BIRD & BECKETT CULTURAL LEGACY PROJECT

Thursday, September 1 – 7pm
Poets! Fernando Marti + Cyrus Armajani, followed by an open mic

Bird & Beckett features local poets with an open mic to follow on the first Thursday of every month. Jerry Ferraz and Michael Koch host.

Photo: Benjamin Fanjoy

Fernando Martí is an Ecuadorian-born poet, printmaker, community architect, and activist based in San Francisco. He has been deeply involved in San Francisco’s struggles for affordable housing and the reclamation of the commons since the mid-90s, working with the Latinx immigrant diaspora of San Francisco’s Mission and Excelsior districts. His writing, illustrations, and altar ofrendas reflect his formal training in urbanism, his roots in rural Ecuador, and his current residence in the heart of Empire in an age of climate catastrophe. His work inhabits the space between ancestral traditions of place and the construction of a liberatory Latinx Futurism. He is a member of the Justseeds artists cooperative, and his writings have appeared in publications as varied as El Tecolote, Street Sheet, Geez Magazine, Milvia Street, and Shelterforce.

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Cyrus Armajani teaches reading and creative writing to youth who are incarcerated. He is a Jefferson Award recipient for his literacy work in the juvenile justice system and a Pushcart nominee. His poems have appeared in Matter: A Journal of Political Poetry and Commentary, Poetry Magazine, RHINO 2018 and Sparkle and Blink, among other publications. Benefits of Doubt (Nomadic Press, 2016) is his first book. Cyrus is Iranian-American and lives in Oakland, California with his wife and two sons.
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Live in the shop, and streamed live on Bird & Beckett’s Facebook page and YouTube channel.