Well-RED features Open Mic Night celebrating Poetry Month
Well-RED features Open Mic Night celebrating Poetry Month!
Tuesday, May 12th, 7:00 p.m. (PDT)
Co-sponsored by Works/San José art and performance center!
Address: 38 S. 2nd Street, San José.
Come share your own new or favorite works. Did you create something during a Poets@Play Creative Writing workshop or Writers' Cafe at Markham House? Come share it live in-person or via Zoom!
We will have appetizers and beverages available!
Click here to register in advance for this event via Zoom.
TO SUBMIT EVENT FEEDBACK, visit: https://bit.ly/4dBnxR2
Poetry Lounge Online Open Mic
POETRY LOUNGE ONLINE OPEN MIC!
Sunday, May 17, 1:00 p.m. (PST) via Zoom
Poetry Lounge is held twice a month on the first and third Sunday.
Hosted by Lesa Medley! Contact Lesa Medley to receive your Zoom link: lcmedley016@gmail.com.
Poetry Center San José's mission is to nurture and promote diverse literary expression in our community as a means of exploring, defining, and enriching the human experience. We offer programs and services to stimulate passion for the literary arts and to inspire and support emerging and established writers.
¡Cultura Poetry Night! with Open Mic • Featuring Montezuma III & Sammy Herrera (via Zoom)
¡Cultura Poetry Night! with Open Mic
Tuesday, May 19, 2026
6:30-8:30pm Pacific Time via Zoom
Registration link: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/larazmagazine/2191833
¡Cultura Poetry Night! celebrates the culture of people who identify as Raza, Chicana/o, Indigenous, or from their country of origin, whose heritage is rooted in areas that are now Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America. A multilingual event with two featured poets, guest poets, and open mic!
Everyone is welcome at this inclusive event presented by Poetry
Center San José, hosted by Elizabeth Jiménez Montelongo, in partnership with La Raíz
Magazine.
Free tickets are available. Donations are appreciated.
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About the Featured Poets
Sammy Herrera is a Mexican-American educator, poet, spoken-word-artist, and zine queen
from the La Puente. She writes on feminism, racism, working with children, mental health,
love, and heartbreak. She’s placed 1st in both the OC Poetry Slam and Pomona Slam. She is
currently working on her debut poetry collection, Empty Fields of Sunflowers.
www.prettypetitepoems.com IG: @prettypetitepoems
Montezuma III Zepeda, a Caxcan artist from Ameca, Jalisco, creates powerful, multi-disciplinary
art that challenges colonialism and affirms Indigenous sovereignty. Through raw expression and
cultural memory, M3 reconnects the Native diaspora with ancestral pride, weaving art as resistance,
medicine, and a call to rise across stolen lands. http://linktr.ee/moctezumaiii IG: @montezuma_iii
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La Raíz Magazine: www.laraizmagazine.com
IG: @laraizmagazine / FB: @laraizmag
La Raíz Magazine expands culturally-relevant arts engagement opportunities to create, present, publish, and experience poetry and visual art that celebrate shared culture and inspire conversations on important issues. La Raíz offers free, bilingual generative workshops, creative showcases, and an annual, multilingual literary journal to create space for the publication and presentation of creative work.
Events: www.laraizmagazine/events
Email list: http://bit.ly/laraizlist
After registering for the event, you will receive emails from La Raíz Magazine, about once monthly when there are events or Calls for Entry. You can unsubscribe at any time.
#laraizmagazine#poets #writers #poetryworkshop#writersconference#writers#raza#spanglish#publishers#bookfair#poetryshowcase#artshowcase#openmic
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The views presented by La Raíz Magazine in showcases, events, publications, social media, our website, and other places are those of La Raíz Magazine or of the contributors and does not necessarily reflect the views of any of our partners, sponsors, their employees, board, or affiliates.
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Issues of La Raíz Magazine can be purchased with your ticket! Discounts on sets and contributor copies. Tax and shipping are included for addresses in the continental United States only. Additional shipping per copy for addresses outside the continental U.S, can be ordered at http://www.laraizmagazine.com Get the lowest price on current and future issues by subscribing on our website!
Poetry Lounge Online Open Mic
POETRY LOUNGE ONLINE OPEN MIC!
Sunday, May 3, 1:00 p.m. (PST) via Zoom
Poetry Lounge is held twice a month on the first and third Sunday.
Hosted by Lesa Medley! Contact Lesa Medley to receive your Zoom link: lcmedley016@gmail.com.
Poetry Center San José's mission is to nurture and promote diverse literary expression in our community as a means of exploring, defining, and enriching the human experience. We offer programs and services to stimulate passion for the literary arts and to inspire and support emerging and established writers.
Poetry Lounge Online Open Mic featuring Veronica Kornberg!
