ACTIVE POET-TEACHERS

This is not an exhaustive list! Some Poet-Teachers do not opt in to a public profile but are still hard at work serving their communities as Poet-Teachers. If you do not see a Poet serving your region, please reach out and we'll see if we can find you a great fit.

Many Poet-Teachers will travel and offer Zoom workshops by request. Click headshots for full bio & links. You may request Poet-Teacher services at info@cpits.org or 415-221-4201.

Please note: We can help make connections between Poet-Teachers and hiring institutions! All Poet-Teachers are independent contractors. At times, Poet-Teachers are independent contractors of California Poets in the Schools. However, if a school or other institution is issuing payment to the Poet-Teacher directly, the Poet-Teacher becomes an independent contractor of that institution. Regardless, California Poets in the Schools does not cover independent contractors under our insurance policies. We abide by California's independent contractor laws. Poet-Teachers listed on this page have gone through our training program. Each hiring entity is responsible for abiding by their own institutions' professional policies, when paying a Poet-Teacher as an independent contractor. Please reach out with any questions or concerns!

SOUTH

Jessica Wilson, Los Angeles

Jessica M. Wilson Cárdenas is an International Chicana Poet, born in East Los Angeles, CA. Jessica is a 3rd generation Beatnik. She has a BA in Creative Writing, and Art History, from UC Riverside.(Riverside, CA) and a Master of Fine Arts from Otis College of Art and Design. (Los Angeles, CA) In 2009 she founded the Los Angeles Poet Society and began a network of literary events and open mics in LA County! She teaches poetry with California Poets in the Schools, the oldest non-profit dedicated to the empowerment of our youth in CA, where she taught Youth US Poet Laureate, Amanda Gorman! Jessica is an Artivist; 100 Thousand Poets for Change in Los Angeles since 2011, and an organizer. Her activism is lent to stand against oppressors, standing up for justice for: Andy Lopez, Mely Corado, George Floyd, and other people of color who have been murdered; she is a woman on the Red Road. Jessica is a social justice Publisher for Los Angeles Poet Society Press, amplifying QTBIPOC voices. She’s a DJ for Radio Ollin, (www.radioollin.org) Her books of poetry include: What Breathes, Raw Kit, Marie Morrison, Serious Longing, published by Swan World Press in Paris, France.

Website: www.jessicamwilson.com

Nancy Woo, Los Angeles

Nancy Lynée Woo is a poet, writer, organizer, and climate activist who harbors a wild love for the natural world. Her debut poetry collection is called I’d Rather Be Lightning (GASHER Press, March 2023). Nancy has received fellowships from Artists at Work, PEN America, Arts Council for Long Beach, and Idyllwild Writers Week. Her work has been published in The Shore, Tupelo Quarterly, Stirring, Radar Poetry, and other journals and anthologies. Nancy has an MFA in creative writing from Antioch University and a BA in sociology from UC Santa Cruz.

Nancy has been teaching poetry to adults since 2017 as the founder of Surprise the Line, and teaching poetry to children and teens since 2019. She has taught poetry in 5th grade classrooms as an Artist-Teacher with Angels Gate Cultural Center and led an after-school poetry class as an Artist at Work, which culminated in a booklet of student work. She has also taught a STEAM summer program for middle schoolers and been a guest teacher in high school classrooms. Find her cavorting around Long Beach (Tongva land) in California, and online at nancylyneewoo.com or @fancifulnance on social.

Carlos Ornelas, Los Angeles

Carlos Ornelas is a Mexican American poet and author from Los Angeles. He has published two poetry books and has several poems published in various publications. He is available with lesson plans for students of all ages and backgrounds. He is currently a teacher's assistant working for the Community Literature Initiative and is an active participant with Cal Poets. He is presently participating in poetry readings and lectures throughout southern California and in underserved high schools, middle schools as well as open mics and literary events. Carlos Ornelas believes in unity and empowerment through the written word. He believes in educating with poetry as a means of self growth, identity and inclusion of others. Poetry can increase students' ability to read, provide confidence for socializing or public speaking, as well as introduce students to critical thinking, various cultures and customs as well as historic events.

Alice Pero, Los Angeles

Alice Pero began teaching children poetry with a program with The New York City Ballet Education Department in the five boroughs of NYC in 1991. She was highly regarded as an asset as she was not only a published poet, but a dancer and musician and using her knowledge of all the arts, she developed a curriculum for teaching children poetry that involved a holistic artistic approach. Moving to Los Angeles in 1996 led her to the California Poets in the Schools and she began a successful career in Southern California, teaching in both public and private schools. Her students' poems have made their way into numerous CA Poets anthologies.
Pero's book, "Thawed Stars" was praised by Kenneth Koch as having "clarity and surprises." She is also collaborative with other poets and artists, having done dialogues over the last 25 years with over 20 poets and her book, "Beyond Birds and Answers" is the result of an on-going dialogue with NYC artist, Vera Campion.
In addition to being a prolific poet and poet/teacher, Pero is a flutist who formed the chamber music group, "Windsong" in 2015.
She also formed the long-running poetry series, "Moonday" in 2002 and is now curating the reading for Village Poets in Tujunga, CA. She is the 10th Poet Laureate of Sunland/Tujunga.
www.alicepero.com or write info@cpits.org

Kiana Shaley, Los Angeles

Kiana Shaley Martin writes and lives in Long Beach, CA. Currently, she teaches poetry at CSU, Long Beach, and coordinates the Youth Poet Laureate program through the Long Beach Public Library. Previously, she was a Teaching Assistant at Community Literature Initiative. Previous work of hers has appeared in Annex Magazine, Fugue, The Racket, and Sim's Library of Poetry's Poem-a-Week. She is available for workshops and can be reached via email at hikianashaley@gmail.com.

Gia Civerolo, Los Angeles, Poet-Teacher in Training

Gia Civerolo is a Los Angeles based poet, producer, educator, and special needs advocate. She has immersed herself into the poetry community for the past few years and is thrilled to have self-published her this first full-length collection “She Confuses Lovers, Movies, Angels & Poems”. She is honored to be published in many Southern California Series Anthologies & E-books She is also featured in the Bards of Southern California: Top 30 SoCal Poets and recently was awarded Alumni of the Year from the Community Literature Initiative. She can be seen performing and featuring at open mics throughout Los Angeles. Gia is most proud to be Riley and Holden’s Mother.

Diosa Xochiquetzalcóatl, Inland Empire

Diosa Xochiquetzalcóatl, or Diosa X for short, is a multilingual and multidimensional Xicana, Indigenous, MeXicana poetiza. She is a seasoned language arts educator with a Bachelor's in English and a Master's in Cross-Cultural Education, as well as a Level 1 Kundalini Yoga Instructor and a student of Nahualísmo. Diosa X has been writing since her preteen years, first publishing her poems in her high school’s bilingual literary magazine, Las Voces. But it wasn’t until adulthood that she began to participate in open mics at Tia Chucha’s and Tonalli Studios; and it was then that she recommitted to her poetry and finally embraced her life as a poet, and eventually, author.

