Monday, April 1, 7:30 - 9 p.m. @ SPC

Coffee & Pastries with the Board & Staff of SPC

 

Come hang out and  talk with us! Read us a poem! Give us feedback about what we’re doing and how we might better serve your community.

 

Thursday, April 4, 4 p.m. via Zoom

California State Library Speaker series: Juan Manuel Carrillo

 

My Mother’s Story: A Suite of Art Prints, will be a video presentation with Royal Chicano Air Force Founding Member Juan Manuel Carrillo who will talk about his mother María del Carmen Carrillo Guerrero’s life and how he uses the art of screen printing to tell her story. The suite of eight silk screen prints was created between 2012 and 2014 at TANA Art Center in Woodland. The donated suite adds to the collection of Royal Chicano Air Force prints in the State Library's collection. Using historical photos and his mother’s own words, the prints portray the life of an immigrant woman and her determination to overcome life’s obstacles. For more information or to register, visit https://libraryca.libcal.com/calendar/californiastatelibrary/JuanCarrillo

 

Thursday, April 4 & 18, 7 p.m.

Poetry Night in Davis @ Natsoulas

521 First Street, Davis, CA

 

On Thursday, April 4, The Poetry Night Reading Series is excited to feature Davis Poet Laureate Julia B. Levine and Rebecca Foust at 7 p.m. on the roof of the John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 1st Street in Davis. Please dress warmly. (The April 18 features were not available at press time.) Andy Jones hosts The Poetry Night Reading Series Thursdays at 7 p.m. on the third floor or on the roof — weather permitting —of the John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 First St. in Davis. There is an open mic after the featured performers. Open mic performances will be limited to four minutes or two items, whichever is shorter. The open mic list typically fills by 7 p.m., so arrive early. Organizers recommend mask-wearing. Find out more about the Poetry Night Reading Series in Davis, California by visiting http://www.poetryindavis.com. Invite your friends to sign up for the mailing list.

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Fridays, April 5,12 & 19, 6 - 9 p.m. @ SPC

Write Free Fridays (weekly)

 

SPC offers this open space for reading and writing, hosted by David Loret de Mola.

 

Saturday, April 6, 12 - 4 p.m. @ SPC

Poetry Month Opening Celebration & BBQ

 

*Please join us for a catered -- by Chef Africa & Queen Tings-- serving of goodness and raffles and impromptu poetry recitals and fun! This will be a very informal gathering to meet in the spirit of community and  family. (Grilling changed dues to weather concerns.)

 

Sundays April 7, 14, 21 & 28 at 12 p.m. @ McKinley Park

First Church Of Poetry (weekly) Hosted by Andru Defeye and Diamond Key

 

The First Church of Poetry is a community activation powered by Sacramento creatives across disciplines, mediums, and  genres which joins each week in April and May for an open mic with featured readers who will inspire you. McKinley Ave and H Streets, west of the Rose Garden.

 

Sunday, April 7, 4 p.m. @ SPC

The SOFT OFFS: Concert & SPC Fundraiser (donation)

 

The popular “Moetry” band returns for their annual good time fundraiser at SPC. The Soft Offs are an eclectic spoken word band that takes the written word from page to stage with energetic performances throughout the Sacramento area. We turn haters of poetry into lovers of “MOETRY” (poetry + music = MOETRY). The Soft Offs are: Laura Martin, poet; Chris Musci, guitar; Greg Willett, keyboards; Bill F. McFall, trumpet; Anthony Lucero, drums; Ken Rabiroff, bass; and Timothy "Mudbone" Tucker, vocals. https://www.facebook.com/TheSoftOffs/

 

Sundays, April 7, 14, 21 &  28 at 8 p.m. @ The Torch Club

LabRats Sunday Sessions Music and  Poetry Jam (weekly)

904 15th St, Sacramento, CA

 

Bring your axes and  words and  join in on this open space for musical and  poetic creativity.

 

Monday, April  8, 7:30 p.m. @ SPC

Youth Open Mic

 

This popular monthly SPC feature, in support of younger poets, is hosted by poets and SPC Board members Coon The Poet and Diamond Key.