POETRY LOUNGE ONLINE OPEN MIC!
Featuring Veronica Kornberg!
Sunday, April 19, 1:00 p.m. (PST)
via Zoom
Hosted by Lesa Medley!
Poetry Lounge is held twice a month on the first and third Sunday.
Contact Lesa Medley to receive your Zoom link: lcmedley016@gmail.com.
Veronica is a San Francisco Bay Area poet who splits her time between Portola Valley and Pescadero, a small coastal town on the Central Coast. She is a recipient of the Wandering Aengus Book Award in Poetry, and the Morton Marcus Poetry Prize. Veronica's poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Alaska Quarterly Review, Poet Lore, New Ohio Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, RHINO Poetry, Plume, Calyx, Salamander, Indiana Review, Rattle, and Catamaran Literary Reader. She is a Peer Reviewer for Whale Road Review. At her home in Pescadero, she can be found happily exploring the tidepools or on her knees in the dirt in her habitat garden of coastal scrub. Veronica’s debut poetry collection, Strange Gift, will be published by Wandering Aengus Press in April, 2026.
Poetry Lounge Online Open Mic featuring Nils Peterson!
POETRY LOUNGE ONLINE OPEN MIC!
Sunday, April 5, 1:00 p.m. (PST) via Zoom
Poetry Lounge is held twice a month on the first and third Sunday.
Hosted by Lesa Medley! Contact Lesa Medley to receive your Zoom link: lcmedley016@gmail.com.
Special Guest: Nils Peterson! Open Mic to follow.
Nils Peterson is Professor Emeritus at San Jose State University where he taught in the English and Humanities Departments.
He has published poetry, science fiction, and articles on subjects as varyied as golf and Shakespeare, has had several chapbooks and three collections of poetry, the latest, All the Marvelous Stuff, 2020.
His memoir, Talk in the Reading Room published in 2014 by wordrunnerpress can be read at http://www.echapbook.com/memoir/peterson/. He also has a memoir about his friendship and work with Robert Bly, The Dear Time of our Talking, 2020. His latest, My Dinner with Nils, is just out and available from Amazon. It is a gathering of poems, memoir bits, essays, and Memorable Fancies.
In 2009, he was chosen to be the first Poet Laureate of Santa Clara County.
Poetry Center San José's mission is to nurture and promote diverse literary expression in our community as a means of exploring, defining, and enriching the human experience. We offer programs and services to stimulate passion for the literary arts and to inspire and support emerging and established writers.
POETRY LOUNGE ONLINE OPEN MIC!
POETRY LOUNGE ONLINE OPEN MIC!
Sunday, January 18, 1:00 p.m. (PST)
via Zoom
Hosted by Lesa Medley!
Poetry Lounge is held twice a month on the first and third Sunday.
Contact Lesa Medley to receive your Zoom link: lcmedley016@gmail.com.
Well-RED featuring Arlene Biala & Rosanna Alvarez!
Co-sponsored by Works/San José art and performance center!
38 South Second Street, downtown San José.
Open mic to start the show!
If you are unable to attend in person, we welcome you to join via Zoom! Register in advance for this event.
Link: https://bit.ly/Well-RED_January2026
Arlene Biala
POET, AUTHOR, PERFORMANCE ARTIST
Arlene Biala is a Pinay writer from the San Francisco Bay Area who has been participating in poetry performances and workshops for over 30 years. She is a 2023-2026 Lucas Artist Residency Fellow in Literary Arts at the Montalvo Arts Center and was Poet Laureate of Santa Clara County for 2016 and 2017. She is the author of continental drift, one inch punch, and her beckoning hands, which won the 2015 American Book Award. Her latest book, a thousand voices whispering, (November 2025) from Sampaguita Press is available at bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, and Arlene's tote bag.
Rosanna Alvarez
Rosanna Alvarez is a Chicana storyteller, educator, Aztec dancer, and visual artist whose work thrives at the intersection of cultura, creativity, and comunidad. A woman of many hats—literally and artistically—her practice spans poetry, performance, publishing, and handcrafted art that honors memory and movimiento. A silver medalist for the Juan Felipe Herrera Best Book of Poetry Award, she is the author of Braided [Un]Be-Longing, a collection that weaves poetry, testimonio, and ancestral echoes into a journey of healing and reclamation.
Her work has been anthologized and published across academic journals and community-rooted collections, including Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, the MALCS Journal of Chicana/Latina Studies, Somos Xicanas, and Anger Is a Gift, among others.
Through every medium, Rosanna invites others to dream, heal, and dismantle fronteras as we co-create a future rooted in dignity, humanidad, and collective joy.
She is also the co-founder of Eastside Magazine, the founder of Ocote Libre Press, and an Ethnic Studies educator at West Valley College.
