Litquake, in collaboration with Decentered Arts, convened a luminous night at the Mission’s historic Victoria Theater. Patricia Smith opened with her invocation—“Dear ferocious dreamer… dear listener with the whole of your covetous heart”—and the room tilted into a shared present as Mia Ayumi Malhotra, Achy Obejas, Matthew Zapruder, and Gabriel Cortez delivered fierce, tender sets that honored language and community.

Doors had opened at 6:45pm and the house filled with neighbors, writers, and lovers of verse; admission was offered on a flexible, pay-what-you-can basis and walk-ups were welcomed when space allowed. After the readings, Decentered Arts hosted a bustling photobooth where pro photographer Michelle Castillo took free creative headshots for poets and attendees.

Poets were also invited to participate in the Pulse of Poetry in the Bay Area coffee-table project—an archival collaboration that promised to preserve the night’s voices. The evening folded into late-night conversation and new connections, a clear testament to the resilient, generative pulse of the Bay Area poetry community.


Dear Ferocious Dreamer: A Festival Finale in Verse

Litquake invited guests to join poets Mia Ayumi Malhotra, Achy Obejas, Matthew Zapruder, and Gabriel Cortez in bearing witness to the beauty and resiliency of our words and community at the Mission’s historic Victoria Theater.

Gabriel Cortez

Artist at:

DECENTERED
ARTS