Lunada Literary Lounge - Summer Series - Summer 2012

Spoken Word * Música * Open Mic

Featuring Isabella Borgeson, Javier Zamora, 10 spots on the Open Mic, and host & curator Sandra Garcia Rivera.

The August reading of the LUNADA Summer Series features two phenomenal young voices emerging on the national poetry scene: Oakland native, slam and spoken word warrior ISA BORGESON, and Salvadorian loved son JAVIER ZAMORA, author of Nueve Años Inmigrantes. This evening is Javier's last reading in the Bay before he moves to NYC to continue his education, and Galeria is proud to feature these two powerful artists, along with 10 slots on the Open Mic, under the next full moon at LUNADA.

LUNADA ~ Literary Lounge & Open Mic
Wednesday, August 1st, 2012 | 7:30 pm

About LUNADA:

Held every month, on the night of the full moon, Galeria de la Raza’s LUNADA series is a community gathering where stories, food, songs, and spirit are shared. For over a decade, Lunada has been the Bay Area’s only full moon bilingual literary ritual & performance gathering.  Located in the heart of the Mission District at Galería de la Raza, and guest curated by some of the Bay Area’s most dynamic word slingers and artists, each Lunada features community poets, local legends, visiting mystics, and other mero meros of the stage.

ARTIST BIOS:

JAVIER ZAMORA was born and raised in La Herradura, La Paz, El Salvador. At the age of nine he immigrated to the Yunaited Estais to be reunited with his parents. Zamora is the winner of the 2011 Organic Weapon Arts Chapbook Contest, and is the author of Nueve Años Inmigrantes. His poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in New Border, Interrupture, Phat’titude, The Homestead Review, and Spillway Magazine who nominated him for the 2011 Best New Poets Anthology. He has attended various conferences as a scholarship student, including Breadloaf, CantoMundo, Frost Place, Napa Valley, Squaw Valley, and VONA. He will attend NYU’s MFA program in Fall 2012. 

ISABELLA BORGESON is an Oakland native poet who has competed nationally on both the college and adult level slam scene, representing UC Berkeley's CalSlam and Team San Francisco. In 2012, her CalSlam team won 3rd in the nation out of 48 collegiate teams, competing in the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational (CUPSI). Isa was also awarded "Best Poem" for the 2012 CUPSI. Off the stage, she is a fourth year UC Berkeley student majoring in Ethnic Studies and Business, with a minor in Creative Writing, hoping to apply her education to non-profits in the local Bay Area community. She has been a Student Teacher Poet for the beautiful June Jordan Poetry for the People program, for going on 3 years now, and is proud to find a home in this community that teaches poetry as a tool of both empowerment and healing. 

Sandra García Rivera is an award-winning poet and prose writer. Most recently her work has appeared in the anthologies Caribbean Erotic (Peepal Tree Press, Leeds); Breaking Ground: Anthology of Puerto Rican Women Writers in New York 1980-2010; as well as in the Centro Journal; Hostos Review/Revista Hostosiana; Urban Latino Magazine; and Manteca. She has published two chapbooks: Shoulder High, and Divination of the Mistress, and two special editions of her hand-made books That Kiss (Ediciones Mixta, NYC). Poet and chanteuse, she has captured audiences throughout the U.S., Puerto Rico, Cuba, Holland and Great Britain with her Nuyorican soul and blues inspired delivery, both as a solo artist, and alongside musical legends. She recently earned a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, from Antioch University in Los Angeles, with a mission of social justice as the artist's role in society. 

Photos