Martinis & Poetry

Literary Speakeasy is celebrating National Poetry Month with some amazing Bay Area talent. Coming up this month — Amy Berkowitz, Robin Ekiss, Nazelah Jamison, Nick, Johnson, and Richard Loranger. Your host for the night, James J. Siegel.

Each of the night’s poets will not only be reading their own work, but they will share some of their favorite poems from the poets who inspire them. It will be a celebration of poetry past and present. So come out and raise a glass to poetry!

As always, Literary Speakeasy is a FREE event with NO drink minimum. Also, every attendee will get a FREE raffle ticket for a chance to win the night’s secret speakeasy prize.

Amy Berkowitz is the author of Tender Points, the editor of Mondo Bummer Books, and the host of the Amy’s Kitchen Organics reading series. She recently co-organized Sick Fest, and she was a 2014 Writer in Residence at Alley Cat Bookstore & Gallery. Her work has appeared in Dusie, VIDA, and Uprooted: An Anthology on Gender and Illness, among other places. She lives in a rent-controlled apartment in San Francisco. More at amyberko.com.

Robin Ekiss is a former Stegner Fellow in poetry at Stanford, a recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Award for emerging women writers, and author of the book, The Mansion of Happiness (University of Georgia Press), winner of the 2010 Shenandoah / Glasgow Prize, and finalist for the Balcones Poetry Prize, Northern California Book Awards, and Commonwealth Club’s California Book Awards. Robin’s poems have appeared widely, in The Atlantic Monthly, POETRY, American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, New England Review, and elsewhere. She lives in San Francisco with her husband, the poet Keith Ekiss, their son, and their cats, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas.

Nazelah Jamison is a gifted poet, emcee, and vocalist who has graced the stage with some of the finest people in entertainment today. After performing in various artistic mediums, she began playing music in 1992 and moved from Philadelphia to San Francisco in 1994 to play keyboards and sing on tour with the hip hop band Spearhead. Nazelah settled in the SF Bay Area in 1996, and for a time studied acting at Jean Shelton’s Actors’ Studio. Since then, Nazelah has competed on and/or coached 12 National Slam teams. She has hosted and co-produced The Oakland Poetry Slam & Open Mic, an on-going monthly poetry slam in Oakland, CA, as well as performing at venues around the SF Bay Area and the country.

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. His work has been featured on KPFA’s Rude Awakening, and has appeared in The Cincinnati Review, Black Renaissance Noire, and other fine journals. His first book of poems Music for Mussolini was just released by Nomadic Press. Additionally, he wants you to know, he enjoys telling long-winded stories, Instagraming, making spicy curries, and drinking whiskey; typically in that order, but not always. Learn more at his website, www.nickjohnsonpoetry.com.

Richard Loranger is a writer, performer, visual artist, and all around squeaky wheel, currently residing in Oakland, CA. He is the author of Poems for Teeth, as well as The Orange Book and nine chapbooks. He has a book of flash prose, Sudden Windows, being released by Zeitgeist Press later this year. Recent work can be found in Oakland Review #2, Overthrowing Capitalism vol. 2 (Revolutionary Poets Brigade), and the anthology I Let Go of the Stars in My Hand (great weather for MEDIA). You can find more about his work and scandals at www.richardloranger.com.