 

Saturday, April 13, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.  @ SPC

Toward Accessible Theater: Improvised Theatrical Performance

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This workshop, presented by Short Center Repertory, and featuring performers who are neurodivergent or developmentally disabled, will explore the use of Lecoq theatrical clown technique as a means to bypass cognitive interpretations and inner critics, and directly access one’s creative source. The workshop also features conversation with the theater artists and counselors from participating service programs. The workshop is sponsored by StarPointe Consulting. For more information, contact Jim Anderson at 916-205-2674. https://shortcenterrepertory.org/         

 

Saturday, April 13, 9 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Sierra Poetry Festival

The Center for the Arts, 314 W Main Street, Grass Valley, CA

 

Workshops and  readings with Jane Hirshfield, Ross Gay, Molly Fisk, Jason Bayani, Maxima Kahn, CharRon Smith and others at The Center for the Arts in Grass Valley. Tickets: $35/$25

Sierra Poetry Festival is a project of the Nevada County Arts Council. Sierra Poetry Festival marks National Poetry Month by bringing a rich literary community together to celebrate the spoken word and reach out to new audiences in fresh ways. Sierra Poetry Festival also celebrates California Arts, Culture and Creativity Month. https://www.sierrapoetryfestival.org/2024-program. (While this isn't technically part of SPC's festival, we want to offer support to our fellow poetry workers. And CharRon Smith, the VP of SPC is on the roster!)

 

Saturday, April 13, 11:30 a.m. - 2:30.p.m. @ 916 Ink

Write on Time: Letters Crafted with Care

3301 37th Ave, #15 Sacramento, CA

 

This event focuses on offering words of hope and light to our incarcerated youth, adults, and loved ones, and will be led by KamikaSpeaks and Experience M86. @ 916 Ink Imaginarium

https://tinyurl.com/letterswriteontime

 

Sunday, April 14, 2 - 5 p.m. @ SPC

Poetry Writing Workshops

 

Traci Gourdine: The Poetry of Place, 2 p.m.

This workshop will guide participants through the exploration and expression of place. We will look at a series of poems from Sekou Sundiata, Kevin Young, Carl Sandburg, and others. The poems will provide a look at time, place and personality rather than a static expression. Place can evoke memory and emotion. Through a series of steps, participants will create and share (if they would like) their poem of place. There is room for 15 – 20 participants (write to spcog97@gmail.com to reserve a spot. Walk-ins are welcome as space allows).

 

Vincent Kobelt: The Practice of Poetry, 3:30 p.m.

This workshop on the Practice of Poetry, looks at finding your voice and the importance of that, discussing ways of reading to contextualize, familiarize, and formalize your poetry, and setting up a schedule for the muses to visit. And finally, review the art of rewriting, revisiting and rehashing your work. There is room for 15 – 20 participants (write to spcog97@gmail.com to reserve a spot. Walk-ins are welcome as space allows).

 

Monday, April 15, 7:30 p.m. @ SPC

HOWL AGAIN!  Revisiting the 1955 6 Gallery Reading

 

This event is a revisitation of the legendary 1955 6 Gallery Event in San Francisco which launched the Beat Generation (and the obscenity trial of Howl) with Stan Padilla, Ian Padilla, Traci Gourdine, Juan Carrillo, Oswaldo Vargas, Candice Lamarche, Cameron McHenry, and  Patrick Grizzell. The group will recite the works performed at the original event which featured the first reading of Howl by Allen Ginsberg as well as work by Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, Philip Whalen and  Philip Lamantia (who read poems by the late John Hoffman).

 

Tuesday, April 16, 6:30 p.m.

Book Release Reading at Wild Sisters Book Company

3325 Folsom Blvd., Sacramento, CA

 

This event celebrates Noelle Bagance's new collection, Best Supporting Actress, with Oswaldo Vargas joining in for the festivities. Wild Sisters has a real community focus, offering book clubs, events, tutoring for kids, and much more. https://www.wildsistersbookco.com/

 

Wednesday, April 17, 9 p.m.

Open Mic at The Roux (at Gumbo King)

2201 Northgate Blvd Ste F, Sacramento, CA

 

The featured reader for April 17 at the popular Roux show will be Khiry Malik, followed by an open mic, and hosted by Russell Cummings, $5 admission.

 

Thursday, April 18, 7- 8 p.m.

