Poetry Reading and Art Auction to Save Tomas!

Internationally acclaimed poets will be reading and artists will be selling their work to raise money for Tomas Matzat, a UC Davis student who was pepper-sprayed by University Police last year and is now facing $5000 in court fees.

Among the poets performing will be Joe Wenderoth, Juliana Spahr, and Joshua Clover, who has recently curated a new collection of poems call 'The Insurrectionary Turn."

Art is being donated for the silent auction by local and internationally acclaimed artists including Chicano Art Movement figure Malaquias Montoya - and there will also be works available by Tomas himself.

About the Tomas's cause:

After receiving nerve damage in his wrists at the hands of campus police last November, Thomas Matzat, a junior studying art a UC Davis, was arrested from his dorm room this spring and held for several days. After a trial in which it was shown that police lied about evidence, Tomas is now facing $5000 in fines for dubious vandalism charges. To learn more:

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/08/24/18720187.php

Now acclaimed poets and artists are putting on this amazing even to help pay Tomas' legal fees.

Come to Davis on Thursday to hear poetry of protest by some of the finest writers of our time, and see some incredible art!

To bid in the silent art auction: http://davisantirepressioncrew.org/?cat=6

100% of the proceeds will go towards Tomas' legal fees.

This event is a special edition of Poetry Night, an ongoing poetry series in Davis.

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To read one of Joshua Clover's poems of protest: http://theamericanreader.com/the-insurrectionary-turn-cont/

An online gallery of Malaquias Montoya's work can be viewed here: http://www.malaquiasmontoya.com/prints0.php