On the 2nd Monday of each month Kim Shuck, San Francisco Poet Laureate Emerita, hosts an on-line poetry reading with two featured poets and an open mic. Tonight’s reading, featuring Kitty Costello and Jesse James Johnson, is a tribute to the poet Mary TallMountain (1918-1994), whose influence on a generation was profound and resonates still.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84350265713?pwd=eE84V3BYdWxiSFBHNHhmdUt1WTUzdz09
Meeting ID:  843 5026 5713
Passcode: 244211

Kitty Costello is a San Francisco author, editor, therapist and teacher. Poet friends who influenced her most include Diane di Prima, who taught her early on how to tap into the creative wellspring within, and Mary TallMountain, with whom she shared the delights and transformative power of writing in community. Kitty is author of Upon Waking: New & Selected Poems, 1977-2017, co-editor of Muslim American Writers at Home: Stories, Essays & Poems of Identity, Diversity & Belonging 2021, and she has served 30 years on the editorial board of Freedom Voices, publishing works to and from communities on the margins.

Jesse James Johnson is a queer Tejano/Chicano poet who has lived in the Tenderloin for almost thirty years. Born in Austin, Texas, he is a product of the Chicano/a Arts Renaissance Movement and thus heir to a literary tradition that regards poetry as a force for social transformation. He has facilitated creative writing workshops for special populations including young gay men of color, people with AIDS, the formerly incarcerated, program participants of Hospitality House and members of the SF Drug Users Union. In 2015 and again in 2018 he was a Hidden Gems Awardee.  He recently received a grant from the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts to collaborate on a series of short videos about the Tenderloin. His first book of poems entitled Mine is a Community of Misfits and Outlaws will be available this summer.