The Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center and host Stella Beratlis are pleased to welcome Josiah Luis Alderete and Anthony Cody for Second Tuesday Poetry on Tuesday Feb. 9, 2021. Join the reading via Zoom at 7 pm: https://cccconfer.zoom.us/j/91076973120
Open Mic signup: https://form.jotform.com/berattle/secondtuesday
Josiah Luis Alderete is a full blooded Pocho Spanglish speaking poet from La Area Bahia who learned to write poetry in the kitchen of his Mama’s Mexican restaurant. He first began performing his poetry in San Francisco’s Mission District at the infamous Cafe Babar’s Thursday night readings and was one of the founding members of San Francisco’s outspoken word troupe, The Molotov Mouths. He is also a radio insurgente whose stories have appeared on KALW’s “Crosscurrents” and whose show, “The Spanglish Power Hour,” aired on KPFA. He curates and hosts the monthly Latinx reading series Speaking Axolotl at Nomadic Press in Oakland. Josiah Luis Alderete’s first book of poems, Baby Axolotls y Old Pochos, is forthcoming from Black Freighter Press.
Anthony Cody is the author of Borderland Apocrypha (Omnidawn, April 2020), winner of the 2018 Omnidawn Open Book Contest selected by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry , and longlisted for the PEN America / Jean Stein Book Award. He is a 2020 Poets & Writers debut poet and a 2020 Southwest Book Award winner from the Border Regional Library Association. A CantoMundo fellow from Fresno, California, Anthony has lineage in both the Bracero Program and the Dust Bowl. His poetry has appeared in The Academy of American Poets: Poem-A-Day, Gulf Coast, Ninth Letter, Prairie Schooner, TriQuarterly, The Boiler, ctrl+v journal, among others. Anthony is a member of the Hmong American Writers’ Circle where he co-edited How Do I Begin?: A Hmong American Literary Anthology. He is a recent MFA-Creative Writing graduate from Fresno State where he continues to collaborate with Juan Felipe Herrera and the Laureate Lab Visual Wordist Studio. Anthony has received fellowships from CantoMundo, Community of Writers, and Desert Nights, Rising Stars Conference. Anthony won the inaugural 2020 CantoMundo Guzmán Mendoza / Paredez Fellowship for his work-in-progress poetry manuscript, “The Rendering”, selected by Aracelis Girmay. He serves as an associate poetry editor for Noemi Press and a poetry editor for Omnidawn.
Josiah Luis Alderete is a full-blooded Pocho, Spanglish-speaking poeta who has been an active part of la Area Bahia’s spoken word scene for over twenty years. He was a founding member of outspoken word group “The Molotov Mouths” and is the curator and host of the long-running monthly Chicanx/Latinx reading series “Speaking Axolotl” which happens the 3rd Thursday of every month in el Zoom mundo. Josiah’s book of poems, Baby Axolotls y Old Pochos is being released this April from Black Freighter Press.
Whether sharing stages with legendary beat poets or your favorite Hip Hop emcees, Andru Defeye’s unorthodox writing and performance style has made him a fixture behing microphones around the country. 2020 saw the release of his critically acclaimed Frequency album, followed shortly after by his crowning as the youngest Poet Laureate in California capitol history. From Sacramento to Staten Island and SXSW, Andru served as the Director of Communications for Sol Collective from 2009-2020. In 2014 Defeye founded Zero Forbidden Goals, a support system for creatives dedicated to innovating arts equity, experiences, and education. ZFG’s guerilla art activations including National Guerilla Poetry Month, Chainlink Poetry, and The Intersection have been covered and recreated around the globe.
Angela Drew is a mother, dancer, poet, and spoken word performer who has loved the rhythm of words for as long as she can remember. Born in Berkeley, CA, she began writing at age eight and has always understood that words have the power to soothe, stir, or solidify connection. Thus, her lifelong love affair with storytelling began. Angela has performed at various venues throughout Modesto, Sacramento and Bay Areas, including Modesto Junior College, Modesto’s inaugural “Ill List Poetry Slam” at the State Theater, the Gallo Center for the Arts, in a Sankofa Community Theater production of The Journey—The African American Experience, and the Hildegard Festival of Women in the Arts, Turlock and the Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center’s poetry event “Words Worth Speaking,” to name a few. Angela’s spoken word piece, “BWE: The Black Woman Experience” was recently featured at the 2020 NAACP Modesto/Stanislaus Virtual Black Graduates Recognition Ceremony and her poetry was included in COLLISION VI, the February 2020 exhibit at the Mistlin Gallery which featured poet-photographer collaborations.