LAVA’s 42nd Sunday Salon
Please note that, due to limited room capacity, attendees must register to attend the LAVA Sunday Salon. To sign up for this free event: First register as a user on this site, or login to your existing account and then return to this page. Refresh the page and the signup field will appear just to the left of this text. Enter your email address. No plus-ones; each guest must register individually. If you find you are unable to attend, please return to this page and cancel your reservation. Also, note that the Sunday Salon has a new time slot: 2-4pm.
Join poet and memoirist Joan Jobe Smith for an afternoon of poetry & storytelling at the LAVA Sunday Salon. The newly published Tales of An Ancient Go-Go Girl by long-time Long Beach, California resident Joan Jobe Smith, is a picaresque True Tale, a 50-year Glotessey spanning the 1965 Los Angeles Watts Riots, near death at the hands of a homicidal ex-husband, the counter-culture go-go swinging let-it-all-hang-out 1960s-‘70s, single Motherhood and Feminism. Rarely does a natural poet and historian such as Joan Jobe Smith endure such ordeals and challenges and survive to tell the tale. It is a Tale written with go-going panache and patois, and heart, courage and humor to make our lives richer and wiser. The event will be a series of short Q&As with LAVA’s Richard Schave on milestones from the memoir, punctuated by Joan reading poetry selections which span her career.
Excerpts from 5-Star Reviews of Tales of An Ancient Go-Go Girl:
“Charles Bukowski said the inimitable Joan Jobe Smith’s writing ‘has the reality of force properly put down on paper; she cuts herself loose into the stratosphere.’ Joan’s heart is so damned big. She’s not only cut herself loose into the stratosphere, she takes anyone who wants to go with her along for the ride. And now we have this raw-edged, honest, beauty of a book…” —L. Jakiela, Creative Writing Professor, University of Pittsburgh
“Vividly conjures up the dark shadows and wisecracks of a Film Noir, set in 1960s-‘70s L.A., with a cast of glamourous yet vulnerable dancers, slimy bosses, wharf rats (both rodents, ex-husband and customers) with walk-ons by celebrities (Dick Dale, Ike and Tina Turner) amongst the burgeoning pop music and drug counter-culture of the era. Energized by Joan Jobe Smith’s poetic eye and exuberant syntax, these true Tales will enthrall readers, revealing its author as a brilliant chronicler of her Noir-ish life and times.“—Jules Smith, London’s Times Literary Supplement
“I just finished reading Joan Jobe Smith’s Tales of An Ancient Go-Go Girl. She has such a descriptive, poetic talent for words as she weaves her true life tales of love, jealousy, near murder and trials. Bukowski advised her to write about her go-go girl years. I admire her ability to bring scenes from the ’60s and ’70s so vividly to life.”–Linda King
