Sparkle Taffy invites you to join us in celebrating the northward equinox with an evening of performances of language and sound. The event is the first in an ongoing series titled Markings, created to commemorate meaningful occurrences and dates. March 20th annually marks the beginning of Spring in the northern hemisphere as the sun crosses north of the equator. The day presents a moment of balance and a period of awakening. We honor this seasonal transition and the growth that follows it. Markings I will feature readings from Adjua Gargi Nzinga Greaves, Imani Elizabeth Jackson, and Chloe Zimmerman along with music from Zach Rowden and AV3 (Alex Valentine).

Adjua Gargi Nzinga Greaves (1980, New York City) writes ethnobotanical literary criticism, and collages detritus into heraldic devices engaging ever expanding networks of reference through the granular analytics of poetic inquiry. Her work has been published, anthologized, exhibited, and reviewed by About Place Journal, The Recluse, Belladonna*, Kore Press, Pinsapo Journal, The Brooklyn Rail, Ugly Duckling Presse, Artists Space, Issue Project Room, Hyperallergic, and 4 Columns. Formerly a Monday Night Reading Series curator at The Poetry Project, site director for Wendy's Subway, and an artist-in-residence at Rauschenberg Residency, Greaves is currently based in Providence, Rhode Island where she is Young Mother of The Florxal Review and a candidate for the MFA in Poetry from the Literary Arts Program at Brown University.

Imani Elizabeth Jackson is a poet from Chicago. Her writings have appeared in Triple Canopy, Apogee, BOMB, Triquarterly, and elsewhere. She’s authored the chapbook saltsitting (g l o s s, 2020), Consider the Tongue (with S*an D. Henry-Smith, 2019), and her first book, Flag, is forthcoming from Futurepoem.

AV3 is the solo musical project of the visual artist Alex Valentine featuring the ephemeral discovery of sound through the construction and performance of patches within a modular synthesizer system.

Zach Rowden (1992, New Haven, CT, USA) deals with the acoustic and performative possibilities of the upright/electric bass & violin.

Chloe Zimmerman is an artist, writer and educator engaging with ecologies, documentary poetics and collaborative learning and making across disciplines. She is currently based in Providence, RI, where she is an MFA candidate at Brown University.

The event is free and open with a sliding scale donation between $5 and $20 requested at the event. All proceeds from donations go directly to the visiting performers and can be made through Venmo or with cash.