Like movies and popcorn, jazz and poetry go hand in hand. On May 20, the 4-Star Theater tips its hat to both arts with a screening of The Connection (1961) and a live poetry reading from the 4-Star stage by Bay Area poets, Josiah Luis Alderete and Tatiana Luboviski-Acosta.

The Connection is Shirley Clarike's classic cinema verite look at jazz musicians who are addicted. Clarke was a pioneer in found-footage film and also battled censorship upon the release of The Connection. Her filmography includes the Sam Shepard play, Savage/Love (1981) and Ornette: Made in America (1985).
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Josiah Luis Alderete is a full blooded Spanglish speaking Pocho y left handed callejero de Aztlán who has been part of La Area Bahia’s spoken word scene for over twenty years. He is the curator and host of the long running Latinx reading series Speaking Axolotl and  is the author of two books of poetry “Baby Axolotls & Old Pochos(Black Freighter Press 2021) and the chapbook “Fuchi Faces de los Estados Jodidos” (for The Pueblo 2023). In 2023 he was the Poetry Center’s Mazza Writer in Residence at San Francisco State.  Along with his bookstore sister Tân Khanh Cao, Josiah  tends the portal known as Medicina Para Pesadillas Bookstore y Galeria on 24th street in La Mission.

Tatiana Luboviski-Acosta is a queer Jewish Nicaragüense anarchist, artist, poet, and sexual health educator from the lands of the Tongva people, who is a long term guest on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone land. They are the author of "The Easy Body" (Timeless, Infinite Light, 2017) and "La Movida" (Nightboat Books, 2022), and have been at work on their third book of poetry, "Bleeder/Promise of the Red Decade" (the manuscript of which lives in an Esprit shoebox), for a really long time.