In 2022, Diosa participated and won Chicago's only Spanish-language slam, Slam Diáspora, which sent her, in partnership with the Fiesta Literaria de la las Periferias (FLUP) to the continental tournament, Abya Yala: Copa América de Poetry Slam in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Prior to this experience, she also competed in the 2017 CABE Conference Spoken Word Competition, tying for first. Most recently, Diosa X became the RGVIPF's first slam champion in 2023.

This poet has facilitated poetry workshops in English, Spanish, and bilingually for the Sims Library/Los Angeles Public Library's Adult Literacy Program; Tumblewords Project; Contracorriente: Cruce de poesía y transgresión, a binational women writers retreat in Ixtapa, Mexico; Ovitt Library in the city of Ontario; the Rio Grande Valley International Poetry Festival; the Circulo de poetas and Writers Conference, the La Raza Youth Empowerment Conference at LA Mission College, and several SoCal schools as a Poet-Teacher with California Poets in Schools.

Cie Gumucio, Santa Barbara

Cie Gumucio is Poet-Teacher and Area Coordinator in Santa Barbara for Cal Poets in the Schools. In 2021, Cie worked in collaboration with elementary students, the Botanic Garden, and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art to help bring awareness to the plight of the monarch butterflies. Poetry with Wings engaged more than 1000 students in our community and won a Santa Barbara Beautiful Award.

Cie Gumucio has designed art installations incorporating poetry, video, and dance. She curated the TEDx event, Rediscovery of the Senses in Los Angeles. Her solo Los Angeles art exhibit Writers in Search of the Sacred explored the convergence of art, literature, and spirituality.

Her writing and performance has been selected for the Speaking of Stories series and her poetry has been published in numerous Anthologies. Prior to becoming a Poetry teacher, she won awards for writing in the film and television industry.

Kimbrough Ernest, Santa Barbara

Kimbrough Ernest has been inspiring a love of writing in elementary students since her days as a 3rd and 4th grade teacher in Oxnard, Ca. Poetry "found" her many years ago during SCWriP's summer institute for teachers, where the wonderful Santa Barbara poet Barry Spacks led a workshop.
Inspired by retired CalPoet teacher, Lois Klein, Kim joined the organization in 2020. She appreciates the opportunity to share her love of poetry in the classroom and is very grateful to be part of the rich community of poets.
Kim has been published in numerous anthologies, and was recently a winner in the inaugural Ventura County Poetry Festival.

Angelina Leaños, Fresno & Ventura

Angelina Leaños is a Ventura County Youth Poet Laureate Emeritus and a first-year MFA student at Fresno State. Angelina regularly serves as a Poetry Out Loud coach and a Poet-Teacher, mentoring youth in poetry recitation and creative writing. Additionally, Angelina was a reader for the 2023 Philip Levine Prize and is currently a member of the California Poets in the Schools' Board of Directors.

During her time as a student at California Lutheran University, her poems were published in the campus Morning Glory magazine. She also received the Mark Van Doren Poetry Prize her Junior year. At the age of 20, Angelina was the youngest awardee for the Conejo Valley Chamber of Commerce’s 2022 40 Under Forty award ceremony.

Leaños has been widely published, including the California Poets in the School’s 2019 statewide anthology, I’ll Take this Word and Make it Mine: 2018-2019 California Poets in the Schools Anthology, the title of which comes from her very own poem, “Call Me Chicano.” In addition, her work has been published by Urban Word, Flowersong Press, the Chicanx Writers & Artists Association, and Arkana.

Ga'agé Taya, "Crow Daughter," Ventura, Poet-Teacher in Training

Ga'agé Taya, "Crow Daughter," is an Apache-Jewish Poet from Ventura County. Based in Thousand Oaks, she has participated in multiple slams and readings throughout the county, notably: MLK Jr. Day observation at Libbey Park, Casa Agria's monthly slam, and Simi Valley Pride at Rancho Simi Park. She studied poetry under Fernando Salinas and has received recognition from the Oxnard Union School District as well as Ventura County Community College District for her proficient understanding of the art of poetry. Ms. Perez has been published twice: "Through me, You will See: Oxnard High Poetry Slam Anthology, 2019" and "Acid Verse, Vol. 3"
As a queer person of Native American descent, Crow Daughter values interconnectedness, awareness, and worldly comprehension first and foremost. She works closely with the Get Loud! movement located in Oxnard, Ca to provide spaces where those who may struggle to communicate themselves can be heard. If you are interested in a workshop or lesson plan, please contact crowquetzal@gmail.com for more information.

Luzmaria Espinosa, Ventura

Ventura County's Poet Laureate, internationally acclaimed poet Luzmaria "Luzma" Espinosa, is a life-long activist, teatrista, danzante and cultural worker. Born in Michoacán, Mexico, she and her family migrated to Ventura County in 1956, and she attended Santa Paula schools. She received BA degrees from UC Santa Barbara in Spanish and Sociology, and
she earned an Adult Teaching Credential and MA from Antioch University. She has shared her poetry in K-12 schools, community colleges and community cultural events in Ventura County, Santa Barbara County and San Luis Obispo County, throughout California, Mexico, Nicaragua and Africa.

Ms. Espinosa has performed in theater productions with the former group, Los Mascarones of Mexico City, Teatro Gusto of the Mission Cultural Center in San Francisco, Teatro de la Calle in Sacramento, and Teatro In Lak ‘Ech of Oxnard. She was also a member of TENAZ (Teatro Nacional de Aztlan).

In 1979, she became a member of the Royal Chicano Air Force, a Sacramento, California-based art collective which supported the activities of Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta and helped to advance the cause of the United Farm Workers movement and other marginalized groups. She also began her life’s passion of sharing and teaching Danza Azteca. She is the first person to introduce Danza Mexica/Azteca to the Central Coast of California, where her group has impacted hundreds of lives—particularly youth—throughout Ventura County.
#poetlaureate #LuzmariaEspinosa #santapaula

Johnnierenee Nia Nelson, Coordinator, San Diego

Johnnierenee Nia Nelson has presented readings and workshops from Cairo, Egypt to Vancouver, British Columbia. She is the Poet Laureate of the WorldBeat Center in beautiful Balboa Park. "Identify the who, the what, and the where that you are passionate about and embrace it wholeheartedly. For me that's my immediate family (including spouse), working with children, poetry, travel, and residing in San Diego.” --Johnnierenee Nia Nelson

Award-winning poet and playwright Johnnierenee Nia Nelson, aka, the Kwanzaa Poet, has written five books of Kwanzaa poetry. Her first volume, “A Quest for Kwanzaa”, published in 1988, was heralded as the authoritative genesis of Kwanzaa literature. “Classic Kwanzaa Poems: New and Selected” is her latest work.