Downtown SJ provides free parking on the street after 6:00 p.m. Available street parking is difficult to find after 6:30 p.m.
If you are unable to find parking on the street, there are two parking garages of note:
1.) 25 S. 3rd Street PARKSJ Garage (located underground, under The Globe Apartments), about 300 meters from Works/San Jose;
2.) 2nd & San Carlos PARKSJ Garage (first 90 minutes are free). This is a 5-10 minute walk to Works/San Jose
TO SUBMIT EVENT FEEDBACK, visit: https://bit.ly/4dBnxR2
POETRY LOUNGE ONLINE OPEN MIC!
POETRY LOUNGE ONLINE OPEN MIC!
Sunday, December 21, 1:00 p.m. (PST)
via Zoom
Hosted by Lesa Medley!
Poetry Lounge is held twice a month on the first and third Sunday.
Contact Lesa Medley to receive your Zoom link: lcmedley016@gmail.com.
POETRY LOUNGE ONLINE OPEN MIC!
POETRY LOUNGE ONLINE OPEN MIC!
Sunday, December 7, 1:00 p.m. (PST)
via Zoom
Hosted by Lesa Medley!
Poetry Lounge is held twice a month on the first and third Sunday.
Contact Lesa Medley to receive your Zoom link: lcmedley016@gmail.com.
Posted In: poetry lounge, open mic, featured poet
Tagged: poetry lounge, zoom, open mic, san jose, lesa Medley
POETRY LOUNGE ONLINE OPEN MIC!
POETRY LOUNGE ONLINE OPEN MIC!
Sunday, November 16, 1:00 p.m. (PST)
via Zoom
Hosted by Lesa Medley!
Poetry Lounge is held twice a month on the first and third Sunday.
Contact Lesa Medley to receive your Zoom link: lcmedley016@gmail.com.
Well-RED features Veterans of Life Write authors G. Craige Edgerton, Jaime Lee Johnson, Bill Noyes & Nick Butterfield!
Co-sponsored by Works/San José art and performance center!
38 South Second Street, downtown San José.
Open mic to start the show!
If you are unable to attend in person, we welcome you to join via Zoom! Register in advance for this event via Zoom.
Link: https://bit.ly/Well-REDseptember2025
Our featured poets:
G. Craige Edgerton
Craige started his writing practice at age 75, as suggested by his Vet Center counselor to help him deal with his negative issues regarding his time in Vietnam as a combat Marine. He fought it for many months and finally decided to try it just once. It turned out to be one of the best decisions of his life and he hasn’t stopped writing since. In college, he admired those who could write creatively and tell compelling stories. But being from rural South Texas, he lacked confidence. And who would want to hear his story of a very ordinary life anyway? The counseling sessions at the Vet Center that dealt with his, and many others, PTSD made him realize that being in combat was not an ordinary experience. Very few individuals have such experiences. He realized that the stories of the mostly Vietnam veterans were unique, not in actual combat stories, but in how they had recovered fifty-plus years later. For reasons that are still unclear, he decided to write some of those stories and enroll others willing to tell their stories too. This book is the result of that decision.
Jaime Lee Johnson
Born in San Jose, California, Jaime Lee Johnson was raised by his aunt after an adoption at a very early age. Jaime knew he wanted to serve, given how every generation in his family had in one way or another, but he also knew it was a commitment. He served 7 years in the US Army as an infantryman and in a military intelligence unit, including a deployment to Baghdad in 2005. After his discharge, he experienced trouble, like most vets with PTSD, and had to find help for it. A friend recommended he go to the Vet Center in San Jose, and everything changed. Jaime knew that the lessons he learned through the group could help others, which is why he became part of the project for this book. To pass on his experiences with PTSD and how he found ways to deal with the side effects of war, both physically and mentally. He hopes that with this book, he can help at least one veteran reconnect with their family or their friends, or show them the way to get help for problems they feel no one else can understand.
Bill Noyes
Born in San Francisco, Bill was raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, and then again in San Francisco. He graduated in 1965 from Andrew Hill High in San Jose and then attended San Jose State College. In 1967, Bill was drafted into the Vietnam War, B 2/22, earning a Silver Star and a Combat Infantry Badge north of Saigon. He finally earned his BA degree from San Jose State University in Philosophy in 1978. Bill married in 1976 and raised two daughters at their Campbell home. He retired from welding after 30 years. During this time, he worked on various home additions, sculpted statues, and persisted with writing projects and books. War experiences have taken much of his attention throughout his life and, accordingly, resulted in many valuable lessons learned.
