A Special Chinatown Moon Festival Program for All Ages
Sunday, September 27, 2026
2:00pm – 4:00pm
Chinatown Meeting Room
Chinatown/Him Mark Lai Branch
1135 Powell Street, San Francisco, CA 94108
Genny Lim, the 9th Poet Laureate of San Francisco, presents FACING THE MOON in celebration of the Chinese Moon Festival, featuring the internationally renowned Del Sol Quartet and youth poets Katelyn Wong and Naia Chien.
The free event kicks off Lim’s WORDS WITHOUT WALLS series, sponsored by SFPL and the Academy of American Poets, which awarded Lim a national fellowship. This event is suitable for all ages.
Enjoy a special celebration of music and poetry at the Chinatown/Him Mark Lai Branch Library, before the facility closes for renovation later this Fall.
Genny Lim is the 9th San Francisco Poet Laureate and former San Francisco Jazz Poet Laureate. She was a former SF Arts Commissioner and the recipient of two lifetime achievement awards from Berkeley, California and Pen Oakland Writers, as well as the Spirit of Angel Island Award from the Angel Island Immigration Foundation for her translations of the Chinese poems written and carved on the walls of the Angel Island Chinese Immigration Station, published in the American Book Award winning book, Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, with Him Mark Lai and Judy Yung. Her play, Paper Angels, was the first Asian American play to air on PBS’s American Playhouse in 1985. She is the author of several poetry collections, Child of War, Paper Gods & Rebels and KRA!, and forthcoming in April 2027, Music Without Walls, City Lights Books.
San Francisco’s Del Sol Quartet (Music) believes that music can, and should, happen anywhere – screaming out Aeryn Santillan’s Makeshift Memorials from a Mission District sidewalk or a rural high school, bouncing Ben Johnston’s microtonal Americana off the canyon walls of the Yampa River or the hallowed walls of Library of Congress, bringing California immigrant poetry to life inside the Angel Island detention barracks or the Singapore International Arts Festival. Del Sol’s performances provide the possibility for unexpected discovery, sparking dialogue and bringing people together. delsolquartet.com
Katelyn Wong, Youth Poet
Naia Chien, Youth Poet
The San Francisco Youth Poet Laureate program supports the development of a dynamic cohort of youth poets who will represent their city through their art and civic engagement. The cohort will include 10–15 young writers (14–19 years old) who will participate in an advanced workshop series every two weeks in San Francisco from September 2026 through February 2027. Youth Poet will serve as culture ambassadors for our city, building on the City and County of San Francisco’s longstanding tradition of appointing a San Francisco Poet Laureate and Drag Laureate.
Words Without Walls will strengthen engagement with San Francisco’s youth poets and the general public, while supporting creative expression and civic engagement for all participants. Words Without Walls, a dynamic community-building workshop series, will amplify youth voice through a collective multi-generational artistic response. Building upon the Living Poets Society poetry reading series (curated by Genny in collaboration with Youth Speaks and 826 Valencia), San Francisco’s Youth Poet Laureate cohort will explore cross-disciplinary responses to writing with Genny and collaborating artists and established poets.
Six multidisciplinary poetry-writing workshops will be hosted in branch library locations around the city. These workshops, calendared in response to civic and cultural observances, will be free and open to the public. Participants will explore how the languages of the arts can help to free the written word beyond the confines of the page.
Words Without Walls will culminate with a performance at the Main Library, featuring Poet Laureate Genny Lim, the youth poets, and collaborating artists. This creative response to poetry by a diverse community reflective of San Francisco’s rich literary legacy, will be recorded, presented, and archived online.
The program is made possible by the generous support of the Academy of American Poets and the Mellon Foundation.