march 5th at the elbo room

This month’s art by the fabulous Gabrielle Wilson-Sealy. Do you know this person? (For) Real.

Fresh out of our wonderful first flash out of town and into the Poetry Festival Santa Cruz we are heading back to the Elbo Room for the first time since June 4 2010 for our first Neighborhood Heroes show. Wow, right? (That was 20 shows ago!)

Catch up on the last show—read it, watch it, read about it—here. The artist for last month’s sparkle + blink was Pierre Merkl aka Mr. Lucky, who will be reading at the ‘bo on March 5! Here’s the lineup:
With special guest Miles Karp of The Suex Effect!
Details: Elbo Room | 647 Valencia St | $5 suggested
Doors @ 7pm, show at 7:30

 

ALSO

As of March 8th, we’re  tax exempt.

We’re brainstorming party ideas. Stay tuned.

Submissions for our April 2nd show are open through Wednesday, Mar 14th. Location TBA.

poetry festival santa cruz and the dot . dot

Let’s say you have a plot of land, and in this plot you plant seeds. The seeds grow into plants, the plants flower, and the creatures surrounding this plot begin to flourish. Yet the fruit flowers.

You get a phone call. Talk of these critters’ congregations evoke the orgiastic. It was an e-mail. Interest in your plot, in the fruits, in the seeds—what is this?

The moment is upon us: we have been asked to bring our show to another city. Morphic resonance, every month we phone elsewhere; even our we is elusive. To the Cocoanut Grove! To Poetry Festival Santa Cruz! To “a new birth of American poetry.”

For the first time in 30 years. For the first time ever.

You coming? …

Art by Pierre Merkl, aka Mr. Lucky

Curated by Chris Cole and Meghan Thornton

Can’t make it? Can and want to follow along? Get your copy now: sparkle + blink 3.3

… If you are, please RSVP and comment how you plan to get there. We’re going to meet up and drive down in a caravan, so let us know if you need a ride by this Friday (the 3rd) and we’ll try to find you a spot. If you have a car, we’d love to cram poets into your backseats and give you gas money. Also, we have a limited number of guest passes we can offer to the first few who offer their cars!

The entire festival costs $12.50, and you can pre-order tix here.

Find links to the 40 performers here [scroll down past the pix].

Next up: Monday, March 5th at the Elbo Room

Now acceptingSubmissions [through Wed, Feb 15th], Ideas

deluxe footage + quiet lightning road trip 1

A hearty if delayed internet thank you to everyone who came out to our show this past Monday at Club Deluxe. What an incredible venue that was for Quiet Lightning. We started things off with some jazz by some of the finest musicians who frequent Deluxe (find them especially on the days in parentheses, though not only then). We’d like to thank each separately:

Danny Brown on saxophone (Saturdays)
Danny Grewen on trombone (Saturdays)
Michael Parsons on piano (Tuesdays)
Eugene Warren on bass (Thursdays)
Ulf Bjorkbom on drums (Saturdays)

As always, you can read the entire show online for free. Here’s a link. For future reference, you can always come to our website and click on the dropdown menu entitled “READ” and select the show you’d like. Every single show is archived here!

You can also watch videos of the show here. For future reference, or to watch some of our previous shows now, select the dropdown entitled “WATCH” and select your show of choice. You can decide which by checking out our “Readers” page to see who contributed to each show; you can also follow links from that page to each author to find out more information about them.

Soon, you’ll be able to listen to this show as a podcast. Stay tuned for that…

And finally, we’d like to thank this month’s artist, Molly Campbell. Do check out her work, it’s really lovely and she’s very easy to work with.

Poetry Festival Santa Cruz

The moment of truth is at hand: for the first time, Quiet Lightning leaves San Francisco! Please join us: this show will be on Sunday, February 12 at Cocoanut Grove as part of the historic – and for the first time in 30 years revived – annual poetry festival. We are accepting submissions through Wednesday, January 18 and providing transportation and/or a traveling stipend to all accepted authors. We of course want to take as many people as possible; if you have a car and are interested in carpooling, please email Meghan (meghan@quietlightning.org) to coordinate; it’s possible we’ll be able to supplement funds. Find out more about the festival’s other acts here (scroll down for links). This is going to be a momentous occasion and we are thrilled to be a part of it!

Share your story

We want to thank everyone who has shared their experiences with and thoughts about Quiet Lightning. We are putting the final touches on our case statement and would love anything you might be able to add. One sentence descriptions of what you love about the series, the story of how you found out about QL and what it has meant to you, or a paragraph about how you met your significant other at one of our shows — it all helps! If you have the time and something to say, please send it in by the 25th to Evan (evan@quietlightning.org).

A final thanks to everyone! Hope to see you soon. If we don’t cross paths before or during our Santa Cruz road trip, maybe we’ll catch you on March 5 at the Elbo Room—our first time there since our first Neighborhood Heroes show back in June ’10. That was a good one, remember?