Celebrating over 30 years as an arts organization.


The Center hosts readings, workshops, lectures, and publishes a variety of poetry publications. SPC is located in the R25 Arts Complex located on the corner of R & 25th Streets in midtown Sacramento.



Sacramento Poetry Center memberships support a variety of local poetry programs, publications, readings, and events. Members receive a free subscription to Tule Review and Poetry Now. Please send your check for $30 or more to SPC, 1719 25th St., Sacramento, CA 95816. Fixed incomes are $15.


Sunday, September 30, 2007

October Literary Events in Sacramento

October Literary Events for Sacramento

1 Monday
Art Mantecon hosts at SPC – Iven
Lourie, Kirsten Casey and Scott
Young — three of the Six Sierra Poets
who have published Yuba Flows, a
new anthology from Hip Pocket Press.
7:30pm.


2 Tuesday
SPC Poetry Workshop, 7:30pm, Hart
Senior Center, 27th & J. Bring 15 - 20
copies of your one-page poem. Info:
Danyen, (530) 756-6228


3 Wednesday
Poems-For-All is pleased to present
James DenBoer reading from his
book “Stonework: Selected Poems”
published this month (Sept. 2007) by
Sandy McPherson’s Swan Scythe
Press. Poems-For-All Chaplettes
of Mr. DenBoer’s work will be
dispensed. 7:30pm. The Book
Collector, 1008 24th Street (between
J & K Streets.) 442-9295.
www.poems-for-all.com


4 Thursday
Poetry Unplugged. Luna’s Café.
Hosted by Mario Ellis Hill. Festivities
begin at 8pm and there will be an
open mic as well.


6 Saturday
All are invited to Escritores del Nuevo
Sol’s writing workshop and potluck.
11am. at La Raza Galeria Posada,
1024 22nd Street, Sacramento. For
info call Graciela Ramirez, 456-5323
or joannpen@comcast.net. Website:
www.escritoresdelnuevosol.com


8 Monday
General meeting of the SPC Board of
Directors meets at HQ for the Arts -
1719 25th Street – 6:00pm. All
members or interested parties are
invited to attend.
Readings by Nina Lindsey and Helen
Wickes. Bob Stanley hosts at HQ
for the Arts, 1719 25th Street. 7:30pm


9 Tuesday
SPC Poetry Workshop, 7:30pm, Hart
Senior Center, 27th & J. Bring 15 - 20
copies of your one-page poem. Info:
Danyen, (530) 756-6228
Bistro 33 Poetry Series. 8:30 pm
Open Mic after. Bistro 33 in Historic
Davis City Hall, 226 “F” Street, 3rd
and “F” Streets in Davis.


Wednesday 10
Rattlesnake Press will celebrate
Sacramento Poetry Month by
presenting Placerville poet Kate Wells
at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St.,
Sacramento, from 7:30-9 PM to
celebrate the release of her new
chapbook, Spiral. Also released: a
broadside from Mary Field, plus #5 in
the new Rattlesnake Interview Series
featuring Julia Connor, as well as
the first of the new interview
anthologies. Refreshments and a
read-around will follow; bring your own
poems or somebody else’s. More info:
kathykieth@hotmail.com
Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology
Hour, host Andy Jones, 5pm, KDVS-
90.3 FM or subscribe to podcast at
www.kdvs.org


11 Thursday
Luna’s Poetry Unplugged. Open mic
before/after. Hosted by Geoffrey Neill.
8pm at Luna’s Café, 1414 16th Street.
Info: 441-3931 or www.lunascafe.com.
Free.


12 Friday
The Escritores del Nuevo Sol/Writers
of the New Sun, join with the Zapatista
Coalition on el Dia de la Raza, for the
annual remembrance of Chicano poet
Phil Goldvarg. 6 pm contact
Graciela Ramirez, 916-456-5323.
www.escritoresdelnuevosol.com


15 Monday
Sacramento Poetry Center presents
Viola Weinberg at The Space—
25th & R Streets. Indigo Moor hosts.


16 Tuesday
SPC Poetry Workshop, 7:30pm, Hart
Senior Center, 27th & J. Bring 15 - 20
copies of your one-page poem. Info:
Danyen, (530) 756-6228


17 Wednesday
Moore time for Poetry: Terry Moore’s
Access Television Show, 9pm, co-host
Tyra Moore. Access Sacramento,
Channel 17


18 Thursday
SPC’s reading series at the Carmichael
Library resumes with Bill Pieper,
John Bell, and Jill Stockinger.
7:30 pm at Carmichael Library, Marconi
Avenue between Garfield and Fair
Oaks. Free.
Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Café.
8pm. hosted by Frank Andrick. Free.


