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Palabra at The Cheech

March 6 @ 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Palabra @ The Cheech is a series that celebrates the wonderful tradition of floricanto, poesía, and the spoken word. Join us for this new open mic poetry series co-hosted by Donato Martinez, featuring poets Karla Cordero, Amanda Jade, Gaby Ramos, and Sandy Shakes. Doors open at 6pm.

  • Schedule:
    • 6:00pm- Sign-Ups begin
    • 6:30-7:00PM Acoustic performance by Red Planet Rebellion
    • 7:00pm-8:00pm Featured Poets
    • 8:00pm-8:30pm- Open Mic

Hosted By

Donato Martinez was born in in small pueblo, Garcia de la Cadena, Zacatecas, Mexico and immigrated into USA at six years old. He teaches English composition, Literature, and Creative Writing at Santa Ana College. He has also taught classes in Chicano Studies. He has also been a co-coordinator of the Puente Program for 25 years and has presented workshop sessions at both the regional and state level. He has also spoken at many motivational and educational conferences. He hosts and curates many artistic events that feature poetry and music at his campus or in the community. He is also a poet and writes about his barrio upbringing, his community, his culture, and his Chicano identity. He has a self-published collection with three other Inland Empire poets, Tacos de Lengua. His full length collection of poetry, Touch the Sky, was published in 2023 by El Martillo Press. He loves the outdoors and is inspired by music and books and other artistic expressions, and his children, Gabriel and Abigail. He was recently recognized as the Distinguished Faculty of the Year at Santa Ana College in 2024. 

  • Sandy Shakes is a spoken truth artist homegrown in Boyle Heights. She has shared microphones all over LA county, San Diego, New Mexico, and El Paso. She has collaborated and performed for many poetic organizations and has had her work honored in their powerful anthologies. In the last few years, she has led poetry workshops, spoken in classrooms, and has had her stories featured in up-and-coming podcasts. In 2024 she released her first poetry chapbook baptized “Scribble Scrabbles”. You can follow all her upcoming projects and performances on 
  • Karla Cordero is the author of the debut poetry collection How To Pull Apart The Earth, a San Diego Book Award winner and a finalist for the International Latino Book Award. Her work has appeared in NPR, Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, Split This Rock, The Oprah Magazine, PANK, The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4 LatiNext Anthology, among other publications. Cordero is the recipient of the COURAGE to WRITE Writer of Note from The deGroot Foundation and the California Arts Fellowship. She is a professor of composition and creative writing at MiraCosta College and San Diego City College and the Executive Director for the non-profit art organization Glassless Minds.
  • Gabriela Ramos is a fifteen-year-old Chicana poet, artist, and student born and raised in the Inland Empire. She has written poetry for the past 5 years and regularly performs at community spaces in San Bernardino like Creative Grounds & Barrio Fuerza. As a multimedia artist, Gabriela mixes poetry into her art pieces and aims to grow up to be an artist. Her older brother Erick and mentor Alma Rivera were big inspirations in teaching her to use writing as a form of expression.
  • Amanda Jade is a Chicana poet, songwriter, singer, and hip-hop artist based in the IE. She has been utilizing her gifts over the past ten years as medicine in the form of prayer songs. In her indigenous ancestral traditions as a curandera, she carries the medicine to heal with the breath and with the right ear. Amanda is the owner of Keep Your Crown Right® salon & community space located on Yuhaaviatam/Maarenga’yam land, also known as San Bernardino California, where she provides a holistic space to support BIPOC folks to reconnect to their crown & ancestral practices connected to the hair & the head. She has spoken at Cal. State Dominguez Hills on social entrepreneurship and at the Riverside Eminence Barber Academy. Her intention is to walk authentically in her medicine, sharing the healing and wisdom gained from her lived experiences, as well as the ancestral teachings received by her elders & teachers in efforts to remind others of their own unique and beautiful medicine they have to offer.

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