Queer Poetry Night: The Beauty of the Beast

Join us for the book release of Under The Belly of the Beast!

LOS ANGELES, CA, February 28th 2020—As a part of our free monthly queer poetry reading series, our February 28th event will begin at 8pm at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts (681 Venice Blvd, Los Angeles, CA ) and will feature LA based queer poets: Ryka Aoki, Cori Bratby-Rudd, Féi Hernandez, Christine Imperial, Hank Henderson, among others. This particular event is unique—Influx Collectiv is collaborating with Dissonance Press and all performing queer poets are therefore also contributors to Dissonance’s first anthology, Under The Belly of the Beast (edited by Cori Bratby-Rudd) which will be available for purchase at the show. This themed queer poetry night is called, “The Beauty of the Beast.”

About Influx: Founded in 2018, Influx is now run by its original co-founder Cori Bratby-Rudd and collaborator Diana Gutierrez (who often hosts). Influx Collectiv is a queer poetry reading series that connects LA based poets, promotes queer events, and provides a space and platform for queer creators and queer content. Influx is for audience members to hear stories that reflect their own, and for performers to find an audience who understands. We host events monthly and each reading features new poets and takes place at a different location throughout Los Angeles. Influx Collectiv was recently featured in an article by VoyageLA, the Alhambra Source, and the Occidental. We can be found through our website, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. The Facebook event has all of the accessibility information posted.

About Dissonance Press: Dissonance Press is a workspace and test platform for writing projects that subvert or repurpose how literature is made and read. By doing so, we hope to foster modes of writing that creatively respond to expectations, limitations, and exclusions of the literary machine. We seek work that actively challenges the perception of the author as solitary genius, in favor of work that stresses collaboration, serialization, and creation of shared narrative. We also produce works in overlooked genres, such as prayer books, photo albums, quilts, cookbooks and letters, that help uncover the ingenuity and brilliance of writers whose cultural, religious, economic, and social positions made it difficult or impossible to create work within traditional literary forms.

About Under The Belly of the Beast: Once upon a time, a group of writers queered the concept of beasts and beauties. Combining these creations into an anthology, forthcoming this February 2020 by Dissonance Press, each compelling piece ranges in topic and dismantles common tropes, villains and heroes in a world not too far off of our own. This collection of poetry, prose, and short-fiction centers the voices of marginalized communities. From poems that detail a coming-of-age story from the perspective of a black (assigned) girl (at birth) & the beastly notions of black girlhood & sexuality she is forced to experience, to a fictional story about a beast named Mednick who lives out his life in a zoo, each author took the idea of a beast, and found queerness lurking in its definition.

Performer Information:

féi hernandez is a Mexican trans non-binary immigrant spiritual healer, writer, actor, visual artist and graphic designer. They grew up undocumented in Inglewood, California and has continued community work through their writing and art through performances and exhibits across the Los Angels area. féi’s writing has been featured in NPR, Immigrant Review, Non Binary: Memoirs of Gender and Identity, The BreakBeat Poets Volume 4: LatiNEXT, Good Mood, Live Wire, and Hayden's Ferry Issue 64. Their art work has been exhibited at Galeria de La Raza, is featured in the Latino Book Review 2019, and is currently working on a digital collection of artwork. They are currently the Art Director of Palms Up Academy and Lorenzana Services Inc. and teach Crafting Eternity, a writing class for developing writers in Los Angeles. féi has a forthcoming full length poetry collection through Sundress Publications on the intersections of race, citizenship, identity, Inglewood, sexuality and gender to explore themes of: belonging, invisibility, joy, resilience, and resistance.

For booking or more information follow féi hernandez on Instagram: @fei.hernandez or feihernandez.com

Cori Bratby-Rudd (she, her) is a queer LA-based writer and co-founder of Influx Collectiv(e)’s Queer Poetry Reading Series. She graduated Cum Laude from UCLA’s Gender Studies department, and received her MFA in Creative Writing from California Institute of the Arts. She has been published in Ms. Magazine, The Gordian Review, Califragile, PANK Magazine, Entropy, Crab Fat Magazine, among others. She won the Editorial Choice Award for her research paper in Audeamus Academic Journal and was nominated as one of Lambda Literary’s 2018 Emerging Writers. Her manuscript Dis/owned is a semi-finalist for YesYes Book’s 2019 Pamet River Prize.

Cori is a co-founder and Director of Programs at Dissonance Press. She edited their debut anthology titled Under The Belly of the Beast. A chapbook rendition of the anthology can be purchased here, and the full length anthology is forthcoming 2/28/2020

Ryka Aoki is the author of Seasonal Velocities, He Mele a Hilo (A Hilo Song), Why Dust Shall Never Settle Upon This Soul and The Great Space Adventure. She has been honored by the California State Senate for her “extraordinary commitment to free speech and artistic expression, as well as the visibility and well-being of Transgender people. Ryka was the inaugural performer for the first ever Transgender Stage at San Francisco Pride, and has performed in venues including the San Francisco Pride Main Stage, the Columbus National Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival, the National Queer Arts Festival, and Ladyfest South. Ryka also appears in the recent documentaries “Diagnosing Difference” and “Riot Acts.” She has MFA in Creative Writing from Cornell University and is the recipient of a University Award from the Academy of American Poets.  .

Accessibility information: There is a gender neutral ADA compliant stall on the first floor at the back of the building.

There is a wheel chair ramp to the entrance.

There is free parking in two lots: http://www.beyondbaroque.org/images/BB%20Parking%20Map.jpg

There is a light on the handicap ramp and a light on on the front porch. If it is related to the theater there is standard theatrical lighting (no strobe.)

Smoking is permitted on the sidewalk in front to the building but not on the porch.

The theater is close to sound proof. Beyond Baroque does not have an ASL interpreter

There will be wine and water available for purchase.