Celebrate Incantation: Love Poems for Battle Sites by Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, and featuring readings by Josh Evans, féi hernandez, Jenise Miller, and Jasmine Williams. Art by Rafael Cardenas.

Incantation: Love Poems for Battle Sites is a Chicana’s witness to the American ethos in a time marked by controversy, division, and transformation. Bermejo delves into the heart of the matter, contemplating the significance of U.S. monuments as both symbols of history and battlegrounds for ideological strife, and imparts a compassionate ear to the marginalized, memorializing the lives of Black and brown individuals whose lives were cut short by state-sanctioned violence.

About the authors

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is the daughter of Mexican immigrants and author of Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge (Sundress Publications) and Incantation: Love Poems for Battle Sites (Mouthfeel Press). A former Steinbeck Fellow and Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange winner, she’s received residencies from Hedgebrook, Ragdale, Yefe Nof, and National Parks Arts Foundation in partnership with Gettysburg National Military Park and Poetry Foundation. Her poem “Battlegrounds” was featured at Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, On Being’s Poetry Unbound, and Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World (W.W. Norton). Bermejo teaches with Antioch University, MFA and UCLA Extension and is the director of Women Who Submit. She was honored with a 2023 Beyond Baroque Distingushed Service Award for her work uplifting the poetry and literary community.

Josh Evans is pioneering the next wave of accessible mixed-media storytelling across genres. He is a published poet, educator, writer, director, and producer based in Southern California with a passion for pushing storytelling out into the wild. He believes stories are at their best when allowed to breathe, to be honest, and to surprise you. Respect of the craft, a daring to experiment, and detailed attention to high quality can all co-exist.

féi hernandez (b. 1993, Chihuahua, Mexico) is a trans, Inglewood-raised, formerly undocumented immigrant. féi is the author of the full-length poetry collection Hood Criatura (Sundress Publications 2020). They are a 2023 LAMBDA LITERARY fellow and 2022 Tin House Scholar. féi has been published in Poetry Foundation, Poets.Org, Autostraddle, PANK Magazine, Somewhere We are Human, TransLash Media & Narrative, and more. féi is the founder of The House of Etéreo and within it, Spirit School for the Divinely Gifted, a spiritual learning space for trans and queer BIPOC spiritual practitioners.

Jasmine is from South Central Los Angeles and is the Executive Director/Producer of Da Poetry Lounge Co. She holds 15 years of residencies that provide equitable creative education to imprisoned and at-risk young adults with non-profit organizations. She has created work featured on FOX, HBO, PBS, and Facebook just to name a few. Jasmine creates to amplify the voices of those brave enough to be heard. She loves mint chocolate chip ice cream, and on her time off she is a UNO champion, a VIP member of Twilight #TeamEdward, before falling asleep to episodes of Hey Arnold or The Office.

Jenise Miller is an Afro-Panamanian poet, writer, and urban planner from Compton, California. She is a California Arts Council Artist Fellow, recent PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow, and Tin House and VONA workshop alumna. She created and edits the KCET Artbound article series, Compton: Arts and Archives, and coordinates the History of Compton Arts Interview Project. A Pushcart-nominated poet, her writing is featured in her poetry chapbook, The Blvd,the Acentos Review, Boom California, Los Angeles Review of Books, Los Angeles Times, and the forthcoming essay anthology, Writing the Golden State: The New Literary Terrain of California.

This event is Free & In Person at Beyond Baroque. Masks are encouraged while inside our center.

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