Meet the Poets
Bogar Alonso is a mosaic writer and creator. His films have premiered at international film festivals, and his editorial and journalistic work has been published on Vice, Gawker, and The Huffington Post. He has been the finalist for emerging artist competitions in the poetry and TV worlds. He is the writer and director of the film Rodney.
Tara Bracco is founder and producing artistic director of Poetic People Power. She’s created, produced, and performed in 20 spoken word shows about social and political issues. She is a recognized leader in the field of art and social change and has been featured in O, The Oprah Magazine, Time Out New York, The Brooklyn Rail, and HuffPost. She has spoken about art and activism at colleges, festivals, and theaters, and she is the recipient of 20 competitive grant awards. She is also the recipient of the 2015 Images and Voices of Hope Award. In 2009, she cofounded the international nonprofit The Project Solution, which serves 30,000 people in 14 countries.
Suzen Baraka is an Emmy Award-winning poet, writer, actor, and activist. She began her acting career starring in Everlasting, recipient of the Viewer's Choice Award at the 2020 Cannes Short Film Festival. During the pandemic, she wrote, starred in, and released VOTE, originally commissioned by Poetic People Power, directed by Jami Ramberan, and published in Kevin Powell’s anthology 2020: The Year That Changed America. She appeared in Let America Be America Again produced by Creatives4Biden for Election Day 2020, and she’s been featured at Ars Nova's #OATH2021 and at Restart Stages at Lincoln Center.
Erica R. DeLaRosa is a theater director, vocal performance/acting coach, an arts education consultant, and an avid Garden Guardian. For the past 20 years, Erica has steadfastly invested in her community as a Teaching Artist and Arts Education Advocate, in San Antonio and in NYC. She has cofounded the performance troupe, MAHINA MOVEMENT, where she facilitated poetry workshops, produced, and performed on 300+ stages throughout the U.S. and internationally over 12 years. She is the founder of and producing partner with CEIBA Arts Cooperative in San Antonio.
Shanelle Gabriel is an internationally touring artist, educator, and lupus warrior from Brooklyn, NY. Widely known for being featured on HBO's Def Poetry Jam, she has shared the stage with artists such as Jill Scott, Nas, Nikki Giovanni, and Talib Kweli, among others. In 2006-2007, she competed in the National and Individual World Poetry Slam Competitions. She has penned and been featured in global poetry campaigns with Pandora Music, LifeWtr, Inc. Magazine, Eden BodyWorks, and she has three albums fusing music and poetry. She is the executive director of Urban Word, an organization that founded the National Youth Poet Laureate Program and uses poetry and hip-hop to promote literacy and youth voice.
Philippe Javier Garcesto is a Filipino-American actor, mixed media performance artist, poet, martial artist, and karaoke enthusiast. He has a varied film and theater background, but he is most proud of the roles where he has been able to portray Filipino characters in media. Most recently, he starred in the award-winning comedic short film Filipinos Get Some. He graduated from Rutgers Mason Gross School of the Arts with a BFA in Visual Arts. He credits his martial arts practice for renewing his purpose towards pursuing his creative goals as an advocate for diverse stories and uplifting the global community.
Karla Jackson-Brewer is an educator, an optimist, an integrative therapist, and a teacher of numerous spiritual traditions. An activist for social change in the anti-violence movement, she has spoken out against racial, gender and class inequality all her life. Her work has been published in Ikon Magazine, Women of Power Magazine, and Skin Deep: Women Writing on Color, Culture and Identity.
Sugar Johnson hails from Crown Heights, Brooklyn and currently lives in Atlanta where he works as a Math teacher. The burgeoning writer, actor, and vocalist has shared the stage with a unique array of prolific artists including Bob Holman, Jessica Care Moore, Ilu Aye, Nathan Zoob, and Spike Lee. He enjoys mixing art and education, and he traded a position in the corporate sector for teaching poetry in New York City public schools. He most recently produced and performed in a series of one man shows in Georgia under the "Sugar Johnson Presents..." moniker.