She is a poet/teacher with CalPoets and with San Diego's Border Voices Project, as well as a performance poet who has presented readings and workshops from Cairo, Egypt to Vancouver, British Columbia. Ms. Nelson was featured at the fifth Annual El Cajon Friendship Festival with her creation “A Taste of Kwanzaa” and on two KPBS radio shows, “These Days” and “The Lounge.” She also performed at San Diego City College in collaboration with Urban Bush Women. Her video credits include the Emmy Award-winning documentary, “Lighting the Way” and KPBS' acclaimed “Border Voices” TV show.

In 2017, Ms. Nelson received a Fellowship from the Livingkindness Foundation to attend the International Women Writers Guild's 40th Annual Summer Conference in Allentown, PA. Johnnierenee serves as the Poet Laureate of the World Beat Center in beautiful Balboa Park and is the San Diego County Area Coordinator for California Poets in the Schools.

Ms. Nelson loves facilitating interactive writing workshops with middle and elementary school students while integrating art, drama, movement, and music.

Seretta Martin, San Diego

Seretta Martin, mission is to encourage the love of poetry. She is the managing editor and a regional editor of the San Diego Poetry Annual and a co-founder of Haiku San Diego. She has taught in the San Diego area through California Poets in the Schools and the Border Voices Poetry Project since 2004. At Oasis Learning Center she teaches adult poetry workshops. She served as a co-editor and contributor of the CPITS 50th Anniversary, “Poetry Crossing” Lesson book.

Seretta is a Philip Levine Prize, Washington Prize and Atlanta Review finalist. Her publishing credits over the last 25 years include Serving House Journal, Web Del Sol, Poetry International, Margie, Modern Haiku, California State Poetry Society, California Fire & Water anthology, A Year in Ink and San Diego Poetry Annual. She hosted the New Alchemy, Barnes and Noble Poetry Series for fifteen years. Here appearances on TV as a featured poet and interviewer of award-winner students airs frequently on the Border Voices Doorway to Vision, educational ITV channel. Seretta holds an MFA in Creative Writing from San Diego State University and is a Phi Kapa Phi alumnus. She also serves as a hospice volunteer.

Sunday, November 20, 2022, was declared “Seretta Martin Day” throughout San Diego County in recognition of her accomplishments and her important work within and on behave of The Arts community by San Diego Writer’s Ink, the San Diego Entertainment and Arts Guild and the San Diego Poetry Annual. She was honored at a reception and given a Certificate of Appreciation and Recognition. Seretta’s awards include California Center for the Arts; Outstanding Leadership, grants from the Lannan Foundation and Poets and Writers, California State Poetry Society awards, the OASIS Journal’s “Best Poem” award, and the Linda Brown Memorial Idyllwild Summer Poetry Scholarship.

Amanda Chiado, San Benito

Amanda Chiado is the author of the chapbook Vitiligod: The Ascension of Michael Jackson (Dancing Girl Press, 2016). Her poetry and fiction is forthcoming or appears in Ghost Parachute, Vine Leaves Press, Paper Darts, Cheap Pop, Jersey Devil Press, Arcana: The Tarot Poetry Anthology, All We Can Hold: A Collection of Poetry on Motherhood and many others. Her poem "The Devil Has Taken His Dress Off" won the Molotov Cocktail Shadow Poetry Award, 2016.

Amanda is writer, teacher and arts advocate. She is the Director of Arts Education for the San Benito County Arts Council and is an active California Poet in the Schools.

She holds degrees from the University of New Mexico and California College of the Arts in addition to be a credential teacher. She edits for Jersey Devil Press.

Her work has garnered support from the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, The Creative Capacity Fund, the Highlights Foundation and The Luna Dance Institute. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.

Eva Poole-Gilson, Inyo

Eva Poole-Gilson has taught poetry in K-12 classrooms in four southern California counties. She also taught basic writing skills and literature at the Cerro Coso College in Bishop and Mammoth Lakes for 15 years. She's published three books: Love Letter to the High Sierra; Little Star Sleeping; and Whiskered Wisdom. As editor, she's completing development and layout of A Spark in Slow Motion, One Woman's Way with Parkinson's Disease. Eva loves teaching young children, at-risk teens, and adults of all ages who want to share their original poems and stories. She can be reached via her website: www.evapoole-gilson.com or www.fb.com/groups/TheImaginationLab.

Dawn Trook, Merced

Dawn Trook is a writer, performer, and educator based in Merced. She is the Area Coordinator for California Poets in the Schools and a writing program faculty member at UC Merced. Besides teaching first year composition and creative writing at UC Merced, she teaches Central Valley Stories, a first-year seminar in which students interview and collect stories from local community members and respond to and share the stories through creative work. IG: @dawntrook

Beth Beurkens, Monterey

BETH BEURKENS, M.A. is an award-winning poet and author. She is the author of two collections of shamanic poetry- Shaman’s Mirror- Poems and Shaman’s Eye. She is the co-editor of Sudden Meteors and Light Rising.
Beth has been published in numerous anthologies and news magazines including We'Moon, Woman Spirit, Mountain Spirit Chronicles, and In Celebration of the Muse.
Beth is and has been poet-teacher with California Poets in the Schools for 20 years, serving in Siskiyou County and Monterey County.
She has been on the faculty of numerous colleges and universities for over 30 years and has led Vision Quests for the past 25 years in California and Europe.

She leads dynamic, innovative Shamanic Writing programs, helping writers to go deeper and express themselves more freely and powerfully.
Beth studied philosophy for eight years, receiving both her cum laude B.A. and M.A. from University of California, Santa Barbara. She is a Regents Scholar.
Her deepest learning has always been from the voices of the stars, lakes, sun, trees, moon and the helping spirits who, she says, are always singing to us.

Matthew Woodman, Kern, Poet-Teacher in Training

Writing from Bakersfield, California, Matthew Woodman’s poems, stories, and essays explore issues of (dis)location and (im)permanence. He has collaborated with Bakersfield Museum of Art [BMOA] to facilitate ekphrastic “Art After Dark” poetry events and has led writing workshops on a variety of topics, including “The Poetics of Inner Geographies: Exploring the Self through Weather and Land.” His essay on Rufino Tamayo’s mural “Prometheus Bringing Fire to Mankind” was published in UNESCO Art Collection: Selected Works (2021), and his poems have appeared in Fourteen Hills, Puerto del Sol, Sonora Review, and Juked, among other journals and collections. He is the author of This Is Not Your Moon (2020) and was the contributing editor to a series of place-based themed anthologies, most recently Writing Covid (2022).

