West Oakland to West Africa connects members of the African diaspora and Africa through the exchange of renshi poetry. Through sharing narratives of the diaspora, we create a safe place for transparent healing and growth. Our readings and books facilitate the Sankofa journey, a return to retrieve what has been forgotten or lost. This year's exchanges included Oakland, Hawaii, Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana. https://westoaklandtowestafrica.com
IG: https://www.instagram.com/westoakland_westafrica/. Twitter: @WOakland2Africa. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WO2W

WO2WA (West Oakland to West Africa) is happy to represent both the East and West sides at the 2022 Beast Crawl. Reading selections from our upcoming book Black Rootedness: 54 Poets from Africa to America. This year WO2WA partnered with Patrice Lumumba Writing Collective, located at Eastside Arts Alliance, Cultural Intellectual Association in Lagos, Nigeria and Kistrech Poetry Festival in Kisii, Kenya. Poets exchanged writing on themes of identity, connections to the ancestors and experimented with forms such as narrative and renshi poetry.

Venue: The Damel Leg: Two 5:30PM

A tribute to iconic, bubble-blowing Berkeley poet Julia Vinograd featuring an excerpt from an in-progress documentary on her life and work, followed by readings of her most cherished poems.

CURATOR: Ken Paul Rosenthal makes visually innovative documentaries that explore the intersection of art, madness and the spectrum of difference. His films have screened widely at national and international film festivals. He is the recipient of numerous festival awards, a Kodak Cinematography Award, and a University Film & Video Association Award. His website is  www.kenpaulrosenthal.com/

Jan Steckel’s book Like Flesh Covers Bone (Zeitgeist Press, 2018) won Rainbow Awards for LGBT Poetry and Best Bisexual Book. Her poetry book The Horizontal Poet (Zeitgeist Press, 2011) won a Lambda Literary Award. Her fiction chapbook Mixing Tracks (Gertrude Press, 2009) and poetry chapbook The Underwater Hospital (Zeitgeist Press, 2006) also won awards. www.jansteckel.com

Richard Loranger is a multi-genre writer and all-around squeaky wheel currently residing in Oakland, CA. He is the author of Unit of Agency, Be A Bough Tit, Sudden Windows, Poems for Teeth, The Orange Book, and ten chapbooks, and has work in over 100 magazines and journals. You can find more about his work and scandals at www.richardloranger.com

Paul Corman-Robert’s 2nd full length collection of poems, Bone Moon Palace (Nomadic Press 2021) has been nominated for a CLMP Firecracker Award. He currently teaches workshops for the Older Writer’s Lab in conjunction with the San Francisco Public Library as well as the San Francisco Creative Writing Institute.

Venue: Chapter 510 Leg: One, 4:00PM

Paper Press Books & Associates Publishing Company is a small press of poetry and fiction directed by author Youssef Alaoui.
Find out more at: paperpressbooks.org

Harmonies of the Sun Join us for a reunion of Paper Press authors and special guest Tureeda Mikell. This will be a powerful lineup you will not want to miss!

Tureeda, story medicine woman, poet, educator, activist for holism, is a U. C. B. BAWP Fellow, author of Synchronicity: The Oracle of Sun Medicine; released in 2020, coauthor and curator of EastSide Arts Alliance’s, Patrice Lumumba Anthology, released 2021, both by Nomadic Press, and MoAD 2022 poet in residence.
Synchronicity: The Oracle of Sun Medicine
Patrice Lumumba
Metro Film and Arts
Tree of Life Foundation
Cpits.org - Mikell Tureeda Poet
Trmk7@aol.com

MK Chavez is an Afro-Latinx writer and educator. She is the author of Mothermorphosis, and Dear Animal (Nomadic Press), and the lyric essay chapbook A Brief History of the Selfie. Chavez curates the reading series Lyrics & Dirges and is co-director of the Berkeley Poetry Festival. She is a recipient of the Alameda County Arts Leadership Award, the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award, and the 2021 San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press literary award. Her most recent work can be found in the Academy of Poets Poem-A-Day series and at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco with the Voice of Trees projects. mkchavez.org

Sharon Coleman's a fifth-generation Northern Californian with a penchant for languages and their entangled word roots. She co-curates the reading series Lyrics & Dirges and co-directs the Berkeley Poetry Festival. She’s the author of a poetry chapbook Half Circle (Finishing Line), and a book of nano-fiction, Paris Blinks (Paper Press).
sharoncolemanpoetry.com

Missy Church is a death doula and educator living in California. She has created a curriculum to help young children understand death through story, poetry, observation, and personal experience.
Missy is the host of the seasonal open mic, Naked Bulb, in Oakland. Along with Andrew J. Thomas, she publishes local writers through Naked Bulb Press. She also publishes anthologies and has a book of poetry available from Paper Press- Church: Retrospective. paperpressbooks.com/store
Her poetry book, “deathaiku” is available from Collapse Press.

You can follow Missy:
Instagram @deathaiku
 Missy the Death Doula:
 missychurchdoula.com

While she’s currently on a writing sabbatical in a hideaway she calls “Mermaid Town,” K.R. Morrison is a San Francisco based moon witch, poet, drummer, and high school teacher who has been teaching English and Creative Writing for 18 years. Her first chapbook Cauldrons was recently published by Paper Press Books.

