sac poetry week oct 20 thru 26 – it’s all fire

 
Last week

I was at CitySound Sound­byte (CSSB) for a pho­to shoot with Grace and Debbie. 

Grace and I have been in some real po­et­ry trench­es to­geth­er for the last decade which sounds weird if you don’t spit po­ems from the bot­tom of your soul with the in­sane be­lief that you can change the world with your words, but I promise you, when you find your­selves yelling po­ems about heal­ing trau­ma six years be­fore its a buzz­word in the mid­dle of the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Na­tion­al Con­ven­tion to rooms full of peo­ple ded­i­cat­ed to not hear­ing you … there are po­et­ry trenches. 

Deb­bie (left) is the first Youth Poet Lau­re­ate in Sacra­men­to his­to­ry, and one of my fa­vorite all around en­ter­tain­ers of this cur­rent gen­er­a­tion of po­ets. She has this very au­then­tic way of crack­ing you right in half with a poem and then help­ing put you back to­geth­er with a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of your­self, the world, your pain, joy, or what­ev­er she’s writ­ing about. 

CSSB is this cool lit­tle record­ing arts/brand building/cocreating dojo off Broad­way where a bunch of rap­pers and po­ets and pro­duc­ers and mu­si­cians pay month­ly mem­ber­ship and get ac­cess to studios. 

They host these re­al­ly cool mics on Tues­day nights that are called The Po­ets Open Mic and it’s just that… po­ets hang­ing out and spit­ting and giv­ing each oth­er feed­back and work­ing their shit out. 

The whole vibe re­minds me of my house dur­ing the peak of the ZFG days.
 

 

I’ve poured every­thing I have into this for you Sacramento. 

Down­load this of­fi­cial guide at SacramentoPoetryWeek.com:

Huge thank you to all our com­mu­ni­ty part­ners. The first ever #SacPo­et­ry­Week wouldn’t be what it is with­out you all.
 

Shirts avail­able at events through­out Po­et­ry Week. M‑XL avail­able. Name your price. Print­ing cost was $20. All pro­ceeds go to pay­ing po­ets for their performances.
 

Have you en­tered yet? Win up to $500. Raf­fle style so every­one has the same chance to win no mat­ter skill or ex­pe­ri­ence. Go here to en­ter.
 

SACRT not only mak­ing tran­sit free with a poem on Sacra­men­to Po­et­ry Day Oc­to­ber 26 but also pro­vid­ing us with some month pass­es for po­ets that per­form on the light rail takeover with us!
 

Some­one asked me a ques­tion that I’ve been asked a fair share of times over the last five years. “How do you be­come Poet Laureate?”

And this time … it hit different. 

Af­ter five years i’m get­ting ready to re­tire from the only job I ever want­ed in life. A Poet Lau­re­ate. And not just of any­where. Of the cap­i­tal of Cal­i­for­nia. And it’s all hit­ting me. And it’s all weird. And it’s all so much. And it’s all re­al­ly noth­ing. But I got to live my dream y’all. Like, to­day. In Sacra­men­to. Like so many days the last five years. 

This is my farewell as Poet Lau­re­ate. Sacra­men­to Po­et­ry Week is my love let­ter to the city where my dreams came true. 

I love you Sacra­men­to. The of­fi­cial po­et­ry cap­i­tal of California. 💜💜💜 

I’m re­al­ly gonna miss these days. 

I’m ready.

But I know to­day was one of the good ol’ days.

Beams.

ILYAY­CD­SAI.

 

—an­dru defeye

Flom­mist An­dru De­f­eye is the Guer­ril­la Poet Lau­re­ate of Sacra­men­to. Copy­right © 2024 An­dru De­f­eye. Up top: Video grab, pho­to mod­els: Deb­o­rah Arm­strong, Grace Loesch­er, and some guy. 📸 @joshjorin at @citysoundsoundbyte

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