Environmental Justice Poetry Performance at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market

Join Ecology Center Poet-in-Residence, Gabriel Cortez, at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, where he will debut poems alongside a team of local artists. They will share new work that lifts up environmental justice, food and land sovereignty, and local lineages of resistance.

All events are free, outdoors, and open to the public.

Saturday, May 25, 1–2pm: Downtown Berkeley Farmers Market
Center Street at Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Berkeley, Ca.

Ashia Ajani
Giovanni Lomanto
Nia McAllister
Damneet Kaur

Sunday, June 2, 3:45–4:45pm, Bay Area Book Festival
Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park, 2151 MLK Jr Way, Berkeley, Ca.

CieraJevae Gordon, 1st Black Woman Poet Laureate of Richmond California
Julia Segre, Berkeley’s 1st Youth Poet Laureate
Karim, Berkeley High School Freshman
Azariah, Ecology Center Youth Environmental Academy Participant

Tuesday, June 18, 2:30–3:30pm: South Berkeley Farmers Market
Adeline Street and 63rd Street, Berkeley, Ca.

Zouhair Mussa
Milani Pelley
Gracia Mwamba
Ashia Ajani

An Interview with Gabriel Cortez, Ecology Center Poet-in-Resident

Gabriel Cortez is a unique Bay Area transplant—raised in Maryland, Virginia, and Los Angeles and of Afro-Panamanian descent, his childhood trained him in navigating the contradictions between his Panamanian and United States cultures. But when you are young and don’t yet have the words to express the daily challenges you face, you just deal with it or, like Gabriel, you become a poet.  …Read More