Elbina Batala Rafizadeh, Santa Cruz

Elbina Batala Rafizadeh is a retired public health nurse and academic faculty and researcher, who now writes and teaches poetry in the Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties. Her first book of poetry, “Keepers of the Malicgong Rice Terraces” will be available through Amazon by November 2024. She is published in local and national anthologies and journals, and editor of two forthcoming anthologies, “Portable Peace Protest, From Iraq to Palestine” and “Word and Image, Contemplative Poetry by Camaldolese Monks and Oblates,” and now working on an ethnography of the descendants of the Filipino Manong generation. You can contact her through her website elbinabatalarafizade.com.

Michael Jasso, Tulare

Michael Jasso is a Spoken Word Artist from Visalia who has worn many hats within the community over the past 15+ years. He has traveled all across California and the country as either a Poet, Emcee, Volunteer, Workshop Facilitator, Slam Coach, or a combination of all the above. He has been Lead Organizer of Visalia’s Loud Mouth Poetry Jam for the last 12+ years bringing out the world’s most talented poets, as well as showcasing the talent of the Valley’s poetry community back to the world. He represented his home venue at the 2014 & 2015 National Poetry Slam in Oakland, competed in the 2018 Individual World Poetry Slam as a Storm Poet, a member of the 2023 Slam Team, and has offered coaching to every Loud Mouth representative. He was the 2024 Loud Mouth Grand Slam Champion. He is a Certified Poet-Teacher affiliated with the statewide non-profit, California Poets In The Schools, and serves on the Board of Directors of Arts Visalia Visual Arts Center.

His work can be found in such collections as Dia De Las Poeticas (2020), Wayside Shrines & Other Offerings (2022), Flies, Cockroaches, & Poets (2023), and most recently Burn After Reading & Other Remains (2024).

Michael Jasso is a Poet from Visalia. He is the founder of the Loud Mouth Poetry Jam, a Certified Poet-Teacher with the California Poets In The Schools, and serves on the Board of Directors of Arts Visalia.
His publications include Dia De Las Poeticas (2020), Wayside Shrines & Other Offerings (2022), Flies, Cockroaches, & Poets (2023), and most recently Burn After Reading & Other Remains (2024).

Lulu Wong, Sacramento & Yolo

Lulu Wong is a poet teacher residing in Sacramento County. She is a retired litigation attorney, former pediatric hospital chaplain resident at UC Davis Medical Center, and graduate of Yale University where she was the editor of the Asian American Journal. She is lay ordained in the Soto Zen Buddhist lineage and has also served as a Eucharistic Minister and Lector. Her poetry has been published in the anthology "Chiral Mad 5" (Written Backwards, 2022) and online by Whoa Nelly Press. She has been a life coach for Girls on the Run (6th-8th graders) and a reading tutor for pre-K and kindergarten classes. She brings to the classroom her diverse background and encourages student engagement through expressions of identity, connection with complex feelings, spoken word, discovery and class collaboration. She can be reached at luluwong3224@gmail.com

CENTRAL/NORTH CENTRAL

BAY AREA

Tureeda Mikell, Alameda

Tureeda Ture Ade Mikell, Story Medicine Woman, author, ‘activist for holism, called ‘word magician,’ is an award winning poet, published nationally and internationally. Qigong Healer, workshop leader, storyteller, lyricist, performance artist, founder of The Tree of Life Foundation H.L.P. (www.treeoflifefound.com), child advocate for youth, and adults finding voice. Published over 70 student anthologies with CA Poets in the Schools since 1989. Performs/ed in schools, libraries and universities, Google, Genentech, Aspire, Lawrence Hall, and Golden Gate Academy of Sciences, Randall, Oakland, and De Young Museums. Was featured spoken word artist at SOAN [Soul of a Nation] Exhibit, and the American Academy of Poets, Fire Thieves, at the De Young, and Museum of the African Diaspora, (MoAD) Lit-Quake Afrofuturism. Featured storyteller for the 55 Year Anniversary of the Black Panther Party, National Association of Black Storytellers, featured poet storyteller celebrating Octavia Butler’s 70th birthday, and Eth-Noh-Tec Nu Wa Delegate storyteller in Beijing, China in collaboration with the University of Beijing. Recent publications of her work can be found in, Black Fire -This Time, released in 2022 by Willow Press, Revolutionary Poets Brigade, 2022, Second Stutter by City Lights Books, 2022, Common Ground, by Pease Press, 2022, and many more.

Her full length collection, Synchronicity, The Oracle of Sun Medicine, was released in 2020, and nominated for the California Book award. She is also co-curator of the Patrice Lumumba Anthology, released in 2021 by Nomadic Press, both now at Black Lawrence Press, New York. 2023 has presented Tureeda to, Filoli, Stories in Bloom, Atherton, Stanford University, Poets by the Bay, Berkeley Museum of Modern Art, Berkeley, San Jose Poetry Center, Beautiful Black Books (BBB) interviewed by Tshaka Campbell, Santa Clara Poet Laureate, San Jose Museum of Art Invitational, curated by Poet Laureate Tshaka Campbell, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, S. F., Belmont Poetry Center, Belmont, and more…

Milani Pelley, Alameda

Milani Pelley is a forever-changing being, probably not initially from this earth. An advocate of children, families, art, spirituality, and freedom for all people, Milani was born and raised and gave birth in Berkeley; She believes Black people belong in Berkeley. Milani believes in Matriarchy and Divine Love and uses her gifts as an educator, healer, poet, and facilitator of self-expression and healing to create this in the world.
Milani has performed at the Opera House in San Francisco and for activists Will i.am, Saul Williams, Jesse Jackson, and Angela Davis. She solely represented Oakland in the Women of the World Poetry Slam in 2010. She was a part of Team Oakland in 2010, placing top four in group-piece finals, and was a member of Team Oakland in 2011, ranking top ten in the nation. To hear, read and speak Milani’s words is truly an unforgettable experience. To participate in her workshops is transformative.

“I enjoy working with people of any age, whether 4 years old or 94 years old. Everyone has a voice, story, and journey that deserves to be heard and documented.”

“My favorite lesson plans are “Purpose” and “Manifestation”. I believe it is essential to know one's purpose and what one is made to do on this earth. I enjoy the power of manifestation and activating that through writing.”

Freddy "Manos" Gutierrez, Alameda

Freddy "Manos" Gutierrez, California poet and teaching artist. Freddy has facilitated writing and performance art spaces with people in incarceration from the Bay to the UK for over 10 years. He specializes in using metaphor alongside personal narrative in order to shape social commentary as catalysts for storytelling. His poetry seeks to foster agency of voice in those he creates with. He’s been published by Los Angeles Poet Society Press, The Puerto Rico Review, The Acentos Review, the Nomadic Press, and University of Houston's Arte Publico Press; and was featured as LoWriter of the Week selected by U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera.

Cynthia Patton, Alameda

Cynthia Patton, BS, JD, attended UC Davis and has authored three books, including Across An Aqueous Moon: Travels in Autism (2016), and edited Double Take: Art and Literature Side By Side (2022). Her award-winning work has appeared in sixteen anthologies plus publications such as Mom Egg Review and Spoon River Poetry Review. Two essays were performed onstage, and the Museum of Motherhood featured her work in 2015.