Nick Butterfield
Nick AKA Nektarios Butterfield served in the USNR as a Hospital Corpsman HM1 from 1983 to 1993. Active during Operation Desert Storm and Desert Shield in 1990-1991 “Grief is the source of many of my writings.” “PTSD, I saw in my dad who was a Pearl Harbor Survivor and many of my current writing collaborators.” They are not just veterans of war but of life.” Nick was one of the few who gathered in Willow Glen Bookstore in the mid-90s. The Willow Glen Poetry Project went on to publish 3 anthologies in which Nektarios participated in. He has contributed to 3 Caesura editions in the past and contributed to Veterans of Life Write book that came out in 2020. He co-facilitates Veterans of Life Zoom meetings, the first Friday of every month, which is sponsored by the Psychology Dept. at SJSU and Martin Luther King Library and Poetry San Jose. The group has participated in seven Poetry San Jose Festivals and has been meeting regularly since 2015. This group started with Amy Meier’s recognition of a need for Veterans to write and heal.
TO SUBMIT EVENT FEEDBACK, visit: https://bit.ly/4dBnxR2
Poetry Center San José is a member supported organization and is funded, in part, by grants from Applied Materials Foundation, the City of San José's Office of Cultural Affairs, Literary Arts Emergency Fund, supported by the Mellon Foundation (@MellonFdn), Knight Foundation, Poets & Writers, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, SVCREATES, in partnership with the County of Santa Clara and the California Arts Council and also supported in part by a SVCreates National Endowment for the Arts American Rescue Plan grant. We also thank Brandenburg Family Foundation and Anne & Mark's Art Party for their generous giving.
Well-RED features Dane Cervine & Donna Presson (In Person & Zoom)
Co-sponsored by Works/San José art and performance center!
38 South Second Street, downtown San José.
Open mic to start the show!
If you are unable to attend in person, we welcome you to join via Zoom! Register in advance for this event via Zoom.
Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Sf0kuLQlScmCuWCbPygYWA
Our featured poets:
Dane Cervine’s recent books of poetry include Nine Volt Nirvana (Word Poetry Press), DEEP TRAVEL – At Home in the [Burning] World (Saddle Road Press), The World Is God’s Language (Sixteen Rivers Press), Earth Is a Fickle Dancer (Main Street Rag), and The Gateless Gate – Polishing the Moon Sword (Saddle Road Press). Dane’s poems have won awards from Adrienne Rich, Tony Hoagland, the Atlanta Review, Caesura, and been nominated for multiple Pushcarts. His work appears in The SUN, the Hudson Review, TriQuarterly, Poetry Flash, Catamaran, Miramar, Rattle, Sycamore Review, Pedestal Magazine, among others. Dane lives in Santa Cruz, California. Visit his website at: https://danecervine.typepad.com/
You can also find him on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/dane.cervine
Donna’s interest in the arts began with dance. In the 1980’s she attended San Jose City College. There she was mentored by Jimmyle Kester, head of the thriving dance department. Eventually, Donna joined Jimmyle’s modern dance company: “Leda” where she played Sheena in the 1987 production of “Taste of Blood”. Years later, as a first time mother, Donna discovered Interplay@—a form of improvisation combining words and movement. Cynthia Winton Henry and Phil Porter founded Interplay. Both are trained theologians who have a background in liturgical dance. At Interplay, Donna met individuals at every level of experience who shared a common desire to create and participate in spontaneous movement and storytelling. Donna went on to earn her a bachelors degree in Creative Arts from San Jose State University in 1997. She completed the Interplay leadership training in 2011. Mighty Mike McGee, San Jose Poet Laureate (2018-2020), is credited with Donna’s current love of open mic. Every Thursday night, prior to Covid, Cafe Friscatti in San Jose Arts District was home to “Live Lit”. Everyone was welcome. Anyone could vent, read, act, or tell a story for 5 minutes or under. McGee and his ability to identify and appreciate everyone’s uniqueness allowed Donna to test out new ideas. She is proud to have been invited to feature at “Live Lit” in 2018.
TO SUBMIT EVENT FEEDBACK, visit: https://bit.ly/4dBnxR2
Poetry Center San José is a member supported organization and is funded, in part, by grants from Applied Materials Foundation, the City of San José's Office of Cultural Affairs, Literary Arts Emergency Fund, supported by the Mellon Foundation (@MellonFdn), Knight Foundation, Poets & Writers, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, SVCREATES, in partnership with the County of Santa Clara and the California Arts Council and also supported in part by a SVCreates National Endowment for the Arts American Rescue Plan grant. We also thank Brandenburg Family Foundation and Anne & Mark's Art Party for their generous giving.
Poetry Exchange via Zoom
Online open mic held on Zoom every third Sunday of the month!
Hosted by Lesa Medley.
Contact Lesa to receive your Zoom link: lcmedley016@gmail.com