Santora Building Basement, Gallery B6

Children’s Storytime with Denise Reynoso

2-3pm

Local Leader and Downtown Resident Denise Reynoso invites you to enjoy an interactive children’s story reading! This is a great way to make friends and enjoy the love of storytelling. 

Poets from Your Playground

4-5:30pm

Come to a dynamite poetry session that features poets from Orange County’s own backyards, neighborhoods, and playgrounds. They have all lived here all or most of their lives. Their poetry is powerful, tender, humorous, but always a reflection of the diverse community and voices from Orange County. You will be shaken. You will be moved. 

Poets and Word (Play)

5:30-6:30pm

Experience award winning poets, slam poets, and spoken word artists, all with published collections of poetry locally to internationally. Collectively they have a history of many years of crafting their own style and playing with language and words. What has resulted is impressive literary magic. This session will inspire you and propel you to move forward.

Santora Building Storytellers & Readers: 2-3pm

Santora Building "Playground" Poets: 4-5:30pm

Iuri M. Lara is a Xicana-Indigena poet, a High School English Language Arts teacher, and a mother from Santa Ana, CA. She holds an M.F.A. in Poetry from the University of California in Riverside. Her poetry has appeared in The American Poetry Review, The Academic Journal for MALCS, Mujeres de Maize Zine, Bozalta Literary and Arts Zine, Open Doors Poetry Anthology, Recycled Languages Cartonera Zine, Seeds of Resistance Zine and La Bloga’s Poets Responding to SB1070. In 2020 she was the second recipient of the Modesta Avila Literary-Community Arts award from Libromobile. Her first poetry chapbook titled “Trece Poemas” was self-published in 2012, “Xicanx Affirmations” is her second poetry chapbook (2018) published by Libromobile. website: iurimlara.com

Camille Hernandez is the city of Anaheim’s third Poet Laureate (2024-2026). She is a Black and Filipina author moving through the world as a kapwa womanist. Equipped by her matriarchal cultures and motherhood journey, Camille writes and leads from the fluid depths of tenderness, protection, and intuition. Camille was an inaugural fellow of Roots.Wounds.Words. Storytellers of Color Retreat and a current fellow of The Watering Hole. She authored the biomythography book The Hero and the Whore. Her poems are published in So to Speak, Braving the Body, and Health Promotion Practice. She’s the editor of Anaheim Poetry Review.

Cecilia Sanchez is a Mujerista and poet from Orange County, California. She is a graduate student at California State University Los Angeles in the field of Latin American Studies. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Chicanx/LatinX Studies. She is a professor at Eastern Washington University in the Department of Chicano/a Studies. Sanchez was recently published in the anthology Somos Xicanas. She reclaims her roots by writing about her identity as a Mexican and Salvadorian woman in the United States.

Oscar Velazquez is an Anaheim-based poet whose work draws inspiration from his troubled past, his journey through addiction and into sobriety, his dreams of the future, and his keen eye on the world around him. He has performed at notable venues, including Boca De Oro Santa Ana’s Literary Fest and the MUZEO Museum and Cultural Center in Anaheim. His poetry has been published by the city of Anaheim in the “Anaheim Poetry Review,” an anthology celebrating local voices. Through his unique performance style, he unveils a transformative journey from a world of adversity to one of artistic expression. He writes raw and uncensored, but always with mucho corazón.

David Alvarado is a graduate student at CSUF in the field of Human Communications. He will become a Graduate Teacher’s Assistant next semester. He was born in Santa Ana, but has lived his entire life in Anaheim. He is the first in his family to pursue a master’s degree, and remarkably is the first in his neighborhood, South side Anaheim Camino Block, to pursue any form of higher education. His neighborhood is as important to him as his family. He has a large love and pride for his neighborhood and wants to set an example and motivate those individuals that have grown up in the same environment and with similar circumstances that he grew up with. Initially, David wrote poetry as a hobby, but his love for the spoken and written word has grown immensely. He is also inspired by several of the best hip hop lyricists. His poetry and spoken word and hip-hop poetics are expressions of his life; they will inspire others. His career goal is to become a Professor of Human Communications.