Patton is an attorney, activist, editor, nonprofit consultant, and founder of the organization, Autism A to Z. The California native served as the City of Livermore’s Poet Laureate (2017-2022), hosts the long-running Whistlestop Writers Open Mic, and teaches with California Poets in the Schools. She’s completing a second poetry collection plus a memoir, My Guardian Angel Sings the Blues, on her unconventional journey to motherhood. She lives with her daughter, a dog, and two rowdy cats. Learn more at CynthiaJPatton.com

Brennan DeFrisco, Bay Area

Brennan DeFrisco is a poet, teaching artist, editor, voice actor, & arts coordinator from the San Francisco Bay Area. He's been serving students and classrooms through California Poets in the Schools for the past 10 years, specializing in contemporary spoken word and performance poetry. Brennan believes in the transformational power of poetry and the impact in can have on the page and the stage.

Brennan has been a National Poetry Slam finalist, a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, and Grand Slam Champion of the Oakland Poetry Slam. He has coordinated Poetry Out Loud programs in three Bay Area counties and been an event organizer for the Redwood Poetry Festival, the Bigfoot Poetry Festival, and the San Francisco Arts Commission. He’s the author of A Heart With No Scars, published by Nomadic Press and Black Lawrence Press, Honeysuckle & Nightshade, published by Swimming with Elephants Publications, & has served as poetry editor on the mastheads of the award-winning literature magazine, Lunch Ticket. His recent collection was featured at the Portland Book Festival. Brennan facilitates creative writing and performance workshops, serving K-12 classrooms, incarcerated youth, adults, seniors, and various arts education programs. His work has been published in Red Wheelbarrow, Oracle Fine Arts Review, Drunk in a Midnight Choir, Gemini & elsewhere. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles.

Brennan is a dual-resident of California and Oregon, facilitating both in-person and virtual residencies throughout the school year. He has served schools across the greater SF Bay Area and Sonoma County for the past 10 years. Brennan offers in-person availability in northern California and virtual availability statewide. To contact Brennan for a residency, please send him an email at bdeeppoetry@gmail.com.

Laura Walker, Alameda

Laura Walker is the author of six books of poetry, most recently PSALMBOOK (2022) and STORY (2016). She began teaching as a California Poet in the Schools in 2003, and currently teaches at Washington Elementary School in Berkeley. Laura has also taught poetry writing to undergraduates at San Francisco State University, MFA students at University of San Francisco, and community members at UC Berkeley Extension. In all her teaching, she stresses the importance of imagination and artistic freedom, and the wonder and possibilities alive in language. Originally from North Carolina, she now lives in Berkeley, where she keeps bees and wrangles chickens. More information can be found at www.laura-walker.com.

Norma Smith, Alameda

Norma Smith was born in Detroit and grew up in California’s Central Valley. She has lived in Alameda County almost continuously since the late 1960s, except for a few years in Sonoma County and a year and a half in Managua, Nicaragua. She has worked as a hospital clerk, union shop steward, radio producer (KPFA-Pacifica Radio’s Drama & Literature Department, Women’s Department, Public Affairs Department and then with La Peña Cultural Center’s Radio Group), social researcher/community scholar-educator, translator-interpreter (Spanish-English), events and conference organizer, and as a poet- writer and curator in the Bay Area literary community. She has been active in many social change movements over those years, always with an anti-racist/anti-oppression lens. Norma holds a BA in Creative Writing, an MA in Education with Special Focus on Equity Issues, and a PHD in Ethnic and Cultural Studies. Her writing has been published in literary, scholarly, and political journals. Her book of poems, HOME REMEDY, was published by Nomadic Press in 2017 and is available at https://blacklawrencepress.com/books/home-remedy/

Smith has designed and taught poetry and prose workshops in English, Spanish, and Spanglish and has developed curriculum for adults and youth around health and healing, social-emotional acuity, social power dynamics, and other complex issues. Recently, under the direction of her fifth grade classroom, she has designed curriculum around sports, food, culinary arts, and colonization.

Smith’s approach to teaching is student-centered, collaborative, inter-generational, and open to questions. She takes her students seriously as writers and believes that poetry is, at its heart, a matter of paying attention.

Claire Blotter, Marin

Spoken word poet, Claire Blotter, inspires young people to write & perform poetry with figurative language, movement chants, vocabulary enrichment & wild imagination. She motivates them to write from their hearts about their ideas, big questions and deep feelings.

With both an elementary teaching credential and a Special Writing & Performance M.A., she has taught in the San Jose and Saratoga public schools, at Tamalpais High School, San Francisco State University, John F. Kennedy University, Dominican University and the College of Marin.

She has published three poetry chapbooks and won numerous grants for her poetry, video & original community theater productions. She won the 1992 & 1993 San Francisco Performance Poetry Slams, placing second with her team in national competitions in Boston and Chicago. She is currently guiding poetry reading/waterway walks throughout California to celebrate her full length collection, EXPANDING.WATER.WAYS., and to bring attention to the 2023 Supreme Court ruling that limits protections for US wetlands & waterways. Her award winning video documentary, WAKE-UP CALL: SAVING THE SONGBIRDS, has been screened in eleven film festivals from Mill Valley to Chicago.
To contact Claire, visit claireblotter.com
https://www.claireblotter.com/

Meredith Heller, Marin

Meredith Heller is a poet, author, singer/songwriter, avid nature lover, and educator with degrees in writing and education. A California Poet in the Schools, she leads writing workshops at public & private schools, women’s prisons, juvenile detention centers, the Institute for Poetic Medicine, the Kennedy Center for the Arts, creativity summits, wellness retreats, and online. She is the author of two guide books on writing, Write a Poem, Save Your Life, and the upcoming Writing By Heart, and three poetry collections, Songlines, Yuba Witch, & River Spells.

My passion is helping empower kids to believe in themselves, trust their creativity, cultivate curiosity and imagination, and express themselves with depth, clarity, and confidence.

My workshops are interactive and fun. I draw on nature, the five senses, personal discovery, and a rich library of poets and writing invitations to inspire poetry from kids in their own voices about what most concerns and enlivens them.
For more info: www.meredithheller.com

Virginia Barrett, Marin

Virginia Barrett is a poet, writer, artist, editor, and educator. She earned her MFA in Writing from the University of San Francisco where she was poetry editor of Switchback. Her six books of poetry include Between Looking, and Crossing Haight—San Francisco poems. Her most recent collection, The Vessels We Carry Keep Us Alive, is forthcoming from Saint Julian Press in 2026. Lead designer for Light on the Walls of Life—a tribute anthology to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, she is also the editor of five anthologies including BLUE: a Hue Are You anthology, RED: a Hue Are You anthology, and Feather Floating on the Water—poems for our children. She has taught poetry, creative writing, and visual art throughout the San Francisco Bay Area for over three decades, including in the MFA in Writing program at the University of San Francisco. www.virginiabarrett.com

Lea Aschkenas, Marin

Lea Aschkenas is a bilingual (English and Spanish) writer who has taught with the Marin County chapter of California Poets in the Schools since 2001. She also works as a public librarian and is the author of two books-- the memoir Es Cuba: Life and Love on an Illegal Island and the children's book, Arletis, Abuelo, and the Message in a Bottle. Visit her at www.leaaschkenas.com.

