'BUTTON POETRY' PRESENTS FEMINIST POETRY ON WOMEN'S ISSUES AND SOCIAL JUSTICE AT CSUSB

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. – The Cal State San Bernardino Women’s Resource Center will present Button Poetry, a self-empowering poetry night for women on Thursday, May 7.

The event will be held in the Santos Manuel Student Union Theater, room 107, from 6-8 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. Parking at CSUSB is $6 per vehicle.

The evening will feature three spoken word artists: Tonya Ingram, Yesika Salgado and Terisa Tinei Siagatonu.

Ingram, an award-winning poet, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, raised in The Bronx, N.Y, and now lives in Los Angeles. The author of “Thirteen,” she was presented with the Cora Craig Author Award for Young Women. One of the award benefits was publishing one of her works, “Growl and Snare,” published last year by Penmanship Books.

A New York University alumna, and current graduate student at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, Ingram attributes her inspiration to a woman she heard reciting spoken word in a Friday night church service at Christ Tabernacle in Queens, N.Y.

“I remember being moved by the power in her voice and stance,” Ingram said. “I remember being in awe and thinking, I want to do that.”

Salgado, a slam poetry artist, was born in Los Angeles to Salvadorian immigrants. As a direct result of too many library visits, telenovelas and a large passionate family, she said developed a torrid love affair with poetry.

Salgado has shared her work at schools and venues throughout Southern California. In 2013, she published her first collection of poetry, titled “The Luna Poems.”

Siagatonu is a spoken-word artist, arts educator and community organizer from the San Francisco Bay Area. Her emergence into the spoken word as a queer Samoan woman and activist has taken her to the stage at the 2010 Oakland PRIDE Festival and Boston’s Cutler Majestic Theatre.

Siagatonu’s devotion to the Pacific Island population and her work with college access and spoken word poetry helps her to drive the development of Pacific Islander youth, advocating for self-empowerment so they can create sustainable impact in their own communities.

A graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz, she is currently the project director for the Pacific Islander Education and Retention project at UCLA, an access project whose goal is to fight the low matriculation rates of Pacific Islander students into higher education. The project offers services ranging from free tutoring, mentorship and peer advising to Pacific Islander high school students in Los Angeles.

Button Poetry is a Minnesota-based organization dedicated to improving the quality of performance poetry media by showcasing the power and diversity of voices in communities.

Founded in 2011, Button produces and distributes poetry media, including video from local and national events, collaborative audio recordings, scholarship and criticism.

According to its website, by encouraging and broadcasting the best and brightest performance poets of today, Button Poetry’s goal is to broaden poetry’s audience, to expand its reach and develop a greater level of cultural appreciation for the art form.

For more information on the Button Poetry event, contact Shaquel McCoy at (909) 537-7203 or shaquelmccoy@gmail.com.

For more information about Cal State San Bernardino, contact the university’s Office of Public Affairs at (909) 537-5007 and visit news.csusb.edu.

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