Purchase her book here:
Cauldrons-K-R-Morrison
FB: K.R. Morrison
Insta: @krmorrisonpoet

Paper Press Books heartily thanks Joyce Gordon Gallery for hosting our reading at Beast Crawl Literary Festival. Joyce Gordon Gallery is a fine art gallery located midtown Oakland, CA. It exhibits art that reflects the social and cultural diversity of the Bay Area and international artists.

Joyce Gordon Gallery Offers an experience to the public through the Arts Community Building The Bay Area's Cultural Renaissance. Centrally Located in Downtown Oakland near the 12 St. Bart Station the Gallery is easily accessible to visit from all over the Bay. The Gallery offers you some of the most cutting edge Art produced primarily by Black/African Artist from around the globe in all original mediums. Witness the Amazing creativity at our Gallery openings on First Fridays and Celebrate Life through the Arts. When you're here check out our Gallery's gift shop that has an array of locally made Crafts,prints and other fine Art goods representing Oakland's Culturally enriched Arts Community.

Joyce Gordon Gallery is also an Events Destination for Culturally creative activities and on going festivities. Our Gallery is available for Rental for your event needs from wedding receptions to performing arts recitals and more. Please inquire about what we may offer you. Make Joyce Gordon Gallery your Destination Stop when in Oakland.

Venue: Joyce Gordon Gallery Leg: Three 7:00PM

Poetry Flash is an online review and literary calendar for California and the West, featuring book reviews, essays, homages, poems, columns, and calls for submissions. Poetry Flash presents a regular reading series in Berkeley, produces the Northern California Book Awards, and sponsors the Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival. Our heartfelt mission is to build community through literary events and publishing. See more athttps://poetryflash.org/.

Four poets read to celebrate building community through literature, all of whom have been featured in Poetry Flash Readings, or reviewed and published in Poetry Flash, plus our Associate Editor. The reading will be emceed by Joyce Jenkins, Editor and Director of Poetry Flash.

Heather Bourbeau’s work has appeared in 100 Word Story, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Kenyon Review, Meridian, The Stockholm Review of Literature, and Haight Ashbury Literary Journal. She is the winner of La Piccioletta Barca’s inaugural competition and the Chapman Magazine Flash Fiction winner, and has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her work has been featured in several anthologies, including Nothing Short Of 100: Selected Tales from 100 Word Story (Outpost 19), America, We Call Your Name: Poems of Resistance and Resilience (Sixteen Rivers Press), and Respect: Poems About Detroit Music (Michigan State University Press).

Maw Shein Win is a Burmese American poet, editor, and educator who lives and teaches in the Bay Area. Her new collection is Storage Unit for the Spirit House, longlisted for the PEN America 2021 Open Book Award, finalist for the Northern California Book Award in Poetry, and shortlisted for The Golden Poppy Awards 2021. D.A. Powell wrote of it, "Poetry has long been a vessel, a container of history, emotion, perceptions…These poems are portals to other worlds and to our own, a space in which one sees and one is seen. A marvelous, timely and resilient book.” Maw Shein Win’s collections include Invisible Gifts: Poems; her chapbooks include Ruins of a glittering palace and Score and Bone. She is the inaugural Poet Laureate of El Cerrito (2016–2018). http://www.mawsheinwin.com/

Richard Silberg is a poet, critic, translator, and Associate Editor of Poetry Flash. He is the author of six collections of poetry, most recently The Horses: New and Selected Poems and Deconstruction of the Blues, recipient of the PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Literary Award and nominee for the Northern California Book Award. His books include Reading the Sphere: A Geography of Contemporary American Poetry. He co-translated, with Clare You, The Three Way Tavern, by Ko Un, foreword by Gary Snyder, which received the Northern California Book Award in Translation. He also co-translated Flowers Long For Stars, poems by Oh Sae-Young, This Side of Time, by Ko Un, and I Must Be the Wind, by Moon Chung-Hee. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Denver Quarterly, Volt, Parthenon West Review, ZYZZYVA, Eleven Eleven, and New American Writing.

Sam Sax’s latest book of poems is Bury It. Tyehimba Jess says, “Bury It, Sam Sax’s urgent, thriving excavation of desire, is lit with imagery and purpose that surprises and jolts at every turn.…A vitalizing and necessary book of poems that dig hard and lift luminously.” Bury It received the 2017 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets. Their first collections are Madness, winner of the National Poetry Series, and A Guide to Undressing Your Monsters; their poems were included In Absentia: Reflections on the Pandemic. A queer Jewish writer and educator, they are a two-time Bay Area Grand Slam champion, and have received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Lambda Literary, Wallace Stegner Fellowship, The MacDowell Colony, the Blue Mountain Center, and the Michener Center for Writers. https://www.samsax.com/  

The Bookmark Bookstore is a unique shopping experience located in Old Oakland. Proceeds from the Bookmark benefit Oakland's Public libraries! Shop & support us in our store or online.

Venue: Bookmark Bookstore Leg: One 4:00PM