Maxine Flasher-Düzgüneş, Marin

Maxine Flasher-Düzgüneş is a poet, educator, dance artist and US-UK Fulbright Recipient from Mill Valley where she was first introduced to CalPoets as a budding first-grader at Strawberry Point Elementary. She engages with the disciplines of choreography and visual art as creative tools for grasping poetic language. Since 2016 she has taught her dance & poetry workshop called "choreographic writing" to students of all ages at University of San Francisco, NYU Tisch, Idaho Fine Arts Academy, Eagle Hill School, DrawBridge, The Writer's Nest, Roco Dance, Open Arms Dance Project, The Write Trail, Bodies of Empowerment, Ellen Webb Studio, Shawl Anderson Dance Center, The Collective SF, and Big Sky Workshop. In 2024 she established Marin's first Youth Poet Laureate Program, bridging arts leadership to future generations.

Maxine is a writer for Dance Art Journal, where she has been commissioned by Sadlers Wells, The Place London, Theater Basel, and National Dance Company Wales among others to conduct interviews and reviews on cutting-edge dance companies and choreographers. She has held artistic residencies all over the country, most notably from Djerassi, Tofte Lake Center, Surel's Place, and Center at Eagle Hill. She recently published a poetry chapbook with Ghost City Press (with Spanish translation) and a YA novella with VerbalEyze Press. She holds a B.F.A. in Dance and a Minor in English (Magna Cum Laude) from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and an M.A. in Dance Philosophy & History (with Distinction) from University of Roehampton London.

She joined CalPoets in 2022 and now serves as the Area Coordinator for Marin County. She also serves as a Marin Poetry Out Loud coach, a teaching artist with Alonzo King LINES Ballet in San Francisco, and an artist-in-the-schools with Gallery Route One in Point Reyes. She can be reached at mfd301@nyu.edu for in-person classes. Learn more at www.poeticabythebay.com

Margo Perin, Sonoma

Margo Perin has been the Sonoma County Area Coordinator for California Poets in the Schools since 2017, and a CalPoet-Teacher since 2014. For more than three decades, she has taught poetry/creative writing in K-12 and alternative schools, after-schools, juvenile and adult jails/prisons, children’s homes, libraries, senior/community centers, art centers, hospitals, community colleges, MFA Writing programs, Poetry Out Loud, writers.com, and workshops in Italy and Mexico. She has served as writer-in-residence at San Francisco County Jail and at UCSF’s Art for Recovery for people with cancer.

Margo’s book publications include Plexiglass; The Opposite of Hollywood; Only the Dead Can Kill: Stories from Jail; and How I Learned to Cook & Other Writings on Complex Mother-Daughter Relationships. Her poetry has been anthologized in Dissent: Against War and Capitalism; Fightin’ Words: 25 Years of Provocative Prose and Poetry; Los Angeles Poets for Justice: A Document for the People; Acid Verse: Queer Uprising; Postcard Poems and Poets in Pajamas. She is the poet of San Francisco Public Safety Building’s public memorial Spiral of Gratitude. Perin's mixed media works, Mapmaker (poetry/photography), won Honorary Mention at the Not Just Landscapes exhibition at Sebastopol Center for the Arts and Accessories for the Apocalypse poetry/textiles) was shown at the Santa Rosa Arts Center’s Healing By Art: After the Fires.

A nominee for the Pushcart Prize, Margo has been featured in national and international media, including NPR, BBC News, BBC World Service Outlook, BBC Saturday Live, O, The Oprah Magazine, The Press Democrat, San Francisco Chronicle, Mexico’s El Petit Journal, Holland’s Psychologie, and on KRON4 TV, KQED, KALW, KPFA, KGGV, KOWS, KWMR and other TV and radio. Margo publishes regularly on Substack at https://perinm.substack.com/ and can be visited at www.margoperin.com.

Elizabeth Bennett, Sonoma

Before I began my teaching experience with Cal Poets in 2022, I taught poetry in my high school English classes for many years. Poetry is also part of the curriculum with my international students at Sonoma State where I teach now. I have been a poet for many years and have written two chapbooks: "Frog Takes Her Leap" and "The Color of Apricots". I am working on my third chapbook at this time. I have won awards for my poetry. My non-fiction and fiction has been published.

Poetry has been my way of connecting to myself, to students, and to the world. The circle of inspiration that occurs with poetry in the classroom and elsewhere is a gift to me and, I hope, to others. My newfound connection to Cal Poets is a way to even more inspiration.

Lisa Shulman, Sonoma

Lisa Shulman is a poet, children’s book author, and teacher. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Inkfish, Kitchen Table Quarterly, Chiron Review, ONE ART, Poetry Breakfast, Catamaran, The Best Small Fictions 2020, California Quarterly, and a number of other journals and anthologies. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Lisa’s poetry has been performed by Off the Page Readers Theater. Her new chapbook is Fragile Bones, Fierce Heart (Finishing Line Press).

An elementary school teacher for many years, Lisa has also led writing workshops for both children and adults. As a visiting author, she has spoken to hundreds of students about writing, encouraging them to express themselves through poetry and fiction. She is currently a poet-teacher with California Poets in the Schools in Sonoma County.
http://www.lisashulman.com

Brian Martens, Sonoma

Brian has always been a poet, though he didn’t know he was creative until he was a senior in college and took a pottery class. This entry into the art, craft, and creative world catapulted him into a new life direction. Writing, poetry, and Haiku followed soon after the explosion of these new skills.

His book of Haiku and other favorite poems is Three Raven Gate (2019). His second book of poetry, Merlin’s Wing, is awaiting a publisher. He inspires and motivates people with podcasts (The Spoken Symbol), creativity workshops, Shamanic drum journeys, and poetry to recognize their own deep creative spirit and express that to the world.

He started his work with CPITS as the 2019-2020 Sonoma County Poetry Out Loud coordinator, and completed his poet-teacher training 03-03-2020, and had to wait until COVID slowed down before he was able to teach in local Sonoma county schools.

Imagination and creativity inspire him and the search for his authentic voice in writing continues.

