​WELCOME TO THE WEBSITE OF
THE SACRAMENTO POETRY CENTER​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
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IT'S A WRAP FOR JULY!
Please see details in Poet News.
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THE MONDAY NIGHT SERIES IS TAKING A HIATUS
UNTIL SEPTEMBER 7 WHEN WE'LL KICK OFF
THE APPROACH OF FALL WITH
STRAIGHT OUT SCRIBES!
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In the meantime, please join us
for our only August event:
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Friday, August 7, 7-9 p.m.
Devour Me Again: A Celebration of Bambi Lake
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In celebration of the release of Devour Me, Again by Bambi Lake (Nightboat Press, June 2026), SPC welcomes August Bernadicou, the editor of the collection, to discuss the publication, speak about the legendary Bambi Lake, and present a short film about the beloved (and bad-mouthed) icon of San Francisco’s counterculture. He will be joined by Sacramento poets, Oswaldo Vargas, Kay Miller, Anthony Jackson, Michelle Acquisto ,and Sadie Keller, who will read selections from the book. The collection includes a series of interviews by August Bernadicou, with a foreword by Brontez Purnell.
Bambi Lake (1950-2020) was a trans chanteuse performer, provocateur, and countercultural darling of the ‘70s, and subsequent decades. “The Glamorous Life follows me around,” she wrote, and sang about in her ballad, “The Golden Age of Hustlers” (later popularized by Justin Vivian Bond). Her life in San Francisco — including being on the fringes of the Cockettes (a psychedelic, glitter-drenched acid drag, sexual anarchy, and chaotic musical theater that redefined gender norms), and a member of the adjacent Angels of Light — was “sort of legendary,” sort of “sweet, sticky, nasty,” and always precarious, lived in spite of addiction, homelessness, and the horrors that came from chasing and surviving her own desires.
Her poems, long out of print, are now collected — they, among other things, wear “burgundy velvet jezebel bras” to seduce “fatally hetero” men, and chronicle the cabaret of desire amidst social, cultural, and political change. “I am Beauty,” she writes, “and the world dissolves.” Her work spoke to her experience as a transgender woman. In addition to Devour Me, Again, she also published a memoir titled The Unsinkable Bambi Lake (1996).
“It’s good to see that Bambi has put out books about her life because it has been one-of-a-kind and an inspiration for anyone who wants to stand up for themselves. I admire her guts and her sense of humor. Sometimes you might think that nothing gets to her but that’s not true—something gets to all of us. It’s how you ride it out that tells the world where you’re at. I believe she carries herself rather well. Long may she wave.”
— Henry Rollins
“Bambi is a one of a kind story of talent, free spirit, and determined survival. And imagination! Half the stuff in her Jello poem is sure news to me. But stretching things never hurt Hunter Thompson . . .”
— Jello Biafra
August Bernadicou is the Executive Director of The LGBTQ History Project, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the lives and legacies of LGBTQ activists from the first wave of gay liberation. In 2020, he co-founded The LGBTQ History Project to archive and share his thousands of recorded interviews and conversations. August is the winner of the Troy Perry Media Activism Award (2020) and the Charles Shively Award in Gay Liberation by the William A. Percy Foundation (2023).
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Some of SPC's events are funded in part by a grant
from The Sacramento Office of Arts & Culture.​
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The Sacramento Poetry Center
1719 25th Street
Sacramento CA 95816
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