Joining the poetry stage at Night of Ideas 2026; time and details to come!

Spend an evening exploring the ideas, art, and conversations shaping how we move forward collectively.

Night of Ideas returns in 2026 with an after-dark celebration of art, innovation, and culture across cities in the U.S. Night of Ideas San Francisco’s theme “Lighting the Way,” invites our Bay Area audiences to explore how ideas, creativity, and collective action can illuminate paths forward, helping reveal new ways of thinking and connecting about what’s next, as we look ahead to the next 250 years after the American Declaration of Independence. From cultural expression to shared responsibility, “Lighting the Way” asks what guides us, what inspires positive change, and how we can actively shape a more connected future together.

Join Villa Albertine San Francisco, Asian Art Museum, Circuit Network, KQED, and San Francisco Public Library for a dynamic marathon of talks, live performances, workshops, food, art, and shared exploration. Together, Night of Ideas creates space for collective imagination where ideas are exchanged, perspectives are expanded, and the way forward is shaped in real time.

Could not be more excited to jet over to the East Coast and pop up in Florida to table for Miami Zine Fair! Planning to sling some zines, chapbooks, and maybe one or two new lil’ thangs. Hosted by Exile Projects.

The Miami Zine Fair is a free, public celebration of self-publishing and independent print culture, featuring interactive artwork, new zine releases, hands-on workshops, and artist-led programs throughout the day. Each year, the Fair brings together more than 150 artists, writers, illustrators, activists, and poets, presenting a dynamic mix of installations, demonstrations, performances, podcasts, and site-specific projects.

Ferlinghetti Day is an annual literary walkabout on March 24th, in honor of Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s birthday. I’ll be reading at 4pm at the Golden Sardine stop.

Open to all. For the Ferlinghetti-enthusiasts, the poets, the appreciators of words and walking. This year, from dawn to dusk, we’ll make 11 stops. Also, this year, we’re trying something new…at each stop we’ll feature a particular book. Esteemed poets and citizen poets alike will read from that book at that stop. Schedule at 3rd Street Creative Artery.

Ferlinghetti Day 2025 is very special San Francisco memory for me, and I wrote about it last year over at Quiet Lightening.

Join us from dawn to dusk. Or just here, there, and everywhere. Poetry and poets. Pomp and circumstance.

Reading for International Women’s Day for North Beach First Fridays with Jessica Loos and company.

Join KALW's Bay Poets for a live poetry performance and art exhibit closing party celebrating resistance, solidarity, community, & joy.

Experience poetic voices of rare vision and explore the evolution of Bay Area social justice movements through posters made by La Raza Graphics and the Mission Grafica print studio live at KALW. See poets Mukethe Kawinzi, María Esquinca, Rolando André López, and Josiah Luis Alderete and take one last look at the Mission Grafica art show, live and in person.

This event is presented with support from Joyride Pizza, who will be providing food for this event.

All hail Golden Sardine! Info to come.

The lineup for Stir: Rainy Season 2026 is OFFICIAL. Annalee Newitz, Jason Bayani, Sam J. Miller and Mukethe Kawinzi will all be there, and you should too. More details soon.

Stir is a seasonal reading series on Folsom Corridor, hosted four times a year by Cafe Suspiro & The Fabulist Literary Magazine. Coffee hour at the cafe followed by readings & discussion with local & locally-relevant poets and authors in the Arc Gallery.

Tapping in for Jessica Loos’ Poetry Series at Macchiarini Creative Design during the monthly poetry crawl for North Beach First Fridays. Poetry Crawl starts at 6pm at Golden Sardine and closes out at 9pm up at Coit Tower Poetry Club.

(I wrote about the beauty of the North Beach Poetry Crawl for Quiet Lightning last year.)

The Art Bloc Sausalito Poetry Showcase, hosted by the lilting and lovely Sophia Fox, and starring a fantastic lineup of San Francisco poets.

Black Freighter Press and The Ana invite you to come experience an evening of resonance & reflection. The Music WE Make is a bricolage of language, healing, and sound.

