Metro Art Presents Poetry O’Clock, a poetry exchange pop-up in the historic Union Station Information Booth, on Friday, December 10 from 1:00-7:00 pm. Drop in for reconnection, recollection and respite as the booth is transformed by floral artist botanica brava to host live writing by poets Taz Ahmed, traci kato-kiriyama, and féi hernandez.  Share your story during each featured poet’s shift at the information desk to receive a short original poem written on-the-spot (and inspired by you!) to create a portrait of the moment and time stamp your day.  Poets are presented in collaboration with the Poetry Society of America. The pop-up also coincides with Metro Art’s forthcoming exhibition in the Union Station Passageway Art Gallery, We Are…Portraits of Metro Riders by Local Artists. 

1:00-3:00 pm— Taz Ahmed
3:00-5:00 pm— traci kato-kiriyama
5:00-7:00 pm— féi hernandez

Save the date and RSVP via Eventbrite. Walk-ins will be welcomed on a first-come, first-served basis.

• botanica brava is an evolving project in creativity, collaboration, community and care founded by non-binary salvi floral practitioner and alien world builder Isa Peña as a way to stay centered.  

• Tanzila “Taz” Ahmed is a political strategist, storyteller, and artist based in Los Angeles. She creates at the intersection of counternarratives and culture-shifting as a South Asian American Muslim 2nd-gen woman. She has published two poetry collections Emdash and Ellipses (2016) & The Day The Moon Split in Two (2020), is featured in Tia Chucha’s Coiled Serpent (2016) and her poetry has been commissioned by the Center for Cultural Power, PolicyLink, the Garment Worker Center, KPCC’s Unheard LA, and more.  

• traci kato-kiriyama, based on unceded Tongva land in the south bay of Los Angeles, is an award-winning multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary artist, writer/performer, theatre deviser, cultural producer, and community organizer grounded in collaborative process, collective self-determination, and art+community. She is a performer & principal writer for PULLproject Ensemble, two-time NET recipient; NEFA 2021-22 finalist for their show TALES OF CLAMOR.  Their work is also featured in a wide swath of media and print publications (incl. NPR; PBS; Elle.com; Entropy; Chapparal Canyon Press; Tia Chucha Press; Bamboo Ridge Press; Heyday Books; Regent Press). 

• féi hernandez is a trans, Inglewood-raised, formerly undocumented immigrant artist, writer, healer. They have been published in POETRY, Pank Magazine, Oxford Review of Books, Frontier Poetry, The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext, amongst others. They are a Define American Fellow for 2021 and are currently the Board President of Gender Justice Los Angeles. féi is the author of the full-length poetry collection Hood Criatura (Sundress Publications 2020) which was on NPR’s Best Books of 2020.   

Metro adheres to all local, state and federal transportation public health guidelines. Masks will be required as mandated by County of Los Angeles Public Health guidelines.The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health requires that all guests, regardless of vaccination status, wear masks in indoor public settings unless they are actively eating and drinking or are otherwise exempt from wearing a mask due to a disability, as defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act (42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq.).

Go Metro to the event! Take the B Line (Red), D Line (Purple), J Line (Silver) or L Line (Gold) directly to Union Station. Plan your trip on the Transit app.