Santora Building "Word (Play)" Poets: 5:30-6:30pm

Matthew ‘Cuban’ Hernandez is a poet, emcee, speaker, actor, and performance coach from Jacksonville, Florida. He has toured as far as Abu Dhabi and nearly every major city in the United States and Europe, performing, teaching and coaching poetry. A teaching artist for over 15 years, Matthew has spent the last ten years working in youth detention centers across Los Angeles County, currently serving as the Director of Camp Programming for Street Poets, Inc. In addition, he is a current Lead Teacher and Co-Founder of Spoken Literature Art Movement. Cuban has opened for artists such as Wu-Tang, performed for platforms such as BuzzFeed and NPR and even appeared on the award-winning television show, Better Things. Matthew is also a three time Southern Fried poetry slam champion and an award-winning poetry coach. Cuban’s favorite activity is making people feel great; sometimes he does this through hip hop and poetry. He recently published All Brown Boys Get Trumpets by El Martillo Press. 

Ceasar Avelar is a Central American poet and the poet laureate of Pomona. He is the Writer in Residence of Cafe Con Libros press in the Pomona Arts district, where the mission is to bring Literature to the community. Caesar Runs and Hosts an open mic every second Saturday During the Pomona art walk Called Obsidian Tongues Open Mic, held at Cafe Con Libros Press in downtown Pomona. His first collection of poetry, God of The Air Hose and Other Blue-Collar Poems, is published by El Martillo Press. A part of his mission is to promote poetry with the youth, and bring poetry to public spaces such as the public library and schools.

David A. Romero is a Mexican-American spoken word artist from Diamond Bar, CA. Romero is the author of My Name Is Romero (FlowerSong Press), a book reviewed by Gustavo Arellano (¡Ask a Mexican!), Curtis Marez (University Babylon), and founding member of Ozomatli, Ulises Bella. Romero has received honorariums from nearly a hundred colleges and universities in thirty-four different states in the USA and has performed live in Mexico, Italy, and France. Romero's work has been published in literary magazines in the United States, Mexico, England, Scotland, and Canada. Romero has opened for Latin Grammy winning bands Ozomatli and La Santa Cecilia. Romero's work has been published in anthologies alongside poets laureate Joy Harjo, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Luis J. Rodriguez, Jack Hirschman, and Tongo Eisen-Martin. Romero has won the Uptown Slam at the historic Green Mill in Chicago; the birthplace of slam poetry. Romero offers a scholarship for high school seniors interested in spoken word and social justice: “The Romero Scholarship for Excellence in Spoken Word.”

Matt Sedillo has been described as the "best political poet in America" as well as "the poet laureate of the struggle" by academics, poets, and journalists alike. He has appeared on CSPAN and has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, among other publications. He has spoken at Casa de las Americas in Havana, Cuba, at numerous conferences and forums such as the National Conference on Race & Ethnicity in American Higher Education, and at over a hundred universities and colleges, including the University of Cambridge, among many others. He is the current literary director of the dA Center for the Arts and author of Mowing Leaves of Grass (Flowersong Press, 2019), which is currently being taught at California State University at Northridge and Monterey Bay, as well as at Mission College. His Three Act Poem structure has been taught as capstones of coursework at UCLA and Occidental College. City on the Second Floor, his second collection of poetry has been recently published.

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Born in El Sereno, California in 1981, Matt Sedillo writes from the vantage point of a second generation Chicano born in an era of diminishing opportunities and a crumbling economy. His writing - a fearless, challenging and at times even confrontational blend of humor, history and political theory - is a reflection of those realities.

Donato Martinez was born in small pueblo, Garcia de la Cadena, Zacatecas, Mexico and immigrated into the USA at six years old. He teaches English Composition, Literature, and Creative Writing at Santa Ana College. He has also taught classes in Chicano Studies. He hosts and curates many artistic events that feature poetry and music at his campus or in the community. He has collaborated with many poets and musicians. These events generate large crowds and active participation. He is also a poet and writes about his barrio upbringing, his community, his culture, his bi-cultural and bilingual identities and other complexities of life. He is influenced by the sounds and pulse of the streets, people, music, and the magic of language. ​He has a self-published collection with three other Inland Empire poets, Tacos de Lengua. His first collection of poetry, Touch the Sky, is published by El Martillo Press. He loves the outdoors and is inspired by music and books and other sentimental expressions, and his children, Gabriel and Abigail.