20 Saturday
Underground Poetry Series presents
Lori Jean Robinson, Random
Abiladeaze, and Taifa Jamari, plus
open mic. 7-9pm, $3.00. Underground
Books, 2814 35th Street (35th and
Broadway).Hosted by La-Rue’


22 Monday
Sacramento Poetry Center presents
Phoebe Wayne, Francisco
Reinking and other UC Davis creative
writing grads. Tim Kahl hosts. HQ for
the Arts, 1719 25th Street. 7:30pm
23 Tuesday
SPC Poetry Workshop, 7:30pm, Hart
Senior Center, 27th & J. Bring 15 - 20
copies of your one-page poem. Info:
Danyen, (530) 756-6228
24 Wednesday
Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology
Hour, host Andy Jones, 5pm, KDVS-
90.3 FM or subscribe to podcast at
www.kdvs.org.


25 Thursday
Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Café.
8pm. Free.


26 Friday
Dia de los Muertos/Day of the
Dead The Escritores del Nuevo Sol/
Writers of the New Sun offer poetry
and music for this annual Mexican-
originated celebration, brought to the
US by the Chicano movement, and
which has become a meaningful time
of remembrance for people of many
backgrounds to honor with joy those
who have passed from their earthly
life. This is one of a week’s full of
activities coordinated by La Raza
Galeria Posada. Cost: $5 or free-will
donation as you can afford. 7:30 pm
contact Graciela Ramirez, 916-456-
5323. www.escritoresdelnuevosol.com


27 Saturday
“The Show” Poetry Series: Inter-
national Slam Champion Talaam
Acey —www.talaamacey.com—
comes to town from Baltimore. 7 to
9pm. All ages are welcome. $5.00
Note: This event will be held at the
Guild Theater - 2828 35th Street (at
Broadway) not at Wose Community
Center! Contact: (916) 208-POET.


29 Monday
Frank Graham hosts a Halloween
reading at HQ for the Arts with the
Ghastly Ghouls of SPC’s Tuesday
Night Workshop. 7:30pm


30 Tuesday
SPC Poetry Workshop, 7:30pm, Hart
Senior Center, 27th & J. Bring 15 - 20
copies of your one-page poem. Info:
Danyen, (530) 756-6228

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

JEFF KNORR and DAVID ALPAUGH 9/24/2007

David Alpaugh and Jeff Knorr took their place in front of a packed venue at SPC on Sept. 24, 2007.



Jeff started the evening and read mostly selections from his new book “The Third Body.” However, he started the evening off reading a new basketball poem entitled “Tuesday at the Y.” Then he proceeded to read: “Under a Brick Orange Moon,” “Waiting on Family Court,” “The First Time We Lost Our Son,” “Winter Turkeys,” “Lesson in Love and Evolution off of Highway 99,” [Click here for audio][2:53] “Morning Swim,” [Click here for audio][2:11]“Worship,” and “Openings.”



David Alpaugh then took his place behind the podium and explained that the poem alluded to in his introduction, namely “Postmodern Buttocks of Apollo,” was described in recent review of his book as “the ultimate in shaped poems.”

David’s pieces ranged in tone from the emotionally serious to the political to the insightful, but mostly they were poems that were musings on his contemporary era and his past. This makes him a good reader to pair with almost anyone: Dr. Seuss, Allen Ginsberg or Richard Wilbur.

