Home » Events » SFJAZZ Poetry Festival 2018: Wordology Night 2

SFJAZZ Poetry Festival 2018: Wordology Night 2

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Date/Time
Date(s) - 04/07/2018
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM

Location
Joe Henderson Lab, SFJAZZ Center

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Curated by SFJAZZ Poet Laureate Genny Lim, this year’s festival will again feature the greatest poets of the Bay Area and beyond, centered on the concept of “wordology.”

A noted jazz poet, Lim has performed at jazz festivals and venues from coast to coast.

Genny Lim is a native San Francisco poet, playwright and performer. She has previously published three poetry collections, Paper Gods and Rebels, Child of War, and Winter Place; a children’s book, Wings for Lai Ho; and is co-author of Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, which received the American Book Award. Her award-winning play, Paper Angels, a prison drama about Chinese immigrants held on Angel Island, was the first Asian American play featured on PBS’s American Playhouse in 1985, and has been produced throughout the U.S. and in Canada. Reprised in 2010 at the San Francisco Fringe Festival in Chinatown Portsmouth Square, it received Best Site Specific Award and is being presented at the Seattle Fringe Festival this year. A noted jazz poet whose collaborators have included the late Max Roach, bassist, Herbie Lewis, Jon Jang, Francis Wong, Anthony Brown and Hafez Modirzadeh, Lim has performed at jazz festivals and venues from coast to coast, including SF Jazz Poetry Festival at SF Jazz and World Poetry Festivals in Caracas, Venezuela and Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Her poetry and vocals can be heard on Asian ImprovArts recordings with Francis Wong, Devotee and Child of Peace; and on Jon Jang’s Immigrant Suite. Lim is the subject of a feature documentary, The Voice, which aired on PBS in 2002; and was featured in the five-part PBS series, The United States of Poetry and San Francisco Chinatown. She served as SF Arts Commissioner under Mayors Art Agnos and Frank Jordan.

Featuring Paul Flores, Genny Lim, Tongo Eisen-Martin, with Broun Fellinis

Paul S. Flores’ work explores the intersection of urban culture, Hip-Hop and transnational identity. His spoken word poem “Brown Dreams” from Def Poetry on HBO has been viewed on YouTube 150,000 times. Flores’ play “On The Hill: I am Alex Nieto” (2016) dramatized the life and death of Alex Nieto who was killed by the San Francisco Police Department. His previous play PLACAS: The Most Dangerous Tattoo (2012) was a deep look into community trauma, immigration and street warfare caused by US intervention into the Civil War in El Salvador and the resulting transnational development of MS-13 in California barrios. Flores is a Doris Duke Artist, a MAP Fund awardee, a Gerbode-Hewlett Theater commission recipient, a NALAC Fund for Arts recipient, and 2011 SF Weekly Best Politically Active Hip-hop Performer. He is an adjunct professor of Theater at the University of San Francisco.

Originally from San Francisco, Tongo Eisen-Martin is a poet, movement worker and educator. His poems have appeared in such publications as Harper’s magazine and the New York Times magazine. His curriculum on extrajudicial killing of Black people titled, We Charge Genocide Again, has been used as an education and organizing tool throughout the country. His book, Someone’s Dead Already, was nominated for a California Book Award. His latest book of poems, Heaven Is All Goodbyes, was published in the City Lights Pocket Poets Series.

The Broun Fellinis are a jazz/hip-hop trio hailing from the Bay Area whose members include percussionist Professor Boris Karnaz (born Kevin Carnes), bassist Kirk the Redeemer, and woodwind player Black Edgar Kenyatta. Their debut, Aphrokubist Improvisations, Vol. 9, was released in 1995. The group has created their own mythology explaining their origins — they claim to be from the mythical land of Boohaabia, which floats off the coast of Madagascar and is surrounded by the Phat Temple, the Ministry of Imagination, and the Oasis of Surprise, which are all at equal distances from Boohaabia. Further, Karnaz claims that Boohaabia may be reached through the group’s music, or perhaps through Kirk the Redeemer’s bass cabinet if the pilgrim has brought him some cashews; Karnaz promises that the listener’s chair will then sink six inches into the sand and giraffes will appear, ready to take the listener wherever he may want to go. – by Steve Hue

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