Pamela Michael, Sonoma

Education reform activist, writer, and radio producer Pamela Michael has spent decades working to integrate environmental and arts education into the lives of children and their communities. Co-founder, with Robert Hass, of the much-honored River of Words organization, her Watershed Explorer and One-Square Block curricula have been used to train thousands of teachers, park rangers, youth leaders and other educators how to connect kids to the natural world and to their own imaginations, inspiring them to create stunning art and poetry.

She served as River of Words’ executive director from its founding in 1995 until her retirement in 2016. In 2011, she moved the organization to Saint Mary’s College of California as part of the newly-opened Center for Environmental Literacy, of which she was the founding director. In the last thirty years, Michael has taught poetry to thousands of children and trained thousands of classroom teachers and other educators how to spark their students’ creativity and compassion.

Her collection of children’s work, River of Words: Images and Poetry in Praise of Water, won the 2003 Skipping Stones award for Best Nature or Ecology Book. A member of the award-winning Wild Writing Women, Michael has taught writing and poetry to both children and adults, throughout the United States and abroad. She is the former travel editor for San Francisco Bay Area’s KPFA-fm, the first listener-supported radio station in the country and wrote and produced a four-hour series on Buddhism in the United States, narrated by Richard Gere. She produced and hosted The Animal Show on Sirius Satellite Network for two years. As director of the United Nations Task Force on Media Education, she wrote the influential report, The Whole World is Watching: Media Involvement in Education Throughout the World (UNESCO). As Director of Marketing and Public Relations for the San Jose Symphony, she doubled the orchestra’s subscriber base and concert attendance. Michael lives in the Sonoma Creek watershed in the Valley of the Moon (Fetters Hot Springs). She is a Poet-Teacher for California Poets in the Schools and provides leadership, as well as writing and editing assistance to organizations and individuals.

Brenda Nasio, San Francisco

Brenda Nasio is a poet, poet-teacher, writer, editor and voiceover talent. Prior to being named a CalPoets' Poet-Teacher, I was Assistant Fiction and Poetry Editor at Mademoiselle Magazine, and on the Editorial staff at The Paris Review. My poems have been published widely including Mississippi Mud, Aldebaran, Plainswoman, Negative Capability, The Paris Review and the anthology Open Places - Humor in America. One of the many highlights of my work with CalPoets was the opportunity to write grants that enabled me to be a poet-teacher in the classrooms of my three children. Link follows to a Noe Valley Voice article re my tenure as CalPoets' Poet-Teacher at James Lick Middle School, San Francisco: http://www.noevalleyvoice.com/1999/November/9911bren.htm

Susie Terence, San Francisco

Susan Terence has won several awards for her writing, including a DeWar’s Young Writer’s Recognition Award for the State of California, the Audre Lord award for Fiction, Highsmith award for playwriting, several San Francisco Public Library District 11 prizes awarded by former SF Poet Laureate, Jack Hirschman, and many Browning prizes for her dramatic narrative poetry. Her poetry has been published in the Southern Poetry Review, Nebraska Review, Negative Capability, Lake Effect, Americas Review, St. Petersburg Review, San Francisco Bay Guardian, San Francisco Chronicle, Halftones to Jubilee, and several other magazines and anthologies. Her poetry in “Dark Matter: Women Witness” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2021. She has completed a novel dealing with the dissolution of a traditional Latino community that creates new family structures and alliances while struggling with the larger issues of deportation, gentrification, and homophobia.

She received her B.A. in English Education with additional studies in Spanish and Creative Arts from the University of Arizona in Tucson, and her M.A. in Inter-Disciplinary Arts and M.F.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University.

She studied performance and monologue writing
with Whoopee Goldberg at the SF School of Dramatic Arts,
performance with Enrique Vargas of the Universidad Nacional, Bogotá, Colombia; with Shabaka of the San Francisco Mime Troupe; and at the Dell’ Arte School Of Commedia Dell’ Arte Theater in Blue Lake, California. She has performed her work in bookstores, libraries, colleges, and theaters around the country, presenting oral theatrical interpretations of her poetry, dramatic monologues, and fiction. She has served as a writer and performing artist in residence through the Montana, North Carolina, and Fulton County (Atlanta) Georgia Arts Councils and through Arts in Arizona Towns, with the Tohono O’odham tribe outside Tucson, through Writer’s Voice, and for many years now throughout Northern California via California Poets in the Schools (CPITS). She has also served as CPITS’ San Francisco Area Coordinator for over 30 years. She has written and been awarded over 50 arts grants (including grants from the San Francisco Giants Community Fund and the “Step up to the Plate” Fund) to lead poetry and performing arts workshops in San Francisco schools in grades K-12. Her classroom poetry teaching and performance grants have dealt with: Labor History; Environmental Poetry; Aztec and Native American Poetry; poetry exchanges between San Francisco students and students of the Flathead tribe in western Montana; Poetry and World Music; Poetry of Protest and Social Change; Poetry and Gardening; Asian, African American, And Latin American Poetry; Poetry and Photography; Poetry and Geology; World Folklore; Poetry and Women’s History;
Baseball history; California Fires and Floods; and Oral Histories through Dramatic Narrative Poetry.
She utilizes drama, oral interpretation, art, world music, puppetry, movement and creative writing in her teaching.
She has arranged city-wide students’ poetry readings at the SF Main Library Koret Auditorium for many years and has created city-wide anthologies of San Francisco students’ poetry.

She’s been named Creative Writing Teacher of the year by the San Francisco Unified School District. Her students have won innumerable literary arts prizes from the National Scholastic Awards, the San Francisco Unified School District, the River of Words International Environmental Poetry contest, and also the Marin Poetry Center. She has had her high school students’ poetry visual arts projects displayed at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco from 2019-2022. She has also been a Poet in Residence at the De Young and Legion of Honor Museums in San Francisco, and led poetry, performance, and art workshops at the SF Exploratorium, and poetry at the California Academy of Sciences and through Kidquake at the SF Main Library. In addition, she has served as a poetry teacher for the Older Writers’ Lab (OWLs) at the Bernal Branch Library in San Francisco and is one of the poetry instructors for the CalPoets.org weekly virtual writing sessions
for poet teachers and adult writers throughout California.

Christine Moore, Santa Clara

Christine Moore (she/her/hers) grew up in rural Northern California surrounded by nature. She holds an MFA from the University of San Francisco. Living in Santa Clara for the past decade, she became involved in teaching poetry through her own children. She has experience working with students of all ages. Moore believes poetry to be a playground for words and feels that children are often the most adept at that play. Poetry’s ability to investigate life, build resilience, stimulate growth and find stable ground fuels her passion for bringing poetry into the lives of others.

When working with Moore, students expand and explore their creative writing skills with a true writing ally by their side. Moore’s fun and empowering teaching style allows young writers to grow their craft, creativity and competence.

Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Pasadena Review; Interim; 26: C A Journal of Poetry and Poetics; Pinhole Poetry and The Inflectionist Review. Her chapbook, Lent Words, will be published in early 2024.

