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

Maurisa Thompson was born and raised in San Francisco, and is a proud alum of June Jordan’s Poetry for the People. Her poetry has appeared in Pedestal Magazine, La Bloga, Cosmonauts Avenue, the anthologies Poems for Our Children and En Vuelo: In Celebration of el Tecolote, and The Haight-Ashbury Journal, which nominated her for a Pushcart Prize. She is proud to have worked with various organizations and actions, including Librotraficante Bay Area Califas and Richmond’s RAW Talent. When she is not teaching high school students playwriting, she is working on her first poetry manuscript, which combines history and folklore with her grandparents’ stories from Louisiana and San Francisco, and a middle-grade novel exploring police brutality, which won the support of a Walter Grant from We Need Diverse Books.

Brett Benson is a typewriter poet, muppet enthusiast and history teacher originally from San…