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The Linda J. Albertano Fellowship is named in honor of the late Linda J. Albertano, a poet and legendary performance artist who worked closely with members of the Beyond Baroque community throughout her career until her passing in 2022. To further her legacy, Beyond Baroque has established a fellowship that will continue her commitment to supporting women and non-binary poets, and her spirit of artistic experimentation.
Through this fellowship, Beyond Baroque seeks to support emerging women and non-binary poets who are interested in developing their artistic practice. The fellowship, which will be awarded annually, allows one Southern California-based woman or non-binary poet to enroll in all Beyond Baroque workshops for free by providing $1,000 in credits, which are valid for two years. In addition, the fellow will be given the opportunity to read at Beyond Baroque, curate a Beyond Baroque event with a programs budget, and be paid to facilitate Beyond Baroque’s historic Wednesday Night Poetry Workshop for three months in the spring following the award. In 2025 we have selected Nikki Ochoa to be our Linda J. Albertano Poetry Fellow! 
Nikki Ochoa is a poet, sculptor, and sound artist. She is an ancient baby from Kudzu covered forests, painted deserts, and glistening oceans. Her practice is rooted in a deep commitment to experimenting with diverse forms, to confront and resist dominant cultural paradigms while playing with language, sound, expectation, and space. Nikki explores loving irreverence through abstracted poetic narratives. She holds a BA in English and Creative Writing from UCLA and an MFA in Experimental Sound Practices + Creative Writing from CalArts. She directs Punitive Worm, a collaborative, multidisciplinary performance entity rooted in live improvisational sound, poetics + theater, and "no wave" music, emphasizing spontaneity while challenging false authority. Punitive Worm explores raw energetic expressionism in every incarnation of the work, each piece performed only once, and calling in a wide array of performers and non performers alike. Her work is constantly evolving, always with the centrifuge of making poetry that exists in physical space as the aim. She works with textiles, welded steel, clay, movement, and respected friends who share similar visions. She is inspired by poets of color and their ability to face disappearing with anarchist and alternative narratives brought forth by word. How can the colonization of art and people be combated? With, “Poems that shoot guns,” as Amiri Baraka writes, “Poems are bullshit unless they are teeth or trees or lemons piled on a step.” Nikki also works with Tooth Lifeless, a performance art group based in Atlanta Georgia. She believes in storytelling as a radical and spiritual act, one that builds agency and poetic landscapes that honor memory, and activate a vision for the future. She is motivated by the desire to contribute to the advancement of access and resources for POC communities, to make work that speaks to the resilience and beauty of these communities, while creating new modes of expression and solidarity. In all aspects of her practice, she strives to make work that is not only seen and heard, but felt. In 2024 our inaugural Linda J. Albertano Poetry Fellow was abbi page 
abbi page (they/she) is a Jamaican-American interdisciplinary writer, filmmaker, and performer. their creative, critical-theoretical practice explores “the unimaginable metaphysics of black livingness” (Tiffany Lethabo King). they graduated from Brown University with a B.A. in Africana Studies and Literary Arts, with honors as an Mellon Mays Undergraduate Research Fellow. they’re pursuing MFAs in Creative Writing and Film/Video at CalArts where they also work as a peer writing tutor and a teaching assistant. they’re a recipient of the Truman Capote Literary Trust Fellowship, the Ethel Robinson Award for Creative Research, as well as a member of Phi Beta Kappa and The Haus of Glitter Performance Lab. ABOUT LINDA J. ALBERTANO Linda J. Albertano was an acclaimed performance artist who appeared on more than a dozen spoken-word albums including her solo CD, Skin. From 1980 onward, she unleashed her vocabulary at countless language meccas in Europe as well as America, at venues including the John Anson Ford Theater, Lollapalooza, and South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. She was among those representing Los Angeles at the One World Poetry Fest in Amsterdam and also performed in London and Edinburgh. Selected by the Los Angeles Theatre Center, she unveiled a full-length original work Joan of Compton, complete with poets, dancers, and a 30-piece marching band from South Central Los Angeles. For the Santa Monica Arts Council, she mounted Calisaladia–a condensed history of California–with a large multicultural cast on the beach in Ocean Park. With Anne Waldman, Lewis MacAdams, and others, Albertano presented at Allen Ginsberg’s Memorial at the Wadsworth Theater. She’s featured on the Venice Poetry Monument with such local notables as Wanda Coleman and Charles Bukowski. In the new millennium, she studied West African music and instruments with traditional masters in Conakry, Guinea, returning to perform in Los Angeles for more than a decade, including at The Getty, Royce Hall, California Plaza, and the World Festival of Sacred Music, with kora (West African harp) virtuoso Prince Diabate. |