Open mic before and after the featured poets. Sign up at 1 pm.

The event will be Live streamed on our YouTube Channel.

Dorothy (Dottie) Payne is a performance poet/ visual artist/ cultural activist and international educator. She has worked alongside such luminaries as Eugene Redmond, Quincy Troupe, bell hooks, and most recently, Jack Hirschman. Her readings are empowered by a commitment to the innate rhetorical musicality of a vernacular poetics centered on social engagement and liberation struggles. 

She has lived, worked and performed her poetry throughout the United States, Palestine, Southeast Asia, Mexico, and most recently West Africa. As the director of her art gallery and music venue, “ArtInternationale” in San Francisco’s North Beach, she curated a six-year series, “Communities Without Borders.” 

Her book Birthmarks was published in 2015 by New Native Press and her poetry, and critical essays have been variously anthologized.She most recently presented her original oriki, “Warrior…