The LAVA Sunday Salon is delighted to welcome back the esteemed poet and educator Suzanne Lummis as she curates a third series of Poem Noir readings.

Starting in the basement of Grand Central Market, Suzanne will describe the defining characteristics of this poetry, whose dark themes, atmosphere, and voice of cool detachment are inspired by the low budget black-and-white crime movies of the 1940s and 1950s. Then we’ll move across the street to the Bradbury Building for the Poem Noir readings, presented by a star-studded lineup of poets.

ABOUT THE SALON: On the last Sunday of the month starting at 2pm, LAVA welcomes interested individuals to gather in downtown Los Angeles for the Sunday Salon, featuring a presentation by a LAVA Visionary and opportunities to meet and connect with one another. Immediately after the Salon, a walking tour expands on the Salon theme. If you’re interested in joining LAVA as a creative contributor or an attendee, we recommend Salon attendance as an introduction to this growing community.

Presenters

D. W. JACOBS is a playwright, director, actor and poet. He wrote R. Buckminster Fuller: THE HISTORY (and Mystery) OF THE UNIVERSE, a play based on the life, work and writings of Buckminster Fuller. This play has had over 1,000 performances in Southern California, San Francisco, Chicago, Portland, Seattle, Santa Fe, Boston/Cambridge, Washington, D.C., Asheville, N.C., Atlanta, Montreal and Poland. Jacobs has twice lectured on Fuller at the Wrocław University of Technology in Poland. He lives in Highland Park, Los Angeles, where he co-founded TEATRO ARROYO // Theater Stream (a performance division of the Arroyo Arts Collective.) He also co-founded San Diego Repertory Theatre, where he served as Artistic Director for 20 years.

BETH RUSCIO is part of a large working class family of artists, actors, writers and vaudevillians. She’s a poet, an accomplished award-winning actress (upcoming in the romantic comedy feature film The Unicorn) and a one-time playwright, co-writing 1961 Eldorado with husband Leon Martell. In 2016, her manuscript Hollywood Forever Cemetery won both Honorable Mention for The Two Sylvias Prize, and was a finalist for the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize (Tupelo Press). Her work has appeared in California Journal of Poetics, Tupelo Quarterly, Cultural Weekly, The Malpais Review, In Posse Review, Spillway, Speechless the Magazine, and is anthologized in Beyond The Lyric Moment; Poet’s Calendar; Conducting A Life: Maria Irene Fornes and upcoming in 1001 Nights. She will read from her newest manuscript on KPFK’s broadcast of Why Poetry on February 18 at 4:30PM.

SUZANNE LUMMIS (organizer) has for many years been one of the best-known poets associated with California and the Los Angeles region, and is among those poets exploring the “poem noir.” She created and teaches a class “poem noir.” She created and teaches a class for the UCLA Extension Writers Program, “Poetry Goes to the Movies: Writing the Poem Noir,” and her essays “The Poem Noir: Too Dark to be Depressed,” and “Never Out of the Past: Noir and the Poetry of Lynda Hull” were published by Malpais Review and The Los Angeles Review of Books respectively. They Write by Night, her video series produced by www.Poetry.LA, will debut in February. Lummis’ most recent poetry collection, Open 24 Hours, received the Blue Lynx Poetry Prize.

Fanny Daubigny is a writer, critic and translator. She is the author of numerous articles on Marcel Proust, J.M.G LeClézio and Marthe Bibesco and her articles have appeared in numerous literary reviews such as, Los Angeles Review of Books, French Forum, Bulletin des Amis de Marcel Proust. Her genre-bending essay ‘Proust in Black’ (Notes on LA noir) will be published in the Fall by SDSU Press. She is currently working on the translation of the poetry of Suzanne Lummis. She lives in Los Angeles.

RESERVATIONS: The LAVA Sunday Salon and walking tour are free, but reservations are required. There are no “plus ones,” so tell your friends to sign up individually. Please don’t reserve unless you plan to attend. To reserve your spot for this free event, click on the “Buy Tickets” button above.