A program of poetry by Charles Curtis Blackwell with improvised musical accompaniment by Sandra Poindexter, Kash Killion, & Donald Griggs is complemented by a celebration of the life and work of the poet Q.R. Hand.

To mark Black History Month at the Tenderloin Museum, Charles Curtis Blackwell has organized an evening of poetry and jazz that features new, improvised work intertwined with a tribute to his friend and fellow poet Q.R. Hand. Presented as part of TLM’s Sounds of the TL series, Tender Musical Tapestries features Blackwell in concert with a trio of improvising musicians–Sandra Poindexter (violin), Kash Killion (cello/bass), and Donald Griggs (trumpet)--plus special guests.

Blackwell is a painter, playwright, and poet who is a pillar of the Tenderloin arts community–his visual art practice has long been centered at the Hospitality House Community Arts Program, and he has organized several “happenings” at the TL Museum that showcase his interdisciplinary approach and invite audiences into dialogue about the Black experience. Jazz often manifests in his work, whether as figurative gestures in his paintings, the rhythm of his verse, or the formal fluidity of his performances.

Hand was a virtuoso poet whose verse was infused with the spirit of jazz and imbued with Black liberation politics–a positionality he termed the “Black Radical Stance.” Originally from Brooklyn, NY, Hand moved to San Francisco in 1970 and was a fixture in the poetry cafes and Bohemian enclaves of North Beach and later the Mission District, where he lived and worked as a community health worker. What is less known is that, for a time, Hand was a resident of the Cadillac Hotel, the building in which the Tenderloin Museum is located and the first SRO to convert into what is now known as permanent supportive housing.

Blackwell and Hand performed together many times over the years and share in a lineage of Black radical jazz-inflected poetry that extends into the present. Blackwell will be joined by special guests to pay homage to the life, verse, and legacy of their friend Q, as well as to celebrate his posthumous volume, Out of Nothing, published November 2023 on Black Freighter Press. The poet, activist, and educator Tongo Eisen-Martin who, as Co-founder and Editor of Black Freighter Press, shepherded Hand’s final book into existence, describes Out of Nothing as “a Sistine Chapel of a book” and Hand as “a biographer of humanity, a really selfless genius.”

Performing poetry with live musicians has been a vital aspect to the creative practices of both Hand and Blackwell; for Tender Musical Tapestries will feature three legends of the Bay Area jazz scene Sandra Poindexter (violin), Kash Killion (cello/bass), and Donald Griggs (trumpet). TLM is honored to host these superlative talents in the Tenderloin and to learn about the work and legacy of Q.R. Hand, one-time resident of the museum’s building and a titan of the SF poetry scene.

This program is made possible by support from the Specified General Fund for the Museum Grant Program under the California Cultural and Historical Endowment.