2nd annual LA Street Poetry Festival

Join us AUGUST 23, 2025 from 10am - 4pm at the Latino Theater Company in downtown Los Angeles!

Sponsored by: GETLIT, LATC, Eastside Arts Initiative, Wesley Health Centers, Councilmember Ysabel Jurado CD14

A literary arts festival celebrating poetry of resistance and love.

Viva la poesia de resistencia y amor! 

10am - 4pm

No Cover

Address: LATC - the Latino Theater Company, 514 S. Spring St. Los Angeles, CA 

Schedule:

10am: Check in with Ushers   (RSVP guests will receive a complimentary LASPF Sticker and Pin.)

RSVP: losangelespoetsociety@gmail.com

10am - 4pm: Literary Fair in the Lobby (Vendors: Chicas Braidz, LA Poet Society Press, Caza de Poesia, El Martillo Press, Featured Guests books, Fundraising table/silent auction, BGP bookish merch, Writing Journey 101 Books, Los Angeles Literature, Artemiso Femme, )

10-11:30am: Poetry Workshops taking place (check lobby posting for more information)

Workshop 1- Setting up a Chapbook with Rey Rodriguez leading; GETLIT Poet 1 guest Poet

Rey M. Rodríguez is a writer, advocate, and attorney. He lives in Pasadena, California. He is working on a novel set in Mexico City and a poetry book inspired by a prominent nonprofit in East LA. He is a second-year fiction writing MFA student at the Institute of American Indian Arts. His poetry is published in Huizache. His other interviews and book reviews can be found at La Bloga, Chapter House's Storyteller’s Corner, Full Stop, Pleiades Magazine, and the Los Angeles Review. He is a graduate of Cornell, Princeton, and U.C. Berkeley Law School.

Workshop 2- Crafting a Political/Protest Poem with Matt Sedillo leading; Peter Lechuga guest Poet

(Matt’s bio is below the schedule).

Peter Lechuga is a Chicano wordsmith, romantic, guerrilla organizer, Plant-Based god, and Karaoke King born and raised in Southern California. As director of the non-profit, LionLike Creative Education, he teaches future generations the power of poetry while creating a safe space for them to express themselves and become published authors. He is also a co-founder and editor of the quarterly literary journal, ILL Poetry Anthology. Peter’s work has been shared on college campuses, city halls, and has been published in various literary journals, anthologies, and zines. His poetry collection, Myth Opportunities, and the collab chapbook, Billionaires for Breakfast, are available now. When not reading, writing, or molotoving the mic, he can be found hiking in the mountains, spitting freestyles.

Workshop 3 - Writing Poems for the Femme Diaspora with Daisy Magallanes leading; Sandy Shakes guest Poet 

(Daisy’s bio is below the schedule).

Sandy Shakes is a spoken truth artist home grown in Boyle Heights. She has shared microphones all over LA county, San Diego, New Mexico and El Paso. She has collaborated and performed for many poetic organizations and has had her work honored in their powerful anthologies. In the last few years she has led poetry workshops, spoken in classrooms and has had her stories featured in up and coming podcasts. In 2024 she released her first poetry chapbook baptized “Scribble Scrabbles”. You can follow all her upcoming projects and performances on Instagram @sandyshakes_themic

Workshop 4 - Putting Actions and History into Poetical Context with Dr. Richard Santillan  leading; GETLIT Poet 2 (TBD)

Dr. Richard A. Santillan is Professor Emeritus from California State University at Pomona where he taught Ethnic and Women's Studies for 38 years. He also taught Chicano Studies at California State University at Los Angeles from 1972 to 1980. He currently teaches Political Science at East Los Angeles College. Since 2011, Dr. Santillan has been editor and coauthor of 19 books on the history of Mexican American Baseball and softball since 1870. The books have examine the social, political and cultural histories of over 150 communities throughout the United States. Professor Santillan's workshop will discuss the tools and strategies on how to document and preserve neighborhood stories.