Each of the writers featured in the event incorporate sound and music into their readings — including cultural practices like call & response, hymns, and folk songs — thus making the event an experience rather than an ordinary reading. The event will be co-hosted by Alie Jones, co-director of Black Freighter Press and Carlos Quinteros III the managing and poetry editor of The Ana.

Forest bath? Sure. Or come yell at a beautiful plant. Whatever suits you. Part poetic performance, part storytelling, part study of place, join our guide Myriam Gurba and a gaggle of poets and musicians as they traverse themes of language, power, ancestry, and California’s ecology, in the structure of a labyrinthine secret garden. Close out our afternoon series in the gardens with poets Caroline M. Mar, Wendy M. Thompson, and Mukethe Kawinzi. Limited seating. BYO chair or blanket, encouraged. FREE with SFBG admission, no RSVP required

Co-presented with The Gardens of Golden Gate Park
A part of Litquake Secret Garden series
Musical interludes by Rosie Cima and Natasha Jong (Jenny Haniver)

Bay Area Poets! Beat Corner at Conifer Lawn! Reading with Avante Garden Music and Poetry as part of Flower Piano at Gardens of Golden Gate Park. Hosted by the singular Agneta Falk and Jessica Loos.

Sharing works that delight, provoke, inspire and rouse, the Poetic Tuesdays series turns lunchtime into an oasis of creative expression. Lighting up Jessie Square with a fabulously curated line-up of poets and musicians, Poetic Tuesdays offer a vivifying midday breather for neighborhood groups, students, office workers on break and out-of-towners looking for respite from The City’s hustle and bustle.

Curated by Nia Pearl, an award-winning poet, writer, and environmental justice advocate working at the intersection of art, activism, and public engagement.

Honored to be joining up with Truong Tran and Sophia Dahlin in the upstairs poetry loft at the incomparable Golden Sardine in North Beach. Hosted by Andrew Paul Nelson, watched over by ghosts of Beats past.

Tapping in for Jessica Loos’ Poetry Series at Macchiarini Creative Design during the monthly poetry crawl for North Beach First Fridays. Poetry Crawl starts at 6pm at Golden Sardine and closes out at 9pm up at Coit Tower Poetry Club.

(I wrote about the beauty of the North Beach Poetry Crawl for Quiet Lightning last year.)

Third stop of the Flor y Canto poetry crawl at the beloved Galeria de la Raza with a Celebration of Queer Poetics curated by Lourdes Figueroa and featuring the tender y peligrosx palabras of Yeva Johnson, Kevin Madrigal Galindo, Zander Moreno, and Mukethe Kawinzi.

Cultivation! Care! Growth! Five local writers, poets, and comedians share new work about manual labor, routine labor, and building metaphorical tough skin from effort. The Happy Endings Reading Series is hosted by the fantastic & fabulous Danielle Truppi & Joe Wadlington at The Make-Out Room.

The Hive Poetry Collective is pleased to continue production of In Celebration of the Muse, a reading series with a 43-year history. Begun in 1981, the series has featured several well-known writers including Adrienne Rich, Lucille Clifton, bell hooks, Ellen Bass, and Gabriella Gutiérrez, among many others. A number of women, women-identified, and non-binary poets will read their work for a two-hour program.

Co-sponsored by the Mariposa Arts Council, Mariposa Community High School, and the Mariposa County Library, this event will feature readings from Mukethe Kawinzi, acclaimed visiting poet and coastal CA goat shepherd, and Spirit DeWitt, Mariposa County's finalist for the statewide "Poetry Out Loud" competition.

The reading will be facilitated by poet Megan Levad. Following the reading, audience members are encouraged to participate in an open Q & A session.

Lyrics & Dirges is a monthly reading series featuring a mix of prominent, emerging and beginning poets and writers. Its aim is to highlight various forms of writing in an effort to spotlight the diverse literary community of the Bay Area. For the month of January, A Celebration of Queer Poetics and Lyrics & Dirges unite to start the year with magic, hope and powerful poets: Lauren Smith, Lorenz Mazon Dumuk, Keana Aguila Labra, Tatiana Ixchel Luboviski-Acosta, Mukethe Kawinzi. Presented by Lourdes Figueroa, MK Chavez, and Sharon Coleman.

