Bel Canto Books is delighted to host a Poetry Reading & Book Release Party with San Diego Poet Laureate Jason Magabo Perez and Renaissance High School poets Ashley Vasquez, Jule Loven, Nahlah Sweet, and Georgia Topper.

Light refreshments will be served. Kindly RSVP so we can plan accordingly. Please stay home if you feel sick.

This event will be held indoors at KUBO LB (3976 Atlantic Avenue, Long Beach CA).

EVENT SCHEDULE

3:45pm – Welcome & event start

4:00pm – Event welcome, author and poets introductions

4:15pm-5:00pm – Poetry readings, conversation and Q&A

5:00pm – Book signing, meet-and-greet, and shopping time

6:00pm – Event ends

ABOUT THE BOOK

Jason Magabo Perez’s second full-length book of poetry is an extended elegy set in the alleyways and Pacific-bound boulevards of San Diego, California during the current global health crisis. Called “an antidote to despair” (Muriel Leung, Imagine Us, The Swarm) and poetry that “complicates notions of solidarity, community and justice, distilling the quotidian into something sacred” (Rachelle Cruz, God’s Will For Monsters), I ask about what falls away serves as an intimate grief manifesto against the daily violations of racial capitalism. Perez, the 2023-2024 San Diego Poet Laureate, employs a critical and improvisatory assemblage of lyric and litany, narrative and distillation, fragment and refrain to map city, solidarity and history. At once playful and tenacious, I ask about what falls away pays careful witness to working-class uncles, aunties, cousins and youth in rhythm with the anti-colonial wisdom of writers such as Neferti X. M. Tadiar and Aimé Césaire, remixing sorrow with a deep love and knowledge for everyday people.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The Filipino American poet Jason Magabo Perez is the 2023–24 San Diego Poet Laureate. He is the author of Phenomenology of Superhero (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2016) and This is for the mostless (WordTech Editions, 2017).

ABOUT BEL CANTO BOOKS

Founded by Jhoanna Belfer, a Filipina-American poet and former hospitality executive, Bel Canto Books offers a curated selection of fiction, nonfiction and children’s books, organized around a theme of the month, in particular celebrating books by women and people of color. Learn more at belcantobooks.net.

ABOUT KUBO LB

KUBO LB is a creative community space for Filipinx, BIPOC, LGBTQ, and Women led small businesses. KUBO LB is a space to support and educate small businesses through retail, business workshops and more. Learn more at kubolb.com.

Jason Magabo Perez, I ask about what falls away