(Second Tuesdays)

Sharing works that delight, provoke, inspire and rouse, the monthly Poetic Tuesdays series runs from May through October, turning lunchtime into an oasis of creative expression. Lighting up Jessie Square with a fabulously curated line-up of poets and musicians, Poetic Tuesdays offer a vivifying midday breather for neighborhood groups, students, office workers on break and out-of-towners looking for respite from The City’s hustle and bustle.

About The Artists

Maddy Clifford is an Oakland-based writer, musician and activist. She has a notable career highlighted by her eight-year tenure as a Poet in Residence at the San Francisco Juvenile Justice Center. Following this, Maddy released a solo album titled downCHANTS and composed a forty-minute musical score for the aerial dance piece “Apparatus of Repair” in collaboration with Flyaway Productions. Her latest project is a video podcast called “What’s Pimpin’?” produced with KQED Arts. Maddy’s artistry is anchored in Black feminist praxis, adopting bold and playful tactics to recognize commonalities in our collective struggles. Her mission is to foster a future where confronting hard truths is embraced with less fear. Find her writings in Prism Reports, Truthout and 48hills.

Ashante J. Ford, also known as “angel ash” (they/she) is a queer multidisciplinary artist, facilitator and healer residing in Oakland, California. Her artistic expression becomes a spiritual odyssey, each poem a metaphysical dance with the surreal as she focuses on themes of healing, growth and community. She creates offerings for the powers that be. The expansiveness of their poetry has led them to four galleries so far and on the big screen.  They have been published in Epiphany Magazine, SKEW Magazine, the 1619 Speaks Anthology, Anti Fragile Magazine, Pensive Magazine, Petrichor Magazine and more.

shah noor hussein is a Sudanese writer, multimedia visual artist and public scholar crafting narratives at the nexus of Black feminist thought and Queer diaspora studies. They serve as a Cota-Robles Fellow in the Departments of Anthropology and Critical Race & Ethnic Studies at UC Santa Cruz and an Adjunct Professor at California College of the Arts. shah’s writing has been featured in numerous anthologies, including a forthcoming collection of Black feminist writing, When We Exhale (2024), alongside the works of Maya Angelou, Sonia Sanchez and June Jordan. shah’s poetry has been in The Arrow Journal (2023), Fog Lifter Press (2022), LA Review of Books (2020), Umber (2019) and CUNJUH (2017). They have performed their creative writing at the Museum of the African Diaspora (2020 – 2022), Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive (2018) and Eastside Arts Alliance (2017). shah’s research illuminates the significance of women’s cultural remixes through a multimedia study of popular culture in the African diaspora. Through this lens, Sudanese women’s adaptability to shifting political landscapes create contested spaces where national, political agendas can be unsettled, renegotiated, or reinforced.

Darius Simpson is a New Afrikan writer, educator, performer and skilled living room dancer from Akron, Ohio. Much like the means of production, he believes poetry must be used for the positive social, political and economic development of the majority of society. He aims to inspire those chills that make you frown and slightly twist up ya face in approval. His book, Never Catch Me, is out now and available at buttonpoetry.com. Darius believes in the dissolution of empire and the total liberation of Africans and all oppressed people by any means available. Free All Political Prisoners. Free The People. Free The Land.

Honey Gold Jasmine is a SF Bay Area bred hip-hop, soul singer-songwriter, actress, grant writer and event curator. She has an infectious, inspirational passion for life that shines through every project she gets her hands on. In her pursuit for knowledge and connection, she’s pushed past her limits and worked diligently, earning a double major in Ethnomusicology and Psychology from the prestigious historically women’s university Mills College all while being a mother and cultivating an arts community rooted in the Bay. After working with Youth Impact Hub for 6 years and mentoring over 100 entrepreneurs and artists, she founded her Black women-led grant writing collective Grant Mama and as of 2024, has raised over $250k for her clients. For Honey Gold Jasmine, it’s bigger than the music. She’s here to show other Black queer women that they can accomplish anything they put their minds to. She is all financial and spiritual liberation, starting with her beloved Bay Area community.

Curator Nia McAllister is an award-winning poet, writer, and environmental justice advocate working at the intersection of art, activism, and public engagement. As Senior Public Programs Manager at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) in San Francisco, Nia creates participatory spaces for creative expression and literary dialogue. Nia’s writing and poetry have been featured on Poets of Color Podcast, Bay Poets | KALW Public Media, and published in Doek! Literary Magazine, Radicle Magazine, Meridians Journal and Painting the Streets: Oakland Uprising in the Time of Rebellion (Nomadic Press, 2022). She is a recipient of the 2023 San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Awards.

Co-Presented by: