New: Words and Music
Poets and musicians mixing it up across the span of The Poetry Center's historic collection. Poets erupting into song. Song deployed as tribute, homage, blessing, prayer. Song as welcome, song as goodbye. Music as company to poem's delivery. Improvisation, solo to large ensemble. Poetry performance as bases for new music. Poem as music. Aleatory electronics. Voice + percussion, voice + reed and/or string instrument, voice + boombox. Works for poet + jazz/funk orchestra. Traditional song, sacred and profane. A volunteer from the audience on a lark at the house piano.
The Poetry Center presents Helen Adam reading from Ballads and other poems. This event also featured Jess, reading his...
Date: 04/07/1957
The Poetry Center presents Helen Adam reading from her poetry, and songs from her ballad opera San Francisco's...
Date: 05/05/1964
The Poetry Center presents James Broughton and Helen Adam, presenting their poetry at a special reading held at the...
Date: 1977-11-02
The Poetry Center, in collaboration with Associated Students Performing Arts, co-presents Amiri Baraka, reading his...
Date: 1984-10-23
The Poetry Center presents musicians Ben Barson and Royal Hartigan, visiting the Bay Area to celebrate the life and...
Date: 2014-09-04
The Poetry Center and Bird & Beckett Books & Records co-present musicians David Boyce (tenor saxophone), Hafez...
Date: 03/16/2017
The Poetry Center presents James Broughton reading from his poetry and songs, with a performance by singer Anna Carol...
Date: 11/23/1960
The Poetry Center presents James Broughton reading his poems with Joel Andrews performing instrumental accompaniment on...
Date: 03/02/1965
The Poetry Center in conjunction with the Flor y Canto Festival presents a bilingual reading by Ernesto Cardenal. As...
Date: 05/16/2015
The Poetry Center presents Chao Tze-Chiang chanting in Cantonese, and providing English translations, from the work of...
Date: 07/09/1958
The Poetry Center presents 최 Lindsay | Lindsay Choi and Ariel Resnikoff, each presenting their poetry, at...
Date: 2022-11-01
The Poetry Center presents Jayne Cortez [as part of a program shared with French novelist and feminist theorist Monique...
Date: 04/12/1985
The Poetry Center presents Robin D. G. Kelley with Justin Desmangles, in a tribute to poet Jayne Cortez (May 10,...
Date: 2013-11-14
The Poetry Center presents Cosmic Diaspora and Steve Dalachinsky, reading and in performance. Cosmic Diaspora (Jake...
Date: 04/19/2018
The Poetry Center presents alex cruse and Kevin CK Lo (who collectively perform as Drought Spa) in performance and in...
Date: 11/09/2017
The Poetry Center presents LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs and Rachel Levitsky, reading their work and engaging with...
Date: 2013-10-03
The Poetry Center presents Diane di Prima, accompanied by musician John Braden, reading from plays and poems.
Date: 04/24/1968
The Poetry Center and The Green Arcade co-present Tongo Eisen-Martin, poetry, with Marshall Trammell, music, at The Green...
Date: 10/07/2017
The Poetry Center presents Keith Abbott, Ted Berrigan, and Kenward Elmslie, reading from their respective work, at San...
Date: 1975-03-6
The Poetry Center in 2015 commissioned Evelyn Ficarra , California-born, UK-based composer and sound-artist, to create a...
Date: 2015-07-XX
The Poetry Center, in collaboration with The Green Arcade, presents Spring 2023 Mazza Writer in Residence Phoebe...
Date: 2023-04-22
The Poetry Center presents Allen Ginsberg, going about daily life at his apartment in the Mission district of San...
Date: 1965-12-14
The Poetry Center presents Allen Ginsberg and Herbert Huncke reading from their works.
Date: 02/07/1967
The Poetry Center, in collaboration with Gay Sunshine , co-presents John Giorno and William S. Burroughs, each reading...
Date: 1974-11-04
The Poetry Center presents Jessica Hagedorn and the West Coast Gangster Choir, in this historic mid-1970s video...
Date: 1975-10-30
The Poetry Center presents poets Q. R. Hand Jr., Genny Lim, and Juan Felipe Herrera, presenting their poetry at...
Date: 1983-02-24
The Poetry Center presents singer/songwriter Hataałii (a.k.a Hataałiinez Wheeler) joining us from...
Date: 2024-02-22
The Poetry Center presents Lorenzo Thomas and David Henderson, the latter performing with the band Ghetto Violence,...
