Wild blackberries on a hot hillside. Before the bears get them. After a fat rain. Salt after the sea has gone. Yellow kiss of pollen on your window. Someone quiet enough for peace. Sinking into a soft quilt. Jingle dress. Fancy dancers. Growing song of cornstalks. A soul who cares to be present. Ancestors as desert stones. Night sky braille. Your hair wet and seasoned by tidal spray. Kindness trending. Brown skin rich with sun.
- Jaiya John
Blessings, Family! I am honored to bring my poetry reading world tour, The Gathering, to Compton this Sunday.
Moonwater Farm
Compton, California
Sunday, March 3, 2024
3pm to 6pm
Adults and children ages 10+
FREE BOOK AND FOOD!
TICKETS ARE DONATION BASED.
PAY WHAT YOU CAN.
Tickets here (QR code or button below), my website, and eventbrite.
I will read mostly from my book Father to Son: Ode to Our Black Young, which is a poetic and spoken word book for the entire community, including women, mothers, girls, and daughters.
Our poetry reading ceremony will be followed by Aftercare, which includes light food (vegan and more), drinks, fellowship, and personal visiting with Jaiya, including book collection purchasing and signing.
*MENU: Smoked meats. Blackeyed peas (vegan). Cornbread (vegan). Dessert with vegan options.
*Each ticket purchased comes with a gift copy of Father to Son, courtesy of Unearth and Empower Communities.
I so appreciate you spreading the word about our gathering within your family, friendships, and community, including places of worship, youth and women's programs, schools, book clubs, and more. *This gathering is being filmed for a documentary.
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2024 LUNA VORTEX ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
My heart is honored and excited to be the first artist in residence for the Luna Vortex, a healing space to reclaim our ancestral wisdom and creativity, under every phase of the Moon.
Throughout this 2024 residency, I will be offering monthly poetry reading ceremonies and book collection signings, and maybe some creative writing playshops as well.
The Luna Vortex is a studio located in Los Angeles, California, birthed into being by the luminous Luna herself. You may visit her website through the button below.
MARCH 9 TICKETS AND DETAILS:
I will be reading from Daughter Drink This Water in celebration of Women's History Month and Women's Day.
A NOTE FROM LUNA VORTEX:
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JAIYA JOHN'S
THE GATHERING.
A WORLD TOUR.
a poetry reading ceremony and
book collection sales and signing
I am excited to join you in your community to read from my collection of published and unpublished work, bringing to life the spirit of the medicine words. I say reading, though incantation and prayer are truer. Thematically, these readings are on collective freedom, and take on the flavor of each audience from gathering to gathering. A rich weaving of cultural fabric. These gatherings are remembrance songs, bringing us back to our Indigenous ancestral ways of gathering and being together. As this tour is part of my global Soul Water Rising rehumanizing mission, we stir the soul to remember itself as we garden our collective liberation and the end of oppressive systems and ways of life.
I am also honored to include, at some of the gatherings, live Sacred Conversations with revolutionary souls who inspire me. During these gatherings, I also commune with the audience in questions and conversation. And we build into this healing experience what we are calling Aftercare. Before the afterparty, and after the reading, we care for each other as I make myself available for sacred listening, tears and laughter, sacred embraces, selfies, and book collection signing.
And as a part of Soul Water Rising's Book Angel Project, whether or not you attend a particular gathering, you have the opportunity to purchase books that we then gift to vulnerable souls with whom we gather along the tour.
The Gathering is a people's freedom movement. The tour is happening in cafés, libraries, prisons, hospitals, shelters, community centers, women's centers, campuses, HBCU's, Indigenous reservations, art galleries, art studios, museums, parks, amphitheaters, auditoriums, theaters, and stadiums. Call us to North and West Africa, the Levantine, Southeast Asia, South and Central America, the Caribbean, and beyond. We go where we are called.
You play an organic role in this. If you desire for the tour to come your way, email us through our tour page at jaiyajohn.com. You can help us identify aligned venues, communities, and audiences. This tour is a production of Soul Water Rising.
Tour dates and locations are announced on a rolling calendar as sites are secured. This tour is a culmination, crystallizing, and new season of my life's journey, work, and calling. I am awed and enchanted to read for you and embrace you in a healing way.
We will see each other soon, in Love, at The Gathering.
Big Love,
Jaiya
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My books are available at booksellers worldwide and directly from the author at jaiyajohn.com (eBooks are exclusively at my site). Thank you for posting your copies, readings, and creative images and videos, and for sharing online reviews. It all breathes life into a book's life. I hope you will gift these books to your people.
Also at jaiyajohn.com, enjoy my books, eBooks, audiobooks, talks, sleep stories, and piano music. I also offer creative writing support phone sessions, keynote speaking, talks, and book/poetry readings.
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