Tyehimba Jess + Tongo Eisen-Martin

Erica Deeman

Reading

On Wednesday, April 8, 6:00pm to 8:00pm, in a collaboration between the Poetry Center and the Undisciplining the Fields series in the San Francisco State University Department of Creative Writing, Small Press Traffic, and Black [Space] Residency @ Minnesota Street Project present a special engagement with Tyehimba Jess, recipient of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in poetry, and Tongo Eisen-Martin, the 2021-2024 San Francisco Poet Laureate. Please join us for a necessary and restorative evening of poetry by poets whose works are vibrantly alive to the world as is and who invite us to imagine possible worlds that might could be – necessary worlds of otherwise and other ways.

This event is free and open to the public.

Books by both authors will be sold on a sliding scale.

6-6:30pm - Reception

6:30-8pm - Readings and Q&A

WHEN

Wednesday April 8 | 6-8:00pm PT

Wednesday, April 8, 2026

6:00 pm

WHERE

1275 Minnesota Street, Minnesota Street Project Atrium

The event will take place in the atrium of Minnesota Street Project, a single-level building with step-free entry. The sidewalk includes multiple curb cut-outs and is wheelchair accessible. While the building does not have automatic doors, staff will be stationed at the entrance at all times to provide assistance. Restrooms are accessible to individuals using mobility devices and are gender-neutral. Street parking is available, and the venue is accessible via public transportation.The event will take place in the atrium of Minnesota Street Project, a single-level building with step-free entry. The sidewalk includes multiple curb cut-outs and is wheelchair accessible. While the building does not have automatic doors, staff will be stationed at the entrance at all times to provide assistance. Restrooms are accessible to individuals using mobility devices and are gender-neutral. Street parking is available, and the venue is accessible via public transportation.

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Tyehimba Jess

Tyehimba Jess is the author of two books of poetry, Leadbelly and Olio. Olio won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, The Midland Society Author’s Award in Poetry, and received an Outstanding Contribution to Publishing Citation from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Jess' fiction and poetry have appeared in many journals, he is a Cave Canem and NYU Alumni, received a 2004 Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Guggenheim fellowship in 2018.

Tongo Eisen-Martin

Tongo Eisen-Martin was the eighth Poet Laureate of San Francisco, California. 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). A recipient of several awards including the American Book Award (2018), a California Book Award (2018), and the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Library Award (2018), he is committed to raising political awareness through education.