Production Details

"Looking Glass Evolutions" is a showcase that includes poets whose life experiences span multiple generations, cultures and gender preferences. Their voices and styles are varied and diverse but all of them write with compelling prescience about the volatile nature of our world, as well as portals to an enlightened and sustainable future.The theme of this reading may include projections into past, present and future social, political, and personal experiences, as interpreted by each poet.

Kimi Sugioka is a poet, songwriter, and educator. She is the current Poet Laureate for the City of Alameda, a post that includes creating platforms for the presentation of a diverse variety of poets and spoken-word artists. Kimi also performs her own work frequently throughout the Bay Area. Born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and raised in Berkeley, California, Kimi has worked in public education for decades, and earned her BA from San Francisco State University and MFA from the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

Artist Biographies

Ayodele Nzinga
Ayodele ‘WordSlanger’ Nzinga is Oakland’s inaugural Poet Laureate. She is an author, actress, playwright, director, producer, and dramaturge. Ayodele is a correspondent for Oakland Voices 2019 and her work appears in numerous anthologies and journals. As the founder of Oakland’s oldest North American African theater company, The Lower Bottom Playaz, Ayadole's work for the stage has been internationally reviewed. The August Wilson House recognizes Nzinga as the only director in the world to direct the "August Wilson Century Cycle" in chronological order. Her published work includes “A Narrative Inquiry into Performance Pedagogy,” “the Horse Eaters,” “SorrowLand Oracle,” and “Incandescent.”

Greer Nakadegawa-Lee
Greer Nakadegawa-Lee is 17 years old and a senior at Oakland Technical High School. She has written a poem every day for nearly three years now, and she was the 2020 Oakland Youth Poet Laureate. Her first chapbook , "A Heart Full of Hallways" is out now with Nomadic Press.

Kai Sugioka-Stone
Kai Sugioka-Stone is a Japanese-American poet, mindfulness-based meditator, musician, actor and photographer. His writing focuses on liminal identity, growing up in the era of California Wildfires, and the COVID-19 Pandemic. Live presentations of his work have included Quiet Lightning’s Better Ancestors; Tea Root’s Recovery A.C.T. and Kim Shuck’s event “Sudden Return of The Fire Thieves.” Prior to becoming a poet he performed with the San Francisco Boys Chorus for 11 years (2004-2015).

Natasha Dennerstein
Originally from Melbourne, Australia, Natasha Dennerstein is currently based in Oakland, California and has had poetry published in many journals internationally. Her collections “Anatomize” (2015), “Triptych Caliform” (2016) and her novella-in-verse “About a Girl” (2017) and her trans chapbook “Seahorse” (2017) were all published by Nomadic Press in Oakland. In 2018 she was a Fellow of the Lambda Literary Writer’s Retreat. Natasha works at St James Infirmary, a clinic for sex-workers in San Francisco. She has an MFA from San Francisco State University.

Richard Loranger
Richard Loranger is a multi-genre writer, performer, musician, visual artist, and all-around squeaky wheel, currently residing in Oakland, CA. He is the founder of Poetea, a monthly literary conversation group. His newest book Unit of Agency is forthcoming from Collapse Press in October, 2021. He’s also the author of Be A Bough Tit, Sudden Windows, Poems for Teeth, The Orange Book, and ten chapbooks, and has work in over 100 magazines and journals. Before COVID, he curated the reading series Babar in Exile, and the queer talk and reading series #we; he is considering restarting Poetea and #we once we can all be safely in rooms together.

Avotcja
Avotcja is an award-winning poet, playwright, multi-percussionist, photographer and teacher. She has been published in English & Spanish in the USA, Mexico & Europe. She’s is also a popular Bay Area DJ & Radio Personality & leader of the group “Avotcja & Modúpue” (The Bay Area Blues Society’s Jazz Group Of The Year in 2005 & 2010). Avotcja teaches Creative Writing & Drama & is a proud member of DAMO (Disability Advocates Of Minorities Org.), PEN Oakland, California Poets In The Schools, Local 1000 American Federation of Musicians and is an ASCAP recording artist.