EVENTS, WORKSHOPS & GALLERY
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MONTH AT A GLANCE
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The Sacramento Poetry Center hosts a variety of events, including our weekly Monday Night Reading Series, special events, and other readings. They are detailed in the current issue of Poet News.
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SPC’S NOVEMBER EVENTS
AT A GLANCE
Monday, November 4, 7:30 p.m.:
A Reading Featuring Michael Zysk
Monday, November 11, 7:30 p.m.:
Youth Open Mic
Sunday, November 17, 5 p.m.:
Sean Powers Book Event
& Stucco Factory Revisited
Monday, November 18, 7:30 p.m.:
A Reading Featuring
Julia Levine & Patricia Wentzel
Monday, November 25, 7:30 p.m.:
A Special Evening With Eleni Sikelianos
& Accompanists
Monday, December 4, 7:30 p.m.:
Coming up:
Nancy Miller Gomez & Laura Rosenthal
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SPC AFFILIATED WORKSHOPS​​​
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COAST TO COAST POETRY CONSORTIUM
After a brief hiatus the Coast-to-Coast Poetry critique workshop returns. A critique group dedicated to working through the process that brings poetry to the printed page, we meet once a week, Sunday’s at 3:30 p.m. via Zoom. This is a serious group of writers that will stretch your levels through kind and constructive questioning. The questions are always about the work and never about the poet. Each participant brings a poem (1) to be read followed by a round robin discussion that takes approximately ten minutes per poem. The group is curated by Len Germinara. If this interests you, contact Len directly at lensir@hotmail.com.
TUESDAY NIGHT POETRY WORKSHOP
TUESDAYS AT 7:30 p.m.
The Sacramento Poetry Center has been hosting the Tuesday Night Poetry Workshop for over 30 years, Facilitated by Danyen Powell, it’s both in person at the Sacramento Poetry Center, 1719 25th St., and on Zoom. Designed to elicit constructive feedback, the workshop involves a critique of presented work. It begins promptly at 7:30 p.m. and ends at 9 p.m. Writers can participate in the workshop by emailing one poem on a standard sized sheet of paper (81/2 x 11, 12 point, 1 page) to: sac.tuesday.poetry@gmail.com by 6:30 p.m. Tuesdays so all the poems are screen-shared from one place. For more info, contact sac.tuesday.poetry@gmail.com.
MARIEWRITERS
WEDNESDAYS AT 6 p.m.
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MarieWriters was founded in honor of Marie Reynolds, a Sacramento poet whom many were lucky to know. Before Marie died of breast cancer in fall 2018, we started a weekly writing group in her name. MarieWriters is a generative workshop–one person brings a prompt; and we all write for 30 minutes. Then we share what we’ve written and provide positive feedback–commenting on the strong points in each other’s writing. The workshop is facilitated by Bob Stanley. Marie meets Wednesday nights, online, starting at 6 pm, and always welcomes new writers!
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89181123001?pwd=eFVzN21vUGFEemtkTlVkZ04zNU5Zdz09
WRITING FROM THE INSIDE OUT
THURSDAYS AT 5 p.m.
Writing From The Inside Out is a weekly prompt writing course facilitated by Nick LeForce, attended by a group of your fellow writers, poets, and those wishing to use writing for personal growth and expression. You get a prompt at the beginning of the week, and then have a read-around on zoom at the end of the week. It’s free, fun, a great way to share, and reading a poem is optional. Please register to participate. You will receive a writing prompt every Monday morning by email to use as a catalyst (or use your own inspiration) to write your original work. We meet on Thursday afternoons at 5 p.m. via zoom to read our work to each other, and use the basic AWA format for commenting on shared work. Once you have registered, you do not need to register again, simply use the link sent to you in your confirmation email. More info: www.nickleforce.com → Inside Out. Register Here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/upwkde-opjkpnyQECAVBKolY4hKCdl61uAT
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OTHER GROUPS & WORKSHOPS
THE SACRAMENTO STORYTELLERS GUILD
THIRD SATURDAYS, AT 2 p.m.
The Sacramento Storytellers Guild meets at the Poetry Center, 1719 25th St., on the third Saturday of each month from 2:00-3:30 p.m. for storytelling and poetry, and provides light refreshments. For further information, contact Andrew Laufer at dadlaufer@gmail.com.
THE HART CENTER WORKSHOP
TUESDAYS AT 2 p.m.
The Hart Center Workshop is facilitated by Olga Browne and Aiesha Jones, and meets at Hart Senior Center, 915 27th Street in Marshall Park. The group meets weekly on Tuesday from 2-3:30 p.m. For more information, contact Olga at chulabrowne@gmail.com.
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IN THE GALLERY
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The Visual Art exhibit, black blue red and yellow umbrellas, visualized and curated by artist Michelle Lynn Dyrness, will be installed at SPC on October 6.
A reception was held on Sunday, October 13
(see video at bottom).
CURATOR'S STATEMENT
black blue red and yellow umbrellas*
What is visual poetry? This is as complex and elusive as asking “what is a poem” or “what makes a piece of art?” Is it an art of symbols and letters? An art of the interplay between symbols, language and image? It is all of these things and more because it is a creative process that is forever reinventing itself. There is an expansiveness when language, or when symbols and typographical characters alluding to language, jump the fence into the realm of form and visual imagery. The field of interpretation is widened. And when it is done well, possible interpretations multiply. The meaning is burrowed, secretive, brash and bold all at once. The more risks that are taken in the creation, the more it confounds and enlightens, and the more successful it becomes as visual poetry. Inference and suggestion can share space with both the familiar and the cryptic. There is something about visual poetry that takes us back to a pre-linguistic, primal state. Where a single utterance or a cacophony of strokes and marks can conjure the human experience in unexpected ways. It skips borders, crosses cultures, and moves back and forth in history in ways that I do not think either poetry or visual art alone do quite as well.
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You will see here a range of strong examples of visual poetry. Each carefully selected piece inhabits both the familiar and unfamiliar spaces of our visual language at the same time. If you look, ponder, and look again, you may surprise yourself with what you find. To paraphrase the late monk and artist Dom Sylvester Houédard, (when referring to his own visual poetry work) they are “cosmic patches” that have a part to play in “repairing the universe”.
— Michelle Lynn Dyrness, Curator
*The title of the exhibit is taken from a line from Mary Ruefle’s poem, Trollope.
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​​​​​​​​Images: Above: Thomas Ingmire, “Marbles” (Allen Fisher poem); At top: Deborah Rhea, untitled.
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VIDEO OF EXHIBIT:
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Please watch the video to see the exhibit, as well as a clip of a performance by violinist (and participant) Ingrid Tracy:, filmed by Alfred Hernandez.
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