Crocker Art Museum Open Poetry Night

216 O St, Sacramento, CA

 

Celebrate Sacramento’s history and tradition of spoken and written word at this dynamic evening of art and performance. Enjoy performances by Sacramento Poet Laureate Andru Defeye and Spoken Word Poet, Recording Artist, Youth Mentor,  and Motivational Speaker Coon the Poet followed by an open mic. Open mic sign-ups begin at 6 p.m. Please contact TheGreatJoyHunt@gmail.com if you would like to be added to the guest list. (Scale $0-15)

https://www.crockerart.org/events/1915/open-poetry-night-1915

 

Thursday, April 18, 6:30 p.m. @ RFDC

Speak Your Peace Open Mic

766 Darina Ave, Sacramento, CA

 

Roberts Family Development Center provides services to the Greater Sacramento area that meet the individual needs of each family member. Their services provide a holistic approach focusing on PreK-12th grade academic support and enrichment, parent education and engagement, and community involvement and advocacy. https://robertsfdc.org/

 

Friday, April 19, 6:30-9:30 p.m.  @ Sol Collective

Opus Open Mic @ Sol Collective

2574 21st Street, Sacramento, CA

 

Hosted by Chloe Williams, poet, advocate, activist, and national event coordinator. She first read her work at Sol Collective years ago, subsequently published her first book Opus, and now hosts Opus Open Mic on Second Sundays of the month at the Joyce Gordon Gallery in Oakland with her immersive art experience, and now returns to Sol for Poetry Month. Keep up with Chloe on opusopenmic.com. https://solcollective.org/

 

Friday, April 19, 6:30 p.m.  @ Seat at the Table

Open Mic at A Seat At The Table Bookstore

9257 Laguna Springs Dr #130, Elk Grove, CA

 

A Seat at the Table is a bookstore as well as a community advocacy effort. A Seat at the Table Community Initiative works in partnership with ASATTB to complete and expand their mission-driven work and give everyone a seat at the table in Elk Grove and the Sacramento area. They have joined many bookstores around the country in adopting this hybrid business/nonprofit model to best meet their community's needs for literacy and community connection, and are proud to be a fiscally sponsored project of The Giving Back Fund, a nonprofit that ensures that every expense aligns with a charitable purpose. They have been taking donations in-store for Palestinian Children's Relief Fund and donating proceeds from selected books to PCRF. PCRF is the primary humanitarian organization in Palestine, delivering crucial and life-saving medical relief and humanitarian aid where it is needed most. https://www.aseatatthetablebooks.org/

 

Saturday, April 20, 2 - 3:30 p.m.  @ SPC

Sacramento Storytellers Group Monthly program theme: Liar’s Contest

 

The Sacramento Storytellers Guild promotes the art of quality storytelling through performance, education and community interaction, and provides support to storytellers through storytelling venues, training, and informational programs, as well as storytelling resources through educational programs, training, research, productions, and referrals.  Their April program, Liar’s Contest, offers $100, $50 prizes for winners! https://sacramentostorytellersguild.org/

 

Saturday, April 20, 7 p.m. @ SPC

A Reading featuring legendary Nevada County Poet Laureate Emeritus Molly Fisk, and  Francesca Bell, the sitting Poet Laureate of Marin. 

 

SPC is excited to have these two poets in the house for Poetry Month! Molly Fisk edited California Fire and  Water, A Climate Crisis Anthology, with a Poets Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets. Author of The More Difficult Beauty, Listening to Winter, and five volumes of radio commentary, her new collection Walking Wheel is forthcoming from Red Hen Press. Fisk, who lives in Nevada City, has won grants from the NEA, the California Arts Council, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. She was the inaugural Poet Laureate of Nevada County.

 

Francesca Bell is the author of Bright Stain, a finalist for the Washington State Book Award and the Julie Suk Award, and What Small Sound, and the translator of Max Sessner’s Whoever Drowned Here, all from Red Hen Press. Her work appears in ELLE, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Rattle. She is the Poet Laureate of Marin County, the events coordinator for the Marin Poetry Center, a translation editor at the Los Angeles Review, and the Arts Program Coordinator for the Friends of the San Quentin Prison Library.