Theme: Toys, Ploys, and Decoys.

Five local writers, poets, and comedians share new work about tchotchkes, playthings, goofs, games, and more.The Happy Endings Reading Series is hosted by the fantastic & fabulous Danielle Truppi & Joe Wadlington at The Make-Out Room.

Theme: Food Comas and Flow States

Rest is resistance. And you can get a whole lot done with your feet up. But only if you want to. Sittin’ still can be riveting and zoning out is recess for your brain. So we’re grabbing the big blanket getting seconds, and dessert, and starting another episode thank you very much!

The Happy Endings Reading Series is hosted by the fantastic & fabulous Danielle Truppi & Joe Wadlington at The Make-Out Room.

Bring a picnic lunch to enjoy and a blanket to sit on while listening to live music and hearing local poets read from their work at Brommer Park in Santa Cruz. All ages are welcome to attend this free series hosted by County Parks and 2023-24 Santa Cruz County Poet Laureate Farnaz Fatemi. Musicians will play before and after the poets read from 2:00-3:00 PM.

Poets: Rachelle Escamilla, Mukethe Kawinzi, and Arthur Solway; Musicians: The Untangled Band.

“I want to believe!”—but should you? In this perilous time of deception, demagoguery, and suckers born every minute, The Fabulist [IG] has assembled a knockout lineup of Bay Area writers, poets, and activists who wield fantastical fictions to say true things about our beating human hearts—and who tell true tales to confront exploitative popular narratives. 

One of the most anticipated literary nights of the year, Lit Crawl SF brings together authors and fans for the world’s largest free pop-up literary event. The Fabulists’ Cosmic Debris—An Evening of Passionate Conviction and Informed Skepticism will feature readers Mukethe Kawinzi, Chris Carlsson, MK Chavez, Eva Galperin, and Lauren Rhoads.

Theme: Mold Breakers and Change Makers

Change is the only constant. We’re mutating, evolving, and fully breaking down. And there are those leading the charge, checking the winds, and showing the way. Let’s celebrate surprising solutions and new eras. The Happy Endings Reading Series is hosted by the fantastic & fabulous Danielle Truppi & Joe Wadlington at The Make-Out Room.

The Inter|Act Open Mic at Satori Arts occurs bimonthly in support of the local Santa Cruz spoken word community. Mukethe will be joining as the featured poet on October 1.

The evening kicks off at 7p (sign up sheet will be available starting at 630p, or sign up online at http://maginei.com/openmic), with open mic time before and after the featured reading.

Satori Arts is located at 815 Almar Ave, #9. It’s in a warehouse building; go to the right side of the building (closest to the rail trail), follow our signs, then about halfway down you’ll arrive at the door that opens into spoken word magic

Slinging zines and photos at San Francisco Zine Fest: Founded in 2001, San Francisco Zine Fest seeks to advance the do-it-yourself ethos by fostering community throughout the Bay Area. In our annual festival and its accompanying panels and workshops, we celebrate and support independent writers, artists and creators, allowing them to share their work with an ever-growing audience in exhibitions and public events. Catch me at Table 159.

The Hive Poetry Collective is pleased to assume production of In Celebration of the Muse, a reading series with a 43-year history. Begun in 1981, the series has featured several well-known writers including Adrienne Rich, Lucille Clifton, bell hooks, Ellen Bass, and Gabriella Gutiérrez, among many others. The Hive Poetry Collective is pleased to announce “In Celebration of the Muse.” Eighteen poets, including three Cabrillo College students, will read their work for a two-hour program.

Swearin’ and the hexin’ and the swear-hexin’ come potty-mouthed into The Sycamore for the Danielle Truppi-guest-hosted CURSE WORDS. It’s going to be an evening fit for a sailor’s mouth. A night you wouldn’t kiss your mother with. It’s CURSE WORDS and it’s going to be fucking fantastic. Featuring: Margaret Spilman, Alysia Gonzales, Duane Horton, Mukethe Kawinzi, Matthew Beld & Anand Vedawala