Workshop 5: Crafting the Perfect Slam Piece with  La Poeta Violeta leading. GETLIT Poet 3 (TBD)

La Poeta Violeta is a is a LatinX spoken word artist. At just 10 years old, she became the youngest performer with Get Lit-Words Ignite, performing classic and original poems to promote literacy and language arts in schools. She is a published poet who uses her words to powerfully cope with stressors in her life and advocate for humanity. She speaks on climate change, LatinX-girl power, immigration reform, and gun violence. Most recently her poem on gun violence was one of 3 in the country chosen for publication by CNN. Her most recent performances include opening for Jane Fonda and Joaquin Phoenix at Fire Drill Friday, speaking alongside Mayor Eric Garcetti at a Second Home gathering for the Environment, featuring at the National Teachers Association, the Long Beach City Council, and at A Day of Unreasonable Conversation at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, where John Legend opened for her. She was also a featured artist in an international Puma campaign with Cara Delevingne, recorded in London.

12-1:15pm: Open Mic for the People hosted by Sandy Shakes  (Theater 4)  First come, first served. 1 piece/person not to exceed 4 minutes.

RSVP for OPEN MIC: losangelespoetsociety@gmail.com

1:30 - 3:30pm: Main Stage Performances in Theater 3

Performances from: 

GETLIT: Sami Rios and Dharma Lemon

Homeboy Art Academy: Lalo (Laylow)

LATC Youth Summer Conservatory group performance

Featured Main Stage Guests

Lynne Thompson (Poet Laureate of Los Angeles)

Lynne Thompson is the daughter of Caribbean immigrants. She is the author of Blue On A Blue Palette (BOA Editions, 2024); Fretwork (Marsh Hawk Press, 2019), winner of the Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize; Start With A Small Guitar (What Books Press, 2013); and Beg No Pardon (Perugia Press, 2007), winner of the Perugia Press Prize and the Great Lakes Colleges Association’s New Writers Award.

Thompson’s honors include the George Drury Smith Distinguished Service in Poetry Award, the Tucson Festival of Books Literary Award, the Stephen Dunn Prize for Poetry, as well as fellowships from the City of Los Angeles, Vermont Studio Center, and the Summer Literary Series in Kenya. 

A lawyer by training, Thompson sits on the boards of the Los Angeles Review of Books and the Poetry Foundation. She is the president of the board of directors at Cave Canem and the former chair of the Board of Trustees at Scripps College, her alma mater. She facilitates private workshops, most recently for Beyond Baroque, Poetry By the Sea Conference, Moorpark College Writers Festival, and Central Coast Writers’ Conference.A recipient of an Individual Artist Award from the City of Los Angeles where she lives, Thompson was appointed the city’s poet laureate in 2021. In 2022, Thompson received an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. 

Iris De Anda

A Guanaca Tapatia poet, speaker & musician who has been featured with KPFK & KPFA Pacifica Radio, organized with Academy of American Poets, performed at Los Angeles Latino Book Festival, UNAM in CDMX, Feria del Libro Tijuana, Mexico, Casa de las Americas in Havana, Cuba and is named one of Today's Revolutionary Women of Color. Author of Codeswitch: Fires from Mi Corazon with Los Writers Underground Press 2014 & Roots of Redemption: You have No Right to Remain Silent with Flowersong Press 2022 & Loose Poems a collection of B-side poems & songs with Multimedia Militia 2022. www.lawriterunderground.com

Richard Montoya

Playwright/Filmmaker/Actor /ActivistCo-Founder of Culture Clash

Montoya has deep roots in The San Joaquin Valley. His parents Jose & Mary Ellen, both US born farmworkers met and wed in Fowler CA. Those fields produced generations of artists and writers that have taken their place among American Letters. A co-founder of the legendary performance trio Culture Clash, Montoya is deeply committed to the intersection of social justice and art. His body of collective and solo works relentlessly explore politics, underrepresented narratives and his Chicana/o roots, experiences, dreams, and struggles.

Yesika Salgado

Yesika Salgado is a Los Angeles-born Salvadoran poet who writes about her family, culture, city, and fat body. 

Salgado is a leading voice in poetry, both in performance and social media. She has garnered a large online following across multiple social media platforms through her poetry and her determination to make poetry accessible to everyone in everyday scenarios. Her combined following stretches out to over 200,000 readers. She is the co-founder of the past collective Chingona Fire, a poetry collective that curated and ran poetry-based events in Los Angeles serving Women and Nonbinary folks of color. She is also a long-time production staff member of Da Poetry Lounge, the country's largest running weekly poetry venue.

