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mikethepoetla · 5 years

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Lineup Bios for July 24th

Lineup Bios for July 24th Letters to Our City

Host/Producer/Organizer: Mike Sonksen

Mike Sonksen aka Mike the PoeT is a 3rd-generation Los Angeles native. Poet, professor, journalist, historian and tour-guide, he teaches at Woodbury University. His latest book Letters to My City was just published by Writ Large Press.

Featured Storytellers

Lee Boek

Lee Boek is the Artistic Director of the Public Works Improvisational Theater Company. The California native, born in 1941, has had successful careers as a Fundamentalist Evangelist preacher, radio host, actor, writer, producer, union organizer, husband, father, grandfather to many & champion for the under-served & wronged. Boek continues to be on the forefront of accessible, socially-relevant performing arts productions and he has also been seen on television on Mama’s Family, Webster, Home Improvement, and MADtv. Before moving to Los Angeles, Boek was a well-known performer and radio personality in northern California, where he was known as Brother Lee Love of the Survival Revival Hour on KZAP-FM radio in the late sixties.

Sara Borjas

Sara Borjas is a Xicanx pocha and a Fresno poet. Her debut collection of poetry, Heart Like a Window, Mouth Like a Cliff was published by Noemi Press in 2019. Sara is a 2017 CantoMundo Fellow, the recipient of the 2014 Blue Mesa Poetry Prize and a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. She lives in Los Angeles but stays rooted in Fresno.

Rocío Carlos (she/they) is a poet from Los Ángeles. Her books include (the other house), Attendance and A Universal History of infamy: Those of This America . Her poems have appeared in Chaparral, Angel City Review, The Spiral Orb and Cultural Weekly. She was selected as a 2003 Pen Center “Emerging Voices” fellow.

Natashia Deón is an NAACP Image Award Nominee, practicing criminal attorney, law professor, and Creative Writing Professor for Antioch University and UCLA Extension. Author of the critically acclaimed novel, GRACE, which was named a Best Book by the New York Times, Deón is also a wife, mother of two, and founder of REDEEMED, a criminal record clearing project that pairs writers with and those with a criminal past. A Pamela Krasney Moral Courage Fellow and recipient of a PEN America Emerging Voices Fellowship, she’s been awarded fellowships around the world, including Dickinson House in Belgium. Deón was a 2017 U.S. Delegate to Armenia as part of the U.S. Embassy’s reconciliation project between Turkey and Armenia in partnership with the University of Iowa.

Daniel Hernandez is an award-winning journalist, editor, essayist, documentary host who's worked across the spectrum of news media. He is author of Down & Delirious in Mexico City (2011), a nonfiction exploration of urban youth subcultures. He's appeared in multiple documentaries ("The Day I Met El Chapo," Netflix; "The Munchies Guide to Oaxaca," VICE) and is a frequent guest on regional and national radio programs. He is currently editor of L.A. Taco.

Poetry is a part time snack for the Los Angeles born artist, Armond Kinard. But he always has something different to present on a stage, where most of his poetic sharing takes place. His two most successful projects so far are "Hard Money (short film)" and his intensely sensual poetry series, "The Book of Sultry". He can make you think, laugh, cry or turn you on all in one body of work. Be on the lookout!

traci kato-kiriyama is: a writer/actor and one half of the award-winning PULLproject Ensemble; director/co-founder of Tuesday Night Project - presenter of the Tuesday Night Cafe series (currently the longest-running Asian American-produced mic series in the country); and Writ Large Press author of a new book still in the birthing process. She has been presented as a performer, poet, theatre deviser, guest lecturer, speaker, facilitator, emcee, and Artist-in-Residence at innumerable venues from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington and Hawai'i to Philadelphia, Florida, New York and Toronto.

A native of Inglewood, California, Dante Mitchell aka 'Prince of the Ghetto' is a writer, performance, and recording artist based in Los Angeles, California. His published works have been featured in anthologies, newspapers, magazines, and audio recordings. Dante started performing at local open mics across Southern California at age 17 as a spoken word artist with his creative writing teacher, Mike the Poet. He later joined an organization called GetLit, a youth literacy advocate group. Dante has performed across the United States in states such as Virginia, New York, and Georgia. He has also been a guest speaker at numerous high schools and college campuses performing and promoting literacy. The Prince of the Ghetto Is one half of the hip hop duo Ciph3rCompl3t3 featuring his cousin Zo3rd.

Monique Mitchell is a poet and community organizer + activist. She was invited to perform for the California State Senate in defense of SB 933, which secured $50M for arts education across California. She has collaborated with the likes of Cass Bird, Cara Delevingne, Maria Shriver and Puma and has been published by The New York Times, Cultural Weekly, and various print publications across Los Angeles. She has performed and led workshops for museums, colleges, classrooms and conferences globally and believes that to liberate the world, one must first liberate themselves.

Adrian Ramon is a saxophonist and actor well established in the music community, working 20+ years with top producers in the industry such as Multi Platinum recording artist and Grammy nominated R&B star Jon B. This Los Angeles local talent has traveled through the ranks of life to pursue his passion for the creation of sound and music.

Luivette Resto, a mother, teacher, poet, and Wonder Woman fanatic, was born in Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico but proudly raised in the Bronx. Her two books of poetry Unfinished Portrait and Ascension have been published Tia Chucha Press. She is a CantoMundo fellow. Some of her latest work can be read in Cultural Weekly and in a forthcoming anthology titled What Saves Us: Poems of Empathy and Outrage in the Age of Trump published by Northwestern University Press. Currently, she lives in the Los Angeles area with her three revolutionaries.

Terry Robinson is an experimental poet and native of Los Angeles. A Zen student with an MA in Psychology, he brings meditation and the science of the imagination into his writing practice. When he is not reading fellow writers he is working with kids, pursuing social justice, or recording hip-hop music.

Esther Tseng is a writer covering food and culture in Los Angeles and beyond, while based in East Hollywood. She has contributed to the L.A. Times, Food & Wine, Eater, VICE, and appeared in programs such as Mind of a Chef. A Midwest transplant, she has spent over twenty years in Los Angeles finding her voice.

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