He read strictly from his newest book Heavy Lifting: “Footage,” “Pivotal Question,” “ Heavy Lifting,” “Losing Control of the Toad,” [Click here for audio][2:18] “What My Father Loved About Melmac,” “A Distant Sunder,” “War and White Wine,” “Power Trip,” “Statement,” “Deconstruction,” [Click here for audio][2:42] “Lipstick,”Who Says Poetry Makes Nothing Happen,” “Hamlet’s Lullaby, and “Sweet Nothing.” [Click here for audio][3:13]

He even survived an accusation of being the George Carlin of poetry.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Laverne Frith—9/10/2007



Laverne Frith, one of Sacramento’s mainstays, spent the evening reading many of his fine short, tight poems. The poems in the first half of the reading were intensely focused on nature. They were still lifes and landscapes brought to the page. Working through a sinus problem, he commented that he hoped his poems in the chapbook had in some way a relationship to light. He hoped that, like light, they would meld together in a meaningful way.

The second half of the reading featured poems from Laverne’s newest chapbook entitled Drinking the Light. These poems ranged from meditations on art to ruminations on the death of a close friend.

The first half included titles, such as “Overflight,” “Over the Rice Fields,” “Lightning Over Albuquerque,” “In the Bottlebrush,” “If Only Mary Oliver Here,” “Desert Signatures,” “In the Shadow of the Blue Heron,” “The Beach,” “The Range of Burning,” “The Cracked Desert,” “After a Western Sunset,” “Steel,” “Drifting back to The Bottomlands while reading Li Po,” and “The Way the Fall Dies.”

Over The Rice Fields

Watch as the shorebirds fly in formation,
a white squadron wheeling in the wind.

They bank right and dip as they shadow
the targeted fields. So many decisions

that follow will be independent, as if
landing brings individual freedom

for a spell—their foragings taken at will —
protracted for as long

as the grain will last. After all,
this is not really about rice;

this is not really about flight;
this is not really about birds.

In the second half Laverne switched to reading rangier poems that reflected his interest in the creative process of capturing life within a frame like in painting and photographs. He read “My Best Friend is Blind and Dying,” “Toward Clarity: The Power of Contrast,” “Yosemite Crossing,” “An Artist’s Portrait (for Jim Leitszell)” “Cloud Rhythms, Lenticular,” “White Arachnid,” “Spirit Moth,” “Setting the Stage (after a photograph),” “Mosaic,” “Arrival Of the Normandy train at the Gere Saint-Larane (After a Painting by Monet),” “My Cats Love Bartok,” “Somewhere in Vienna,” “Drinking the Light,”Cafe Concert (after a painting by Georges Seurat)” and “Dream Dancing.”

From these the audience learned what animates and depresses Laverne’s cats: “My Cats Love Bartok. but they become morose at any hint of Wagner . . . We find them at the appointed hour blissfully engaged, clearly engrossed with Bartok.”

And now for something completely different. Hoping for them to meld together (like light) in a meaningful way, lines gleaned from the poems read by Laverne during the evening are forged into a poem-collage:

Soft Song

Such is the nature of bees,
hoping in the dark there will be a soft landing,
transforming a bright red madness.

The salamander’s heart would sing.
Already prepared for the soundings of the night.
A gentle rise and fall of vernals we can never forget.

All that is left is scrolls on empty tortoise shells.
The frogs are audible in their longing.
Even the heron’s call is beginning to sound the dread.

Outreach of hand, sadness of hand.
If Li Po were here,
he would speak to the anxieties of squirrels.

You never know how the artist’s eyes will divide you.

After an observation of mannequins,
we find them at the appointed hour, blissfully engaged,
beginning to glow in virgin eyes.

But light will not go beyond its limits,
how it lives and how it always dies.
Who knows where the shadowing will end?

Erratic loopings and zitherings,
bees drawn to endless nectar.
Let them hear your soft song.

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

September Literary Events

September/October Literary Events for Sacramento

1 Saturday
All are invited to Escritores del Nuevo Sol’s writing workshop and potluck. 11am. at La Raza Galeria Posada, 1024 22nd Street, Sacramento. For info call Graciela Ramirez, 456-5323 or joannpen@comcast.net .

3 Monday
No reading at HQ for the Arts

4 Tuesday
SPC Poetry Workshop, 7:30pm, Hart Senior Center, 27th & J. Bring 15 - 20 copies of your one-page poem. Info: Danyen, (530) 756-6228

5 Wednesday
Luna’s Café presents a celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the publication of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road.
B.L. Kennedy will host an evening of readings from Kerouac by Matt Amott, Todd Cirillo, Josh Fernandez, Patrick Grizzell, Robert Grossklaus, Megan, Jackie Schaffer, D.R. Wagner and Terryl Wheat. Doors open at 7pm – Reading from 7:30 to 11:00

6 Thursdya – Poetry Unplugged features TBA at Luna’s Café. Hosted by Mario Ellis Hill. Festivities begin at 8pm and there will be an open mic as well.