 

Sunday, April 21, 6 p.m. @ SPC

Tule Review Release Reading @ SPC

 

The Poetry Center celebrates the return of SPC’s annual anthology. Editor-in-chief Susan Kelly-DeWitt (to whom we are extremely grateful for taking on the task) will be joined by contributors to the issue. The journal, founded in 1993 by Patrick Grizzell, Mary Zeppa and  Julia Connor, premiered as a tabloid publication. Over the years, the format has changed, but Tule has maintained its commitment to publishing work representative of the best of the literary arts. And it’s back — thanks to Susan and the contributors!

 

Sunday, April 21, 11 a.m. - 4 p.m.

ECOS Earth Day Event

@ South Side Park, 2115 6th St Sacramento, CA

 

Sacramento Earth Day is the largest Earth Day celebration in the Sacramento region. Join ECOS at Southside Park in Sacramento, for a free, family-friendly event, with opportunities to learn and network about sustainability. There will be 150 exhibitors and vendors, and hundreds of attendees.

https://www.ecosacramento.net/

 

Monday, April 22, 7:30 p.m.  @ SPC

Earth Day Reading featuring Stan Zumbiel and Julia Connor. An open mic follows.

 

SPC offers this reading in celebration of our mutual home and addressing the need to shepherd it better as we experience critical environmental challenges.

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Stan Zumbiel, a retired teacher, served on the board of The Sacramento Poetry Center for 25 years. He received his MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. His collections of poetry include Standing Watch, and Hat Full of Leaves. His poems have appeared in Nimrod, Primal Urge, Convergence, Sacramento Voices, Medusa’s Kitchen, and other journals.

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Julia Connor, Poet Laureate Emeritus of Sacramento, and the visionary behind The Poet’s Path, a garden of sculpted poems by Sacramento’s Laureates, and a current member of the Board of Directors of SPC. She is a visual artist and poet, and the author of, among other works, The Delta Poem, A Canto of the Birds, Corresponding Flowers, and Making the Good.

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Tuesday, April 23, 6 - 8:30 p.m.  @ SNAHC

Open Mic at the Sacramento Native American Health Center

3800 Florin Road, Sacramento, CA

 

The Sacramento Native American Health Center Inc. (SNAHC) is a non-profit, Federally Qualified Health Center, located in Sacramento, CA. The health center is committed to enhancing quality of life by providing a culturally competent, holistic, and patient-centered continuum of care. There are no tribal or ethnic requirements to receive care there. This reading will help to draw attention to the good work they do in the community. https://snahc.org/

 

Wednesday, April 24, 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.

Poetry Reading & Open Mic @ Amatoria Fine Art Books

1831 F St. Suite A, Sacramento, CA

 

Oswaldo Vargas, Miqo Anang and Patrick Grizzell will be the featured readers at this event, followed by an open mic. Amatoria is the Sacramento region’s only bookstore specializing in the arts. They are a woman-artist-owned brick and mortar in the heart of Midtown, with over 15,000 new and used titles curated to ignite your imagination. There is no admission cost for the event, but the store requests that guests make a purchase to help defray costs and keep the doors open. https://amatoriafineartbooks.shop/

 

Wednesday, April 24, 7 - 10 p.m.

Mahogany Urban Poetry Series

1107 Firehouse Alley, Sacramento, CA

 

MalikSpeaks presents the Mahogany Urban Poetry Series at Our Place in Old Town featuring open mic poetry, music and comedy. 21 and  older, $10 admission.

 

Thursday, April 24, 7 p.m.

HeBrews Coffee Open Mic 

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An open mic will be held on Thursday, April 25 from 7 - 10 p.m. hosted by NubianSunflower. First timers are encouraged to come out! Coffee and snacks will be available for purchase.

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Friday, April 26, 6 p.m.  @ SPC

A Reading Featuring California’s Poet Laureate Lee Herrick and Nyeree Boyadjian

 

Lee Herrick has been a long time friend of SPC, and we welcome him back for Poetry Month. He was the keynote for our April 1 event last year. We are always grateful for his generosity in supporting poetry throughout the state. He will be joined by Sacramento poet, Nyeree Boyadjian.