Date: 1976-03-19
The Poetry Center played a supplementary role together with multiple musicians, activists, and organizations including...
Date: 2014-09-07
The Poetry Center presents Erica Hunt and Marty Ehrlich sharing in performance and conversation. Hunt and Ehrlich...
Date: 2014-04-03
The Poetry Center presents Erica Hunt and Marty Ehrlich in performance at the Center for New Music, in downtown San...
Date: 2014-04-04
The Poetry Center presents Darius James and Val Jeanty in a first-ever collaboratiive "workshop performance" at...
Date: 04/18/19
The Poetry Center presents novelist-writer Darius James, and Val Jeanty, Haitian electronica composer-percussionist, in...
Date: 04/19/2019
The Poetry Center presents the Lewis Jordan Trio in performance on the 116th anniversary of the birth of Langston Hughes....
Date: 02/01/2018
The Poetry Center presents Bob Kaufman's Collected Poems, a celebration taking place six months following the...
Date: 2020-10-29
The Poetry Center in collaboration with Artists' Television Access co-presents a program of seven...
Date: 2017-09-22
The Poetry Center, in collaboration with The Green Arcade and with gratitude to our hosts, McRoskey Mattress Co.,...
Date: 2013-10-18
The Poetry Center, together with the Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability , presents Krip-Hop Nation, a...
Date: 2022-03-05
The Poetry Center presents Janice A. Lowe performing her songs written to the poems from her book Leaving Cle: Poems of...
Date: 04/20/2017
The Poetry Center presents Jackson Mac Low presenting a variety of his works. The poet plays a magnetic-tape collage,...
Date: 1975-11-05
The Poetry Center presents Jackson Mac Low and Steve Benson, in collaborative performance. The program, as the second...
Date: 1983-03-10
The Poetry Center presents Michael McClure, reading from his poetry and prose, and talking with filmmaker and poet...
Date: 1966-01-26
The Poetry Center and City Lights Books co-present a memorial tribute to David Meltzer, at San Francisco State...
Date: 11/12/2017
The Poetry Center presents Janine Pommy Vega and Jack Micheline, each reaading from their poetry, then together on stage...
Date: 1976-03-24
The Poetry Center and The Green Arcade present Fred Moten and Nathaniel Mackey reading their poetry, along with Hafez...
Date: 03/05/2016
The Poetry Center and the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network co-present Dao Strom and Vi Khi Nao, reading and in...
Date: 2021-02-24
The Poetry Center presents poets Jennifer S. Cheng, Karla Myn Khine, and Evelyn Jo, each reading their work. This is the...
Date: 2024-05-09
The Poetry Center presents Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle and Maryam Ivette Parhizkar, reading and in conversation. Maryam Ivette...
Date: 03/15/2019
The Poetry Center and the Department of English at UC Berkeley co-present Tom Raworth (1938–2017): A Celebration of...
Date: 04/06/2018
The Poetry Center presents Ted Greenwald and Al Robles, reading their work in succession for this New York–San...
Date: 19761110
The Poetry Center presents Ed Sanders, reading from his poetry — excerpts from Poem from Jail (City...
Date: 1966-03-18
The Poetry Center presents Ntozake Shange, in a rare early recorded appearance, at the César Chavez Student Union...
Date: 1976-11-17
The Poetry Center presents Gary Snyder, reading his poetry and sharing the stage dancers and musicians in a benefit...
Date: 1976-02-13
The Poetry Center in collaboration with Artists' Television Access co-presents a program of seven...
Date: 2017-09-22
The Poetry Center presents David Swallow Jr., Lakota spiritual teacher and veteran AIM (American Indian Movement)...
Date: 2022-02-04
The Poetry Center, the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies, and the School of Music at SF State, co-present...
Date: 2023-03-16
The Poetry Center in collaboration with Artists' Television Access co-presents a program of seven...
Date: 2017-09-22
The Poetry Center presents Fay Victor and Myra Melford, with a workshop performance and conversation. The two artists,...
Date: 2019-10-03
The Poetry Center presents Fay Victor and Myra Melford in performance at the Center for New Music, downtown San...
Date: 2019-10-03
The Poetry Center presents Catherine Wagner, Dana Ward, and Tyrone Williams reading at Ruth's Table, in the Mission...
Date: 2014-10-23
The Poetry Center, in one of several special programs marking its 20th anniversary with celebratory readings at the San...
Date: 1973-11-15