Join us for an evening of live poetry featuring system impacted writers of the Forced N2 Greatness Collective and Antonio López. Each poet will read their work. There will be time for Q&A.
REGISTER HERE. Registration is recommended and helps Library staff prepare for the event.
Learn more about the poets:
Antonio López is currently finishing his PhD in the Modern Thought and Literature program at Stanford University and is San Mateo County’s 2025-2027 Poet Laureate. López is a poetician at the intersections of the arts, policy, and social change. The first in his family to graduate from college, he holds degrees from Duke University, Rutgers-Newark, and the University of Oxford as a 2018 Marshall Scholar. His poetry and essays have appeared in numerous publications, anthologies and podcasts including Poetry Foundation, Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology, The Slowdown, Poetry Daily, among others. His first book of poetry, Gentefication, was selected by Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author Gregory Pardlo for the 2019 Levis Prize in Poetry published by Four Way Books. His second book, The Right to Remain Violets, is forthcoming from the University of Arizona Press. Antonio served his hometown as a councilmember and mayor for the City of East Palo Alto.
Pharaoh Elisha Brooks is the Substance Use Disorder Treatment Program Director for Kingdom Builders Transitional Program. He was fortunate enough to be found suitable from the parole board after being incarcerated for 17 and a half years. Today, Pharaoh is a writer, author, musician, producer, poet, actor, counselor, rapper, and singer. His EP, Building 18: The Hip Hop Poetry Project, is available on Spotify and Apple Music and he is working on his first novel. He feels fortunate to share his story to help uplift the same type of communities he once tore down.
Brian Shepperd aka Jus' B, co-creator and co-host of the podcast The Th3rd Bridge, lives a life that embodies resilience, transformation, and leadership born from lived experience. Brian spent nearly 30 years in most of California’s worst prisons. Once immersed in gangs and survival culture, he made the decision to turn his focus inward, transforming those same hard-edged lessons into tools for growth, accountability, and healing. Today, Brian, who uses the pen name b.anthony.shepperd, is the published poet behind the book Confessions of a Compassionate Felon, a community builder, and an advocate. He leads with empathy and credibility, speaking from the place of someone who has lived the realities of incarceration and emerged determined to uplift others.
