It’s our birthday …
at ALLENS LANE ART CENTER!
It’s getting close. Nearly one year ago, we gathered for the first time at Young American Cider and Tasting Room in partnership with Reclaim Philadelphia NALAC with our first poets, Denice Frohman and Gabriel Ramirez. Since then, so many poets have activated our hearts, minds, and hands in action … engaging us in local and national issues.
FIRST ANNIVERSARY AT ALLENS LANE ART CENTER, SEPTEMBER 21, 5pm
Our first anniversary will be no different with Tongo Eisen-Martin and Roque Raquel Salas Rivera. Their bios are below. Get ready y’all! These are some of THE most powerful poets of a generation! We had thought that this would be a triple feature month, but our beloved Tim Seibles has committed to gather in community in celebration of the life of a beloved who has transitioned. We extend our thoughts to him and the community … and we will see him in January 2025 with Anaiis Salles. We will have a slightly bigger open mic at the anniversary at our venue for just September: Allens Lane Art Center.
TICKETS
We will be offering donated cider from Young American Cider and Tasting Room, baked goods and other refreshments, and non-alcoholic beverages as well. There are ONLY 45 tickets available, so get your tickets early! http://bit.ly/25wildindigo26.
BOOKS?
We also STRONGLY suggest getting your books in advance. Tongo’s book is only available through our Bookshop Partner, Harriett’s online (link here), and Roque only has 12 copies that we will have in person.
NEWS IN COMMUNITY: Reclaim Philadelphia Garden Party
Wild Indigo's partner in social change, Reclaim Philadelphia, invites you to a Garden Party/Fundraiser/Mobilization Event! Come out to meet neighbors, learn more about Reclaim, hear from activists about our fall campaigns for justice and from Rep. Chris Rabb about what's going down in Harrisburg this fall, enjoy snacks and drinks - all on an early fall early evening at beautiful Hansberry Garden, 5150 Wayne Avenue, Germantown.
Friday, September 19, 5:30-7 pm. Rain date: September 26.
Free and open to the public - though we will be inviting you to become a member of the essential progressive organization Reclaim Philadelphia, if you're not already. We'll have membership info available and several of us to chat with about Reclaim's vital work. Invite your friends and neighbors and come on down to the garden, September 19, 5:30-7 pm. (Come in the first hour to hear Rep Rabb, as he has another event to get to... popular guy that he is!) Meantime, let Sarah know if you have any questions or want more details. You can write to her directly at sarahbrowningwriter@yahoo.com.
NEWS IN COMMUNITY: Obsidian Foundation
We thank you for always showing up in your truth, with your fire and your love. We will see you on that third Sunday of September, September 21, 5-7pm at Allens Lane for our 1st anniversary gathering!
BIOS
Born, raised, and currently living in San Francisco, Tongo Eisen-Martin was the city’s eighth Poet Laureate (2021-2024). He is the author of three collections of poetry: Blood on the Fog (2021), selected by the New York Times as among the Best Poetry of 2021; Heaven is All Goodbyes (2017); and Someone’s Dead Already (2015). Eisen-Martin fuses political interventions with an idiosyncratic pattern of logic to elucidate how one can find pockets of freedom even within a wider system of oppression. Describing Eisen-Martin’s poetry, famed writer Claudia Rankine says, “This is resistance as sound.” Yet Eisen-Martin’s poems are as personal as they are political. In Heaven is All Goodbyes, for example, Eisen-Martin takes aim at incarceration-in-plain-sight with the following lines: “My dear, if it is not a city, it is a prison. If it has a prison, it is a prison. Not a city.” In addition to writing revolutionary poetry, Eisen-Martin is committed to raising political awareness through education. He has taught creative writing in prisons and is the author of We Charge Genocide Again, a series of lesson plans to support students and teachers in grappling with the state-sanctioned killing of Black people. A recipient of several awards including the American Book Award (2018), a California Book Award (2018), and the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award (2018), Eisen-Martin earned both his BA and MA from Columbia University.
Roque Raquel Salas Rivera (Mayagüez, 1985) is a Puerto Rican poet, educator, and translator of trans experience. The 2018-19 Poet Laureate of Philadelphia, he has received the Premio Nuevas Voces and the inaugural Ambroggio Prize, among other awards and recognitions. His eight poetry books include lo terciario/ the tertiary (Noemi, 2019), longlisted for the National Book Award and winner of the Lambda Literary Award, and while they sleep (under the bed is another country) (Birds LLC, 2019), which inspired the title of the exhibition no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria. His poetry has been musicalized by Angélica Negrón, Jonathan Woody, Anaïs Mejías.
His most recent book, Algarabía (Graywolf, 2025) is an epic poem that follows the journey of Cenex, a trans being who retrospectively narrates his life while navigating the stories told on his behalf. Salas Rivera is an assistant professor in the Comparative Literature Program at the Mayagüez Campus of the University of Puerto Rico. His cat, Pietri, is the ungrateful muse who inspires a great many of his poems. He is currently the Creative Editor for sx salon: a small axe literary platform.