10 Monday
General meeting SPC Board of Directors meets at HQ for the Arts - 1719 25th Street – 5:45pm. All members or interested parties are invited to attend.

Sacramento Poetry Center presents Laverne Frith reading from his work
at HQ for the Arts - 1719 25th Street.

11 Tuesday
SPC Poetry Workshop, 7:30pm, Hart Senior Center, 27th & J. Bring 15 - 20 copies of your one-page poem. Info: Danyen, (530) 756-6228

12 Wednesday
Rattlesnake Press will present Sacramento Poet SUSAN KELLY-DEWITT at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, on Wednesday, September 12 from 7:30-9 PM to celebrate the release of her new chapbook, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree. Also released that night will be a littlesnake broadside from Sacramento Poet DAWN DIBARTOLO (“Blush”), plus #4 in the new Rattlesnake Interview Series by B.L. KENNEDY, this one featuring FRANK ANDRICK, and a brand-new issue of Rattlesnake Review (#15)! Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's. More info:
kathykieth@hotmail.com

Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour, host Andy Jones, 5pm, KDVS-90.3 FM or subscribe to podcast at www.kdvs.org.

13 Thursday
Luna’s Poetry Unplugged features TBA. Open mic before/after. Hosted by Geoffrey Neill. 8pm at Luna’s Café, 1414 16th Street. Info: 441-3931 or www.lunascafe.com. Free.

14 Friday
Annual all-Spanish poetry reading, featuring the work of the controversial Spanish poet Rafael Alberti, and the students of the Sac State Foreign Languages Dept. Emcee is Dr. Fausto Avendaño, Contributing to the evening will be Graciela Ramirez, Jim Michael, and musician/composer Alfredo González.
Open mic to follow. 7:30 pm. Cost: $5 or as you can afford.

15 Saturday
Underground Poetry Series plus open mic.
7-9pm, $3.00. Underground Books, 2814 35th Street (35th and Broadway).Hosted by La-Rue’

17 Monday
Sacramento Poetry Center presents hosted by Rebecca Morrison
at HQ for the Arts - 1719 25th Street.

18 Tuesday
SPC Poetry Workshop, 7:30pm, Hart Senior Center, 27th & J. Bring 15 - 20 copies of your one-page poem. Info: Danyen, (530) 756-6228

Bistro 33 Poetry Series. 8:30 pm Open Mic after. Bistro 33 in Historic Davis City Hall, 226 “F” Street, 3rd and “F” Streets in Davis.

19 Wednesday
Moore time for Poetry: Terry Moore’s Access Television Show, 9pm, co-host Tyra Moore. Access Sacramento, Channel 17

20 Thursday
Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Café. 8pm. hosted by Frank Andrick. Free.

22 Saturday
9 Muses plus One – An evening of Poetry, Story, Prose, Drama, Film, Celebration and the Impossible – featuring 9 women – Michelle Tea, Beth Lisick, Tara Jepsen, Barbara Noble, Rachel Leibrock, Rachel Gregg, Rachel Savage, Terryll Wheat, and Tessa - plus Gilberto Rodriguez.
Hosted by Frank Andrick at Luna’s Café. $10 at the door. Funded by a grant from Poets and Writers.

24 Monday
Sacramento Poetry Center presents Jeff Knorr and David Alpaugh. Tim Kahl hosts.
at HQ for the Arts - 1719 25th Street.

25 Tuesday
SPC Poetry Workshop, 7:30pm, Hart Senior Center, 27th & J. Bring 15 - 20 copies of your one-page poem. Info: Danyen, (530) 756-6228

26 Wednesday
Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour, 5pm, KDVS-90.3 FM or www.kdvs.org.

27 Thursday
Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s.

29 Saturday
“The Show” Poetry Series. 9 pm at Wo'se Community Center (Off 35th and Broadway), 2863 35th Street, Sac; $5.00. Info: T.Mo at (916) 455-POET.