Women's History Month Reading

??Monday, March 19

In Celebration of Women?s History Month

A Benefit Reading for

by

?Traci Gourdine, Anna Marie Sprowl, and Sananaa Chochezi

7 p.m., Sacramento Poetry Center, 1719 25th Street

Donations requested to benefit WEAVE (Women Escaping a Violent Environment)

? Guests are encouraged to bring poems about women to share at the Open Mic from 7-7:30 and after the features.

Co-sponsored by

?

?through a grant it has received from The James Irvine Foundation

??

Traci Gourdine?s poetry and stories have been published in numerous literary magazines, and she has been anthologized within Shepard and Thomas? Sudden Fiction Continued (Norton Publishing).? She is co-editor of Night is Gone, Day is Still Coming (Candlewick Press), an anthology of writing by young Native writers, as well as We Beg to Differ, poems by Sacramento poets against the war.? She has also co-edited the Tule Review with Luke Breit for the Sacramento Poetry Center.? Traci Gourdine is a professor of English at American River College and chairs the Creative Writing department for the California State Summer School for the Arts.? She was chair of the Sacramento poet Laureate Committee.? For ten years she facilitated writing workshops within several California state prisons.? Originally from New York, she lives in Davis, CA where she has raised two daughters.

?

Baby Got On

?

One of her legs is resting across a chair

girl teenager with the weeds setting in

she could lick your fingers

and tell you favorite stories

?

Her anonymity is easy

her straw words blow far across this city

mostly air ill-shaped with light

?

In Chicago the night bears wages

and she hunkers down

to fold as compact as nylons

careful to avoid getting torn

?

She wears other people?s hair

walks down stairs trailing dark grins

sheet of ice

pillow of razors

her blue-black eyeliner is streaming down

?

She?s learned this much

some rules are simpler than others:

?

chew words of violence then swallow hard

laugh when you fall off the curb

it can be a long train ride home don?t sleep

man is the name giver

listen

?

?Traci Gourdine

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Sananaa Chochezi has resided in Sacramento for more than 20 years. For most of that time she has shared poetry and spoken word at countless venues including colleges and universities, K-12 educational centers, festivals and poetry features. She has been published in numerous publications including Speak, Write, Dream, an anthology of contributions from ZICA members, available on LULU.com. ZICA is a Sacramento based creative arts and literary guild with an eclectic, national membership. Chochezi also has been published in several issues of Drum Voices Revue, a publication from Southern Illinois University, Sierra College?s literary journal, and Poetry Now, a Sacramento Poetry Center publication, to name a few. When not writing and sharing poetry, Chochezi teaches public speaking and works as an editor, journalist, leadership development trainer and Myers Briggs Type Indicator practitioner. She holds a bachelor?s in journalism, a master?s in communication studies and is pursuing a doctoral degree in education.

?

Herd of elephants symphony

?

A herd of elephants stampeded

Through my living room again this morning

?

Humming a simple tune

They climbed up to the kitchen table

Devoured two bowls of oatmeal

And gulped down a tall glass of soy milk

?

They trumpeted loudly about the

Glory of a new day

Clanking the kitchen blinds

Then raced into the living room

Hopped up on the sofa

Bounced up and down

A few times and trampled

Through the toy box

Tossing puzzles

Toy cars and crayons Everywhere

?

As I timidly opened my

Bedroom door to peer at the

Wild and rowdy creatures

That had taken over my home

?

I discovered only my wide eyed

Two year old Grandson who called

Happily, Nani, you?re awake!

Wanna play match? (A game we

Used to call concentration.)

?

Truly a joyous symphony

To these grandmother ears.

Of course I do!

?

?Sananaa Chochezi

?

?

Annna Marie Sprowl has been writing and performing poetry for years. Her work ranges from the political to the domestic.? Her pieces provide both warmth and fire for the reader. Anna Marie?s poetry flows with a smooth style and grace; she fills both pages and stages with her life experiences. Never shy to self-expression, she seeks to see understanding in the eyes of her audiences. Anna Marie has performed at The Show and Underground Books, as well as at the Crocker Art Museum, The Guild Theater, and at Jazz and Poetry 2010 and 2012 with the Brubeck Institute Jazz Quintet.