 

The current Poet Laureate of California, whose project, Our California is the cornerstone of the efforts of his term as laureate, is the author of the poetry collections Scar and Flower (2018), Gardening Secrets of the Dead (2012), and This Many Miles from Desire (2007). His poems have appeared in many literary magazines and anthologies, including The Bloomsbury Review, ZYZZYVA, Highway 99: A Literary Journey Through California’s Great Central Valley (2nd edition), One for the Money: The Sentence as Poetic Form, Indivisible: Poems of Social Justice, The Place That Inhabits Us: Poems from the San Francisco Bay Watershed, HERE: Poems for the Planet, with a foreword by the Dalai Lama, and Dear America: Letters of Hope, Habitat, Defiance, and Democracy, among others; and on the platforms of The Poetry Foundation and the Academy of American Poets, and elsewhere. He is co-editor of The World I Leave You: Asian American Poets on Faith and Spirit (Orison Books, 2020).  He served as Fresno Poet Laureate from 2015-2017, and teaches at Fresno City College and in the low-residency MFA program at University of Nevada Reno at Lake Tahoe. Herrick serves on the advisory board of Terrain.org and Sixteen Rivers Press. He co-founded LitHop in Fresno.

 

Nyeree Boyadjian is an Armenian-American poet from Queens, New York. She completed a BFA in creative writing from the University of the Arts in 2021, as well as an MFA in poetry from UC Davis in 2023. She is currently teaching the Rancho Cordova Youth Poet Laureate program as well as various creative writing classes in the Sacramento area, as a part of 916 Ink.

 

Saturday, April 27, 2 - 5 p.m.

Princess Book Club: Tea Party for Domestic Violence Awareness

@ the Women’s Wisdom space at 1029 Del Paso Blvd., Sacramento, CA 95815

 

A "Bee" themed Tea Party to learn about the resources available for you or someone you know to heal from having been affected by domestic violence. In keeping with the tea party theme, dress will be hats, pearls, dress or suit. Admission will be a donation to Women’s Wisdom.  RSVP: ThePrincessBookClub@yahoo.com, (916) 470-8951. Spear-headed by Sunni Harley, Princess Book Club is a non-profit charitable organization that meets regularly to discuss books and social topics.

https://www.facebook.com/ReadBooksLearn/

 

Saturday, April 27, 12 - 3 p.m.

Independent Book Store Day at Amatoria

1831 F St. Suite A, Sacramento, CA

 

Enjoy pop-up events and celebration in support of the national annual celebration of Independent Book Stores. The store will have many great offers and events throughout the day. SPC will be there in support with some of our publications which will be donated to support the cause.

https://amatoriafineartbooks.shop/

 

Saturday, April 27, 6 p.m. @ SPC

Escritores Del Nuevo Sol: Contra Banned 

 

Escritores presents this reading protesting the banning of books, an all too common practice in America of late. ($5 donation requested, benefitting Friends of the Library and SPC) Escritores Del Nuevo Sol is a group of bilingual writers who enjoy and celebrate the creative process, believing that the art culture of our communities, like our world, should make room for all voices, including underrepresented groups and people of color. They believe in building community, and therefore participate in, and often sponsor, public readings and creative events throughout the greater Sacramento area. https://escritoresdelnuevosol.org/

 

Sunday, April 28, 1 - 3 p.m. Sacramento City College Performing Arts Center

US Poet Laureate Emeritus Juan Felipe Herrera:

The Power of the Word: An Intergenerational Conversation

A Reading & Conversation with Maceo Montoya & Terezita Romo

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The keynote event for the Literary Festival features Juan Felipe Herrera, supported by Maceo Montoya, Poet, Publisher, UCD Professor, moderated by Art Historian, Curator, and Professor Terezita Romo.

 

Juan Felipe Herrera has dedicated his life to poetry, community, art, and teaching. He served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2015 to 2017 and of California from 2012 to 2015. He has written more than 30 books in various genres. Herrera is a recipient of the 2022 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. His poem "SunRiders" was placed in the capsule of NASA Lucy in 2021. His awards include the Robert Frost Medal, the National Book Critics Circle Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Los Angeles Times Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement, the Latino Hall of Fame Award, a Pushcart Prize, a UCR/LARB Lifetime Achievement Award, a Fred Cody Lifetime Achievement Award, and the UCLA Chancellor's Medal. His books include Rebozos of Love, Exiles of Desire. The Roots of a Thousand Embraces: Dialogues. Loteria Cards & Fortune Poems. Notebooks of a Chile Verde Smuggler. Cinnamon Girl: Letters Found Inside a Cereal Box. Half the World in Light, Notes on the Assemblage, and Every Day We Get More Illegal, among many others.

