Terry Moore (T Mo) In Sacramento, we are very fortunate to have award-winning spoken word poet Terry Moore as part of our poetry scene. While he has performed his poetry all around the country, he organizes and hosts plenty of local events to showcase other artists from the Capital region and beyond. Terry hosts The Show, the popular Saturday night series in Oak Park. You’ll see him there on the last Saturday of every month, taking videos, making sure everyone is comfortable, getting young people to participate, and introducing acts with warmth and style. But when T-Mo takes the stage to speak his own pieces, the intensity goes up. Working smoothly, often with a two- or three- piece band

Born and raised in Sacramento, Kathy Kieth now lives in Pollock Pines. A musician, music teacher, music therapist, psychologist and poet, her work has been published in many journals, including Atlanta Review, California Quarterly, Main Street Rag, Möbius, Potpourri, Ekphrasis, PDQ, Poetry Now, Slant, and Tiger’s Eye. Kathy has also published four chapbooks: Night Full of Owls from White Heron Press, Keeping Time in the Clock Shop from PWJ Publishing, Why We Have Sternums from Rattlesnake Press, and Sex—For Animals from Rattlesnake Press. She was also nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize. In the last six years, Ms. Kieth has published hundreds of Sacramento-area poets in her quart

John Allen Cann plays with images and language to create new worlds where we can see ourselves in a new light. In “Spectral Thoughts,” the poet recasts an 18th century Japanese haiku master as an American trucker, so that we might create something new, surprise the sun? Basho steadies the steering wheel of his semi rolling across the blank wilds of middle America. Perhaps Cann sees himself as this traveler/poet, or perhaps like Wallace Stevens, he’s insisting that creativity is indispensible. Later in the same poem, talking about Humpty Dumpty, the poet reminds us, “only imagination/can make our eggman/whole again.” These poetic flights are intellectual pursuit in Cann’s world; watching

You could chat with Jim Moose for a while and not find out that he’s a World War II veteran or a retired attorney, but you might be able to figure it out through his poetry. Jim uses regular rhythms and rhyme in his poetry – you can hear that classic lilt of iambic pentameter in much of his work. It’s bouncy and generally easy to follow. But Jim’s wide range of topics – old friends, war scenes, historical poems, mountain hikes and courtroom scenes – set him apart from most poets I know. Check out this selection of pieces from his new book Hotchpot – you’ll find humor and wisdom, sorrow and joy, and a unique look at the world in the poetry of James M. Moose. Jim Moose, pere (James M. Moose

  Cynthia Linville’s poems blend images and personal story to create pieces that stay in the reader’s mind. When the narrator of one of the poems encounters a lover from long ago, the conversation’s real, the setting is real: "Yeah, I heard." And now over greasy bacon and sticky orange juice, no more guilt. The poet weaves detail and commentary together deftly in Nevermore, again as the narrator reflects on an acquaintance from the past: Pasts like ours (filled with wooden crosses and beatings in schoolhouses) require a greater escape velocity than other pasts do. Cynthia Linville teaches English at California State University, Sacramento and serves as poetry editor of Poetry Now and

line breaks mess me up every time. bring a poem and get there early!