?

Playing Dress Up

?

She says when she grows up she wants to be just like me

Walking around in my barely used high heeled shoes

Reciting her own lines of poetry

and it?s far too soon she?ll be breaking ground in her own Jimmy Choos

?

She wants to work where I do

But I really don?t want her to

I tell her, think bigger

See, she thinks it?s so cool to have your own cubicle

But she?s only seven years of age and at this stage

Her dreams are still under construction

?

She is sensitive just like her mother is

Wears her heart on her sleeve and I have to

constantly remind her she needs

a coat outside in the wintertime?

and the real world

Because reality can be frostbite? amplified

?

She wants to play princess in my evening dresses

I?ve worn less times than she has

Obsessed with my purses, my little diva

The epitome of a drama queen

Which has me dreading dealing

with her first broken heart

For like me when she falls, she?ll fall hard

?

Tall in stature, strong in will

Right now she still believes in Santa Claus

and in time she?ll realize some laws

are meant to be broken

?

I tell her never settle for less, always do your best

Don?t be a follower unless it?s your dream

that will lead to your destiny and it will not be

in the form?of a man

?

Don?t get me wrong,

Yes, I want grandbabies but I rather her follow

in the footsteps of our first lady

and get a college degree first

See, I?m an ordinary wife, is it too much to ask

an extraordinary life for her?

?

It?s so clich? to say

I don?t want her to make the same mistakes I did

That old ?I?m doing this for your own benefit? speech

that has been passed down from Grandma to Mom

and finally down to me

I?m not trying to live through her vicariously

?

I am just like every other mother who wants to see

her daughter grow up to be

A better, more successful woman than she

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?Anna Marie Sprowl

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Coming Events at SPC and Elsewhere:

?

All events are at Sacramento Poetry Center at 7:30 PM unless noted otherwise. Host name in brackets.

?

Poets Gallery [March]: Stan Fureby

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March 17 [Bob Stanley in Carmichael][Sat.]: Jazz and Poetry with the Brubeck Institute Quintet

March 22 Literary Lectures with Judy Halebsky: Literary Traditions in West Coast Politics

March 26 [Tim Kahl]: Chad Sweeney and Catherine Daly

March 29 [Rebecca Moos and Paco Marquez]:? Friends of SPC/Volunteer Meeting 6-7 p.m.

March 29 Literary Lectures with James DenBoer ? Kenneth Rexroth:? The World Outside the Window

March 30 [Valerie Fioravanti] [Fri.]:? Stories on Stage with Rob Davidson, Max Boyd, and p joshua laskey

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Poets Gallery [April]: Julia Connor

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April 2 [Bob Stanley and Alexa Mergen]: Poetry from the writers at the New Folsom Prison workshop

April 5 Literary Lectures with Tim Kahl:? Surrealism and its Academic Discontents

April 9 [Linda Collins and Theresa McCourt]: Readings by poets published in the latest Tule Review

April 14 [SPC Annual Conference] [Tim]: Steve Gehrke, Kate Gale, Christina Hutchins, Michelle Bitting and Christian Kiefer. [9:00 to 4:00]

April 16 [Rebecca Moos]: A Night of Fiction with Scott Evans, Bill Pieper and David Sutton

April 19 [Mary Zeppa and Lawrence Dinkins] Poetry at the Central Library, 828 I Street, 12 noon

April 23 [Tim Kahl]: Susan Cohen and Jeanne Wagner

April 27 [Valerie Fioravanti]:? Stories on Stage with Lindsey Crittenden and Julia Jackson

April 30 [Lytton Bell and Frank Graham]: Benefit for the Sacramento Food Bank with Josh Fernandez, Rebecca Moos, Jen Jenkins, Allegra Silberstein, Trina Drotar, David Gay, and Todd Cirillo

Source: http://www.sacramentopoetrycenter.com/womens-history-month-reading-2/

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