Two powerful performers, jessica Care moore and Tongo Eisen-Martin have staked out their ground decisively, neither likely to step back any time soon.

Eisen-Martin, a child of the region, seemed to emerge full blown on the Bay Area poetry front in 2015 with his debut Someone’s Dead Already from Bootstrap Press and a cascade of uncanny readings, hands in pockets, gaze fixed in the middle distance of his mind. But by that point he had already achieved deep hip hop/spoken word credibility and had gone full on into prison work that had taken him nationwide for years. City Lights’ Pocket Poets series followed up with Heaven is All Goodbyes in 2017, #61, and as a brilliant poet he’s been a presence to be reckoned with nationally since.

jessica Care moore has taken on the world on her own terms in just a few short years. She’s the founder and CEO of Moore Black Press, executive producer of Black WOMEN Rock!, and founder of the literacy-driven, Jess Care Moore Foundation. An internationally renowned poet, playwright, performance artist, and producer, she is the 2019 and 2017 Knight Arts Award Winner, 2016 Kresge Arts Fellow, NAACP Great Expectations Awardee, and an Alain Locke Award recipient from the Detroit Institute of Arts.

She is also the author of The Words Don’t Fit in My Mouth, The Alphabet Verses the Ghetto, Sunlight Through Bullet Holes, and the critically acclaimed Techno Choreopoem, Salt City. Her work has been published in numerous literary collections and she’s performed on stages all over the world, including The Apollo Theater, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the London Institute for Contemporary Arts.

jessica lives and writes in an historic Detroit neighborhood with her son King Thomas.

Her new book is We Want Our Bodies Back. She’s on tour and Tongo is pleased to once again accompany her on a round of readings in the Bay Area this winter.