Culture Sonar Saint Flashlight interview on Calling the World: “Because of the Coronavirus, Molly and I weren’t able to sift through the Poetry Society’s entire archive in person so she focused on Soundcloud while I went to YouTube and the PSA website. Given the heavy rotation European poets get stateside, we were definitely drawn to countering this ongoing bias by ensuring we had writers from Africa and Asia too.” –Drew Pisarra
Poetry Society of America Saint Flashlight interview on Movie Marquee Poems: “After the first round of poems were on view in early July, including my haiku on “She’s Gotta Have It,” we received a message from Spike Lee’s office. Getting over my nervous excitement, I called and the staff member said Lee liked the poem. That was a thrill to hear.” –Molly Gross
New York Post on Movie Marquee Poems: “I heard people counting the syllables in each line of one poem and then proclaiming, ‘It’s a haiku!’ … The weirdest reaction I remember was someone asking if they could take a letter … The answer was no.” –Drew Pisarra
New York Times on Movie Marquee Poems: “The local artists Drew Pisarra and Molly Gross, childhood friends who go by the moniker Saint Flashlight, have been curating the movie-inspired poetry on a monthly basis and installing it letter by letter to keep the neighborhood entertained. August included tributes to “Moonstruck,” “Blue in the Face” and “Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.””
Sacred Chicken blog Saint Flashlight Interview:
Drew: In some ways Saint Flashlight is an extension of our friendship. Molly and I have had an creative partnership dating back to junior high when we used to sketch portraits in my family’s basement or paint sets for a children’s theater production. The roots of Saint Flashlight specifically date back to an installation we did at Crest Hardware in Williamsburg where we wrote haiku about tools in electric tape on the walls. I confess I had one syllable too many in one of my lines but Molly’s was perfect.
Molly: Echoing what Drew said above, Saint Flashlight has evolved into a public and formal way for us to share our private, playful conversations and creative exchanges. Even the way we came up with the name is an example of our dialogue, with Drew choosing “Saint” and me picking “Flashlight’ to create a word collage that is both mysterious and odd. Having a creative partner who both makes me laugh until I cry and challenges my assumptions about what we can do, has been a beautiful foundation for our Saint Flashlight projects.Saint Flashlight on The Lost Poem and contributors: “We’ve really looked at the surrounding communities for each project too. For O, Miami, we had poems in Spanish and Creole as well as English. For Free Verse, we unearthed some dead poets from South Carolina’s past: DuBose Heyward and Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer. We also did a contest on Twitter to get submissions so I’d definitely encourage people to follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram via @saintflashlight. You don’t need to be a poet either. Our contributors have included visual artist Nina Katchadourian, theater publicist Jennifer Lam, and documentary archivist Christine Fall among others.”