San Francisco Poet Laureate, Tongo Eisen-Martin

Submitted by the Event Organizer

Wednesday March 17, 4pm to 5pm Pacific time

Join the San Francisco Public Library in welcoming the San Francisco Poet Laureate, Tongo Eisen-Martin, along with celebrated authors Mahogany L. Browne and Safia Elhillo to discuss and give readings from their latest works.

Tongo Eisen-Martin is the San Francisco Poet Laureate appointed by Mayor London N. Breed in January 2021. He is the founder of Black Freighter Press. His book, “Heaven Is All Goodbyes”, received a 2018 American Book Award, the 2018 California Book Award for Poetry and was short-listed for the Griffin Poetry Prize. Tune into his inaugural address on April 21.

Mahogany L. Browne is a writer, organizer and educator. Executive Director of Bowery Poetry Club & Artistic Director of Urban Word NYC & Poetry Coordinator at St. Francis College, Browne has received fellowships from Agnes Gund, Air Serenbe, Cave Canem, Poets House, Mellon Research & Rauschenberg. She is the author of most recent works: “Chlorine Sky”, “Woke: A Young Poet’s Call to Justice”, “Woke Baby” & “Black Girl Magic”. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Safia Elhillo is the author of The January Children which received the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets and an Arab American Book Award, “Girls That Never Die” and the novel in verse “Home Is Not A Country” (Make Me A World/Random House, 2021).?Sudanese by way of Washington, DC, she holds an MFA from The New School, a Cave Canem Fellowship and a 2018 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. Elhillo is a Pushcart Prize nominee and noted in Forbes Africa’s 2018 “30 Under 30.”

This program is sponsored by Friends of the San Francisco Public Library.
For accommodations (such as ASL interpretation or captioning), call (415) 557-4557 or contact accessibility@sfpl.org. Requesting at least 72 hours in advance will help ensure availability.

Presented by The San Francisco Public Library

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