take and hold shape as they blend with global music rhythms and become ancestral and grounded while dancing over trap and hip-hop beats.

Maw Shein Win‘s writing has appeared in many journals and several anthologies, including MARY: A Journal of New Writing, Cimarron Review, and Poetry International. Win’s most recent poetry chapbook is Score and Bone (Nomadic Press), and her new full-length collection Invisible Gifts: Poems (Manic D Press) was a City Lights Books bestselling paperback. She is the first poet laureate of El Cerrito.

Evan Karp is the creator and executive director of Quiet Lightning, founding editor of Litseen, and half of Turk & Divis—a musical collaboration with his brother Miles. He developed the interdisciplinary performance series Under the Influence and Call and Response, as well as the interview profile series The Write Stuff.