Sunday, May 31 12:30-1:30pm
Bart Plaza Stage
2170 Shattuck Ave Berkeley, CA

Some futures arrive already mapped. Others must be spoken into being.

In The Future Is Unsettled: Decolonial Poetics, poets bring language that questions the stories we’ve been told about land, power, and belonging. Their work moves through memory, migration, and resistance, pushing against inherited narratives and opening space for other ways of seeing.

Dena Rod emcees, bringing their fierce poetic voice and deep commitment to community-centered art to the stage, setting the tone for a reading where the poems refuse easy answers and lean into the unsettled work of imagining otherwise.

Daniel P. Williams writes with lyrical clarity about land, memory, and the histories still shaping the present. Osmani Ochoa’s work moves through diaspora and identity, revealing how language carries both rupture and resilience. Logan Phillips faces his past in a hybrid memoir that transcends genre and creates a roadmap for others to follow. Jason Bayani brings urgency and vulnerability to the page, confronting migration, masculinity, and the restless search for belonging.

These poets remind us that the future isn’t a finished story. It’s something we’re still writing, line by line.