Michael Koch and Jerry Ferraz host featured poets and an open mic on the first Thursday of each month.

Tonight, Norman Zelaya and Michelle Marie Robles Wallace will read in the featured poets segment.

Not able to come to the shop? Donate any amount that seems fair to you, and watch it in the live stream on our YouTube channel or Facebook page. Your donations help us pay a fair guaranteed wage to the fine artists that cross our stage.

Norman Antonio Zelaya was born and raised in San Francisco, CA. He has published stories in ZYZZYVA, NY Tyrant, 14 Hills, Cipactli, and Apogee Journal, among others. He was a 2015 Zoetrope: All-Story finalist, and 2019 Anginas Scholarship recipient for latinx writers to attend the Community of Writers workshops. In 2017, Orlando & Other Stories (Pochino Press) was published, his first book. Zelaya co-founded Los Delicados, a poetry ensemble, and performed with them throughout the US. He has also appeared on stage, in film, and in the squared circle as luchador, Super Pulga. Recently, his second collection, Gente, Folks, was published by Black Freighter Press (2022, SF, CA).

Michelle Marie Robles Wallace has an MFA, is a recipient of a Janavi Held Artist Grant, two San Francisco Artist grants, was a SF Writers’ Grotto Writing Fellowship and finalist in Somos en escrito’s Extra-Fiction contest. She has published short memoir, fiction and journalism and reported from Mexico and Central America. Michelle writes along themes of healing and borders, and recently started a multidisciplinary art project that reclaims power for the feminine divine. Contrary to what everyone says about motherhood and keeping up an art practice, motherhood has been the crucible that has expanded Michelle’s art practice in ways she couldn’t have even dreamed up before.

Sign up for the open mic before the featured readers take the stage at 7. The time allotted to each poet in the open mic depends on the number of poets wanting to read, but is generally limited to about 3 minutes.