Waxing poetic

Not everyone can rhyme or use a metaphor. But that shouldn’t deter anyone from enjoying good writing. Hear others wax poetic about literature and poetry at the Sacramento Poetry Center’s spring series, Literary Lectures: Beat to Beatnik. The series, which lasts six consecutive Thursday nights at 7:30 p.m., kicked off last week with a discussion about the globalization of hip-hop, led by UC Davis professor Halifu Osumare.

The next installment on Thursday, March 7, features a lecture about Robert Duncan by Sacramento’s former poet laureate, Julia Connor. The series continues on March 14, with “The Poet in the World: Creativity, Influences, and the World of Ten Thousand Poems,” a lecture featuring Poetry Boot Camp’s Molly Fisk and UC Davis’ Susan Kelly-DeWitt. On March 21, Sacramento Poetry Center’s Tim Kahl and American River College professor Michael Spurgeon will talk about Chilean poet Roberto Bolaño in “Roberto Bolaño: The Moral Duty of the Writer With Respect to Violence and Commerce.”

UC Davis African- and African-American studies professor Moradewun Adejunmobi delivers a lecture called “Poetry in Africa: History, Trends, Debates” on March 28, and the series-closing lecture on April 4 is “The Silence That Is Great Within Us: The Many Voices of Our Poetry” will be delivered by Pablo Neruda translator William O’Daly. Various hosts and assistants—including another former Sacramento poet laureate, Bob Stanley—will add to the literary fun throughout the series. In other words, it’s six weeks filled with Sacramento’s best wordsmiths talking about some of the best folks to ever turn a phrase.

Check it out on Thursdays through April 4, at 7:30 p.m. ($10 suggested donation) at the Sacramento Poetry Center, 1719 25th Street; (916) 240-1897; www.sacramentopoetrycenter.com or http://tinyurl.com/saclitlectures.