The 9th Poetry World Series returns, where baseball and poetry collide to create a fabulous and wacky literary event. Six illustrious poets will play on two teams in what is sure to be a sensational game. Instead of pitching balls, the emcee pitches prompts and instead of bats, the players wield their poems. This boisterous slugfest of wordplay, repartee, and quips, mixed with ballpark music, beer, and popcorn, makes for a great outing. You don’t even have to like poetry or baseball to enjoy this animated and quirky program. The Poetry World Series is curated by Rebecca Foust and Melissa Stein.

Registration highly recommended. Adults and high school students only! Free wine reception at 6:30pm for pre-registered guests. Waitlist line opens up at 6:45 on a first come, first served basis. 

Poet-players: Austin Araujo, MK Chavez, Amanda Gunn, Steve, Fujimura, Amanda Moore, and Dean Rader.

Umpires: Jewelle Gomez and Andrew Sean Greer

 

 

Curators:

 

Rebecca Foust’s new book, ONLY, received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly. She was Marin Poet Laureate and a fellow at Hedgebrook, MacDowell, and Sewanee.

 

Melissa Stein is the author of the poetry collections Terrible Blooms (Copper Canyon Press) and Rough Honey, winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize. She is a freelance editor in San Francisco.

 

Umpires:

Author photo credit: Irene Young

Jewelle Gomez wrote The Gilda Stories, a double Lamda Literary Award winning feminist vampyre novel in print for more than 25 years, as well as three books of poetry. She was playwright in residence at New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco and her latest play "Leaving the Blues," about singer/songwriter Alberta Hunter, premiered in New York City in January 2020.

 

Author photo credit: Kaliel Roberts

Andrew Sean Greer is the author of seven works of fiction, including the bestsellers Less and Less Is Lost. Greer is a TODAY show pick, a New York Public Library Cullman Center Fellow, a National Book Award judge, and the winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

 

Poet-Players:

 

Austin Araujo is a writer from northwest Arkansas. His poems have recently appeared in Poetry, TriQuarterly, and the Missouri Review. He is currently a Stegner Fellow at Stanford.

 

MK Chavez, the author of Dear Animal, which won the Pen Oakland Josephine Miles award, and Mothermorphosis, She is a 2023 Yerba Buena Arts Center 100 honoree.

 

Steve Fujimura is a poet based in Berkeley, California. His debut poetry collection, Sad Asian Music, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2022.

 

Amanda Gunn is a Stegner Fellow at Stanford. Her debut poetry collection, Things I Didn’t Do With This Body, is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press. 

 

Amanda Moore is a poet, essayist, translator, and teacher. Her debut poetry collection, Requeening, was selected for the National Poetry Series by Ocean Vuong.

 

Dean Rader has authored or co-authored twelve books. He is a professor at the University of San Francisco and a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow in Poetry.