Angela Kariotis is an artist as public servant. She is a community-engaged culture worker and educator building creative experiences, serving the needs of cities, institutions, and students of all ages for public good. She integrates restorative practices with the pedagogy of play for a transformative learning experience. As a performance artist, her work has been presented by venues, including UCLA, University of Texas at Austin, People’s Light, Legion Arts in Iowa, and Contact Theater in Manchester, UK. The arts education program she co-created and facilitates, Walking the Beat, was awarded a grant from the NJ Attorney General’s Office as a Community Based Violence Intervention Program.
Shane Michael Manieri is a poet whose work has appeared in Lambda Literary Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, and Vinyl Prose and Poetry. He has taught writing at Columbia University and worked with ESL students in Brooklyn. He also helped create the Buddhist outreach group QueerDharma, which raised funds for Ali Forney Center, an LGBTQ homeless shelter, and has volunteered as a Big Brother for Incarnation Children's Centre. He holds an MFA from Columbia University, has received a full-immersion language grant from the Italian Cultural Institute, and is currently working on his PhD in comparative literature at the Graduate Center.
Shetal Shah is a performance poet, award-winning actor, and Emmy award-winning filmmaker. She was an invited poet for Lincoln Center’s La Casita Festival and has performed at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Bowery Poetry Club, and across New York City. Shetal’s activism includes policy work on climate change and the Global South in collaboration with various NGOs, the United Nations and its delegations. She is a graduate of Maggie Flanigan Studios and the LAByrinth Theater Master Class. Favorite acting credits include: Acquittal (Pan Asian Rep) and Truth Be Told (Ensemble Studio Theatre). Shetal’s latest short film, Off Duty, is now distributed worldwide after winning awards at U.S. and international film festivals.
Natalia Vargas-Caba is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College in Creative Writing and Spanish. Her work has been featured in No, Dear and Babbling of the Irrational. She is a technical writer in her day job.
Nabil Viñas is a 2021 Cine Qua Non Lab Resident and 2019 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Screenwriting from the New York Foundation for the Arts. An award-winning actor, his films have played festivals worldwide, including New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center and HBO’s New York Latino Film Festival, and he’s acted with theatre companies, including LAByrinth Theater and Cleveland Play House. Most recently, he co-created the play Being Chaka with TÉA Artistry (Archive Residency, New Ohio Theatre), and he’s currently developing the feature film Los Malos. He is also a dedicated human rights advocate.
Kesav Wable is an actor and writer best known for his award-winning play For Flow, which he developed as a fellow at the Lark Theatre. He later adapted the play into a short film, which was selected as a finalist at the 2011 HBO American Black Film Festival and subsequently aired on HBO/Cinemax. He is also an attorney who practices law in New York City.
Jonathan Walton is from Brodnax, Virginia and poetry is what brought him from the sticks to New York City. He has written and edited five books, including Twelve Lies that Hold America Captive and Keeping the Faith: Reflections on Politics and Christianity in the Era of Trump and Beyond. He also co-founded KTF Press and co-hosts the Shake the Dust Podcast. He works for InterVarsity USA on Emotionally Healthy Activism in and around ethnic justice and reconciliation.
Jim Buckmaster has been writing poems and short stories for many years. He loves storytelling in all its many forms and recently put on his first one-man cabaret show, If My Life Were a Musical, that took the audience on a journey of his life, from his childhood days in the Pacific Northwest to his dreams of living in New York City. He is working on his first screenplay Murus Falling, which is a reimagined, dystopian version of Leda and the Swan. Jim’s own marriage inspired him to write the poem Seen to raise awareness about the fragility of marriage equality.
Show photos from various years by Mark Rywelski, Rich Tang, Marc Weisman, Chris Grace, Jodi Gibson, and Isabella Vi Gomes.