 

The son of farmworkers, Herrera was recently honored by having the bilingual Juan Felipe Herrera Elementary School in Fresno named for him. He is a graduate of UCLA, Stanford University, and the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop.  Recently, Herrera’s visual art was featured in the galleries of the Monterey Art Museum in Monterey, California. Currently, he is finishing a poetry collection on the war in Ukraine, Handful of Gravel. Herrera has taught Chicano and Latin American Studies at California State University, Fresno and creative writing at the University of California, Riverside and has held numerous visiting positions. He is a professor emeritus at the Department of Chicano and Latin American Studies, Fresno State University and is the current coordinator for the Laureate Lab Visual Wordist Studio at the Fresno State Library. He lives in Fresno, California, with his wife, the poet Margarita Robles.

 

Maceo Montoya is a California-based author, artist, and educator. His first novel, The Scoundrel and the Optimist (Bilingual Review, 2010), was awarded the 2011 International Latino Book Award for "Best First Book.” In 2014, University of New Mexico Press published his second novel, The Deportation of Wopper Barraza, and Copilot Press published Letters to the Poet from His Brother, a hybrid book combining images, prose poems, and essays. Montoya’s third work of fiction, You Must Fight Them: A Novella and Stories (University of New Mexico Press, 2015) was a finalist for Foreword Review's INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award. Montoya is also the author and illustrator of Chicano Movement for Beginners, a work of graphic nonfiction. His most recent novel is Preparatory Notes for Future Masterpieces (University of Nevada Press, 2021). The Yale graduate’s paintings, drawings, and prints have been featured in exhibitions and publications throughout the country as well as internationally, and he has collaborated with numerous writers on visual-textual projects with other writers. He is a professor at UC Davis in Chicana/o Studies, teaching courses on Chicanx culture and literature, and in the English department's MFA Creative Writing Program. Since 2022, he has served as the editor of the literary magazine Huizache.

 

Terezita “Tere” Romo is a Lecturer and Affiliate Faculty in the Chicana/o Studies Department at UC, Davis. An art historian, she has published extensively on Chicana/o artists and art, most recently as a contributor to the Smithsonian American Art Museum exhibition catalog, ¡Printing the Revolution!: The Rise and Impact of Chicano Graphics, 1965 to Now. She has served as the chief curator at the Mexican Museum in San Francisco and the Arts Project Director at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago as well as Arts Programs Director and Research Associate at the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center. As an independent curator, Terezita has organized numerous exhibitions, including “Art Along the Hyphen: The Mexican American Generation” at the Autry National Museum in Los Angeles and “Reframing Comunidad: The Art of Ester Hernandez and Shizu Saldamando” at the National Museum of Mexican Art. She is the co-curator of “Traitor, Survivor, Icon: The Legacy of La Malinche.”

 

Sunday, April 28, 4 p.m. at R25

Voices of Just Is, PREMIERE!

at Cal Stage/Wilkerson Theater, 2509 R Street, Sacramento, CA

 

Sound Off for Social Justice is excited to announce their 2024 Theatrical Poetry Production Voices of Just-Is! The performance is a theatrical poetic production in which theater and poetry cross into an interactive experience that resonates deep within, igniting the need for impactful change.  This production employs an artistic perspective on the effects of slavery and racism in America and the daily challenges relevant to the social injustices still prevalent today. It navigates the processes of awareness and healing, and sheds light on areas of disparity and of strength. The event is curated by Coon The Poet, and supported by SPC, The Sacramento Office of Arts and  Culture, and others.

 

Monday, April 29, 7:30 p.m. @ SPC

Reading featuring Left Activist Poets Sarah Menefee & Jim Normington. An open mic follows.

 

SPC is thrilled to welcome these poets back to the room. San Francisco poet Sarah Menefee hasn’t read here since the 80’s, and Jim Normington, who was a great contributor to the local poetry scene for a long time hasn’t lived in the area for some time. We’re grateful to have them both here for the Festival.

