As part of San José Poetry Festival 2020, An Evening with Sabrina Benaim looks to be a spotlight on the life and poetry of a young, renown performance poet and poetry slam champion—from a slightly more international vantage point (without leaving the continent). Our opening poets for the evening will be selected youth poets from around the Santa Clara Valley.

This is Day Two of our six-day festival! Check out this list of all the events that are part of the sixth annual San José Poetry Festival or get a festival pass. Help support Poetry Center San José by becoming a member.

Sabrina Benaim is a 32-year-old poet from Toronto, Canada. She is one of the most-viewed spoken word poets of all time and is author of the bestselling collection of poetry Depression and Other Magic Tricks. Her videos have reached over 100 million people. Sabrina has toured Australia, the UK, Canada, and the USA with her live shows, which are poetry readings gone electric. While the subject matter can veer into difficult territory, it is with truth and from experience that Sabrina is able to navigate through her mental illness journey with a wild sense of humor and frank discussion to leave her audience feeling comforted and uplifted. She has been a guest on CBC’s q with Tom Power, has written for SONY, ESPNW, and made her television debut writing and voicing a national commercial for the 2016 Olympics. Sabrina believes in breaking down stigma around mental illness, women helping women, and ghosts. She lives with her dog Mabel.

Anouk Yeh is sixteen from Saratoga, California. She believes that in politically polarizing times where opposing sides seem reluctant to foster authentic conversations with one another, poetry has the power to heal, move, and connect. Yeh’s work has been recognized by the National YoungArts Foundation and Scholastic Art and Writing. She has been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Youth Speak’s “United” Anthology, the Reappropriate Journal, and the International Congress of Youth Voices’ “What We Seek” Anthology, and she has spoken after prominent figures including Congresswoman Anna Eshoo and peace activist Ela Gandhi.

Sarah Fathima Mohammed is a Muslim-American emerging writer from the San Francisco Bay Area. She is fascinated with poetry as a means of fostering empowerment for her immigrant Muslim community and raising awareness around the presence of Islamophobia. She has been recognized by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers and the National Poetry Quarterly’s Editors’ Choice Prize. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Canvas Literary Journal, Rattle, Blue Marble Review, The Rising Phoenix Review, Apprentice Writer, and elsewhere. When she is not writing, she serves as managing editor for The Aurora Review and reads for Polyphony Lit.

San José Poetry Festival 2020

Want more poetry? Check out the rest of the San José Poetry Festival 2020 lineup. The sixth annual San José Poetry Festival celebrates our community’s diverse ethnic and cultural heritage with a wide range of topics and literary styles reflected in performances, workshops, and a small press fair. This year, the festival will move online to keep our community safe while keeping us all connected.

San José Poetry Festival 2020 is presented by Poetry Center San José and is sponsored in part by: Festival and Cultural Affairs grants from the City of San José; a grant from SVCreates, in partnership with the County of Santa Clara and the California Arts Council; funding from Poets & Writers; and with support from Anne & Mark's Art Party and The Center for Literary Arts. We would like to acknowledge and offer our deepest gratitude to our originally booked live venues for this festival: the Art Boutiki, Books Inc., Caravan Lounge, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, Forager, History/San José, Recycle Bookstore, and Works/San José.

Follow Poetry Center San José on Facebook and Twitter for announcements about performers and events as we get closer to the festival. Also, hear about other amazing South Bay poetry events!