THURSDAY, SEPT. 11 at 7 P.M.

Jerry Martien and the Usual Suspects

Arcata Playhouse

Jerry Martien will reunite with The Usual Suspects for a performance of citizen poetry on Thursday, September 11th, at the Arcata Playhouse. “I chose this catastrophic date, with the decades of fascist reaction that have followed, to call attention to a long tradition of dissenting poetry,” Martien explained. “In my lifetime, poetry has rediscovered that public responsibility. Like music, like all the arts—that’s what we do. We need to raise a beautiful ruckus.”

The Usual Suspects include Fred Neighbor, Gary Davidson, and Mike LaBolle, who have a long history with local bands, including Home Cookin’, and have accompanied Jerry Martien’s poetry for more than a decade.

Martien has read his citizen’s poetry in local bars and public performance spaces since the 1970’s, but also at the gates of the Humboldt Nuclear Plant, at the blockade of the G-O Road, on the County Courthouse steps, and at public meetings. He has responded with poems to a wide range of threats to regional health, from herbicide spray to liquidation logging.

Jerry Martien is the author of several books of poetry, most recently Infrastructure; his nonfiction work includes The Price of a Life and this year’s Waveshock. Books will be for sale at the performance.

The show will begin at 7 p.m. The Arcata Playhouse is at 1251 9th Street, Arcata. Tickets are $18 general/$16 Playhouse Club fans, and are available at the door or online at playhousearts.org.

DATES/TIMES

• Thursday, Sept. 11 : 7 p.m.

WHERE

• Arcata Playhouse

PRICE

• $18