 

Sarah Menefee is a San Francisco poet and poor people and homeless rights activist originally from Reno, Nevada. She is a founding member of the League of Revolutionaries for a New America, the Revolutionary Poet’s Brigade, San Francisco Union of the Homeless, Homes Not Jails, and 'First they came for the homeless’. Her latest collections of poetry are CEMENT (Swimming with Elephants), There You Are (Bird and Beckett) and Holy Eel, forthcoming from Lithic Press. Earlier collections include, I’m Not Thousandfurs, The Blood About the Heart, Human Star, and Stella Umana (Italian & English edition). Additionally, she has taught poetry in homeless shelters, half-way houses and at Occupy Your Visions.

 

Jim Normington has published 12 books of poems, including Dance Around The Fire Eaters, Alone On An Inlet, Animal Spells, Tell Me and Book Of Blues. He's also contributed to two books in translation from the Spanish, The Selected Poems of Alfonsina Storni (Argentina) White Pine Press, 1988, and 500,000 Azaleas: Selected Poems Of Efrain Huerta (Mexico) Curbstone Press, 2000. His poems and translations have appeared in many journals and anthologies in Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Japan. He was a founding member of the American Literary Translator's Association at the University of Texas in 1978, and the recipient of the Sacramento Arts Commission Year 2000 Wilkerson Award For Excellence. His current project is a book of longer poems titled Silence. Poet Jack Hirschman called him "an important Northern California poet”; Michael McClure has said his poems are "really all one long song”; and Gary Snyder has said he is "a cogent, timely poet and a master of the American haiku form.”

 

WEEKLY EVENTS

 

Fridays, April 5,12 & 19, 6 - 9 p.m.

Write Free Fridays @ SPC

 

Sundays April 7, 14, 21 & 28 at 12 p.m.

First Church Of Poetry @ McKinley Park

 

Sundays, April 7, 14, 21 & 28 at 8 p.m.

LabRats Sunday Sessions: Music Jam @ The Torch Club

 

WEEKLY WORKSHOPS AT SPC AFFILIATES

To participate, follow the links below.

 

Sundays, Coast to Coast Workshop 3:30 p.m.  / Facilitator: Len Germinara ONLINE

Info contact: lensir@hotmail.com

 

Tuesdays, 7:30 p.m. Tuesday Poetry Workshop / Facilitator: Danyen Powell @ SPC

Info contact: sac.tuesday.poetry@gmail.com.

 

Wednesdays, 6 p.m. Marie Writers Workshop / Facilitator: Bob Stanley ONLINE

Join in: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89181123001?pwd=eFVzN21vUGFEemtkTlVkZ04zNU5Zdz09

 

Thursdays, 5 p.m. Writing Inside Out Workshop / Facilitator: Nick LeForce ONLINE

Info contact: www.nickleforce.com → Inside Out

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THE SACRAMENTO POETRY CENTER’S CODE OF CONDUCT

 

Feed the people

 

Value poets, artists, and audience.  Aspire to making people feel nourished and appreciated in ways real and figurative.

 

Create and commit to a culture of inclusion

 

Welcome everyone warmly and with gratitude, respect, and dignity. Especially embrace newcomers to the room. Value everyone’s identity, addressing people by their preferred name(s) and pronouns. Ensure the inclusion and celebration of all people, including Women’s voices, LGBTQIA+ voices, Youth voices, Black voices, Latinx voices, Asian and South Asian voices, Native American/Indigenous People’s voices and those of other non-white cultures. Disabled persons will be treated with respect, and accommodated graciously.

 

Encourage innovation and creativity

 

Everyone’s art and culture is celebrated. Encourage the creative process as much as much as the creations, recognizing that every form of art was new at some point. Celebrate the innovative spirits of poets without regard to performance style, poetic form or genre, or presentation.

 

Make space for the next generation and honor the previous generations

 

Honor those who came before us with homage and respect, and with any appropriate cultural practice. Experienced poets will mindfully create space for young people and new/emerging poets at events, celebrating and encouraging them, and making themselves available to mentor interested young people and new poets.

 

Acknowledge and address conflict promptly, transparently, and respectfully

 

Help us create a safe space inclusive of all. Please know you can come to us with any issues and conflicts that may arise in our environment. Our Board of Directors is dedicated to quickly resolving them.

 

Do not exploit power dynamics

 

Our hosts and leadership will not to exploit their positions for personal gain, whether financial, professional, romantic, or otherwise. Any instances of power dynamic exploitation brought to our attention will be addressed promptly.

 

These are our commitments.

— The SPC Board of Directors

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