She is a two-time National Poetry Slam finalist, Long Beach Slam Champion, and recipient of the 2020 International Latino Book Award in Poetry. Her work has been taught in the curricula of the most prestigious universities in the nation and continues to gain traction as a staple of modern poetry taught in schools. 

Yesika’s work has been celebrated and featured in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Teen Vogue, Univision, HBO, CNN, NPR, TEDx, Spotify, Sundance Film Festival, and many more. She has successfully partnered and created with Planned Parenthood, Voto Latino, California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, CARECEN, LA County Public Library, Los Angeles Public Library, and countless community centers and organizations in California.  

She is an internationally recognized body-positive activist and the writer of the columns Suelta for Remezcla and Relaciones for R29 Somos. Yesika is the author of the best-sellers Corazón, Tesoro, and Hermosa, published with Not a Cult Media,  and is represented by Folio Literary Management. 

Matt Sedillo

Matt Sedillo has been described as the "best political poet in America" as well as "the poet laureate of the struggle." His work has drawn comparisons in print to Bertolt Brecht, Roque Dalton, Amiri Baraka, Allen Ginsberg, Carl Sandburg,  and various other legends of the past. Sedillo was the recipient of the 2017 Joe Hill Labor Poetry award, a panelist at the 2020 Texas book festival, a participant in the 2012 San Francisco International Poetry Festival, the 2022 Elba Poetry Festival, and the recipient of the 2022 Dante's Laurel. Sedillo has appeared on CSPAN and has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, Axios, the Associated Press among other publications. Sedillo has spoken at Casa de las Americas in Havana, Cuba, at numerous conferences and forums such as the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, the National Conference on Race & Ethnicity in American Higher Education, the National Association of Chicana/Chicano Studies, the Left Forum, the US Social Forum, and at over a hundred universities and colleges, including the University of Cambridge, among many others. Matt Sedillo is the author of Mowing Leaves of Grass (FlowerSong Press, 2019) and City on the Second Floor (FlowerSong Press, 2022). Both of which are taught at universities throughout the country. Sedillo is the current literary director of The Mexican Cultural Institute of Los Angeles. He is part of the LA Street Poetry Festival Committee.

Chris Santiago

Chris Santiago is the author of Small Wars Manual, forthcoming from Milkweed Editions in April 2025, and Tula, winner of the 2016 Lindquist & Vennum Prize for Poetry and a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award. His poems have appeared in POETRY, Conduit, Copper Nickel, Poetry Northwest, Beloit Poetry Journal, American Public Media’s The Slowdown, and elsewhere. The recipient of fellowships from the McKnight Foundation, the Mellon Foundation/ACLS, and Kundiman, he is a graduate of Oberlin College and received his PhD from the University of Southern California (USC)’s Literature & Creative Writing Program. He teaches creative writing, sound studies, and Asian American literature in the School of Critical Studies at CalArts and has also taught at USC and at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Hosted by Jessica M. Wilson and Daisy Magallanes 

Jessica M. Wilson Cárdenas, an International Chicana Poet, born in East Los Angeles, CA. She is a 3rd generation Beatnik, with a BA and MFA in Writing (UCR and Otis) In 2009 she founded the Los Angeles Poet Society and began a network of literary events and open mics in LA County! She's a California Poets in the Schools Poet Teacher, where she taught Youth US Poet Laureate, Amanda Gorman. Jessica is an Artivist, a social justice Publisher for Los Angeles Poet Society Press, amplifying QTBIPOC voices. She’s a DJ for Radio Ollin, (www.radioollin.org) Her books of poetry include: What Breathes, Raw Kit, Marie Morrison, Serious Longing, published by Swan World Press in Paris, France. She is a mother of two and lover of 1. She is also a Founding Member of the LA Street Poetry Festival Committee.

Daisy Elizeth Magallanes (she/they) is a Chicana poet and writer born and raised in Los Ángeles. Their poetry has been published in the Acid Verse Literary Journal and their short fiction in the Black Warrior Review. They have works that are forthcoming in Brevity, and Huizache. She is part of the LA Street Poetry Festival Committee.

3:30 - 4pm: Survey & Book Signing/Shopping

Festival ends at 4pm.

PARKING:

Parking is available in the lot across the street from the LATC on Spring St. Also a parking structure is available on Main St.

Parking is NOT validated by LATC

Metro is accessible at the Pershing Square station.