NORTH

Dan Levinson, Humboldt

Dan has been teaching with California Poets in the Schools since 1998, reaching thousands of K-12 students at over one hundred sites, including court and community schools. He is CalPoets’ area coordinator of Humboldt, Trinity, Siskiyou, and Del Norte counties. He holds degrees in creative writing, literature, and the teaching of writing from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro; the University of California, Santa Cruz; and Humboldt State University.

While most of Dan’s residencies are in Humboldt, he has also taught poetry in Del Norte, Mendocino, Siskiyou, and Santa Cruz counties, as well as in Australia. He has also taught at Humboldt State University, College of the Redwoods, the Redwood Coast Writers’ Center, and is a Redwood Writing Project teacher-consultant. He is a founder of the Lost Coast Writers Retreat, which he attends each summer. Being a freelance editor and writing consultant, Dan has acted as a contributing editor to various publications. He is the author of Song of Six Rivers, and The Sauntering, epic-length poems published by Humboldt State University Press and SequoiaSong Publications. His poems and other writings have appeared in many journals and anthologies. See ZevLev.com.

https://zevlev.com/

Julie Hochfeld, Humboldt

Julie has worked as a California Poets in the School since 2006 and has taught over a thousand students in nine schools in Humboldt County. She has a special relationship with Coastal Grove Charter School, a K-8 school where she teaches students consecutively for five to six years. She facilitates poetry readings and has published student poems in over fifty classroom anthologies, the CA Poets in the Schools Statewide Anthology, and Poetry Crossing: 50 Lessons for 50 Years of California Poets in the Schools. She and her Humboldt County colleagues have received several California Poets in the Schools Seed Poet Grants, plus yearly California Arts Council Artists in Schools grants since 2007. A credentialed teacher for Alder Grove Charter School, she works with homeschool families, and teaches art, writing, and poetry. She’s also taught teachers and parents how to teach poetry to youth.

Julie’s poems have been published in magazines and anthologies including, Mothering, Toyon, College of the Redwoods Poets and Writers, the North Coast Journal, a Santa Barbara women’s anthology, and California Poets in the Schools Statewide Anthologies. She’s published lesson plans and poetry in Poetry Crossing: 50 Lessons for 50 Years of California Poets in the Schools, performed her poems in several venues, and had her poems performed by others.

Julie believes in the healing power of the arts, and that honoring and inspiring students’ creative voices is deeply meaningful. She loves working as a California Poet in the Schools and looks forward to supporting students’ creativity for years to come.

Karen Lewis, Mendocino

Karen Lewis has been leading K-12 and community writing workshops since 1995 in rural Mendocino County. She encourages imaginative thinking and the creative "invention" process using language and mixed-media. Karen's prose and poetry have been widely published in literary journals and anthologies. Her chapbook PEACE MAPS is available from Finishing Line Press. She is a California Arts Council / Artists in Schools awardee. Learn more about Karen at

Michele Krueger, Lake

Michele Krueger hails from the Bronx, New York and studied literature at Lehman College with U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins. She has worked as a poet teacher with California Poets In the Schools for several decades. She is the Sonoma County program coordinator for Poetry Out Loud. She is also the Lake County coordinator for an AIS grant offering poetry writing workshops at local high schools. Her poetry for children appears in anthologies edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins, Jack Prelutsky, J. Patrick Lewis, Julie Andrews and Emma Walton Hamilton, Kenn Nesbitt, Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong.

Kristi Witt, Lake

Working with students and others as they read, listen to, or write poems is always an inspiration for me. My approach as a poet-teacher is to invite, guide, and support learners in exploring their individual voices through writing. I champion opportunities for youth and emerging writers to use poetry and creative writing as a way to feel more connected to themselves, to others, and to the world. When given space to express ourselves without an expectation of constraints, our voices can take flight.

I’ve been a creative writer for much of my life, but it wasn’t until more recently that I started sharing my poems and fiction with others. My poems have been published in Dime Show Review, Lake County’s The Bloom, and my fiction has appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine.

I earned my BA in English from UC Berkeley and taught high school English in the North Bay before becoming a poet-teacher with California Poets in the Schools in 2019.

To get in touch with me about in-person or virtual lessons, please email: info@cpits.org.

Terri Glass, Del Norte & Marin

Terri Glass has been an active CALPOETS poet teacher since 1989, an Area Coordinator for Marin County from 1996-2025 and served as Program Director from 2008-11. She has taught poetry workshops in over 35 schools in Bay area and many venues including senior centers, bookstores, and museums. She has lead workshops nationally for the Childspirit conference, River of Words program the National Poetry Therapy conference and the Austin Poetry Festival.

She is a published author of three books of poetry, most recent Being Animal from Kelsay Books, a chapbook of haiku, Birds, Bees, Trees, Love, Hee Hee from Finishing Line Press, and an e-book, The Wild Horse of Haiku: Beauty in a Changing Form. She published a lesson plan guide for teachers, Language of the Awakened Heart by Fund for Global Awakening press. Some of her writing has appeared in Jackdaw Review, Eastern Iowa Review, Fourth River, About Place, California Quarterly, Young Raven’s Literary Review, and many anthologies including Women in a Golden State, Wild Gods, Fire and Rain; Ecopoetry of California, and Earth Blessings.

A writer of the natural world, which include essay, poetry and haiku, she now resides in Del Norte county where she continues to write and teach poetry writing through CALPOETS and for DNACA, the local arts council. She has her MFA in creative writing from University of Southern Maine. See www.terriglasss.com

Julie Valin, Nevada

Julie Valin has been writing poetry since Ditto jeans and arcades were a thing, and she has been performing and publishing her poetry for over 25 years. Her poems have appeared in The Gasconade Review, The Black Shamrock, Chiron Review, Red Fez, and more, plus several anthologies & collections, including the Punk Rock Chapbook Series by Epic Rites Press. Her latest book of poetry is Songs for Ghosts published in 2022 by Meadowlark Press (www.tinyurl.com/mcsongsforghosts), following The Distance Between (Six Ft. Swells Press) in 2011.

Julie has been an advocate of poetry in her community and in schools as a board member of the Nevada County Poetry Series from 2001-2014; a co-founder of the celebrated after-hours poetry press, Six Ft. Swells; a founding committee member of the Sierra Poetry Festival, and a founding member of the performing group, The Poetry Crashers. Her great love was the Poetry Out Loud program, where she was a poet-coach in both Nevada and Placer counties since 2009.

Julie served as Area Coordinator for CalPoets in Nevada County from 2014-2020, and was the editor of the annual California Poets in the Schools Anthology for two consecutive years: 2016-2017.

Kirsten Casey, Nevada

Kirsten Casey is a California Poet in the Schools, creative writing teacher, and poet laureate emerita of Nevada County. She earned her MA in creative writing from San Francisco State University in 1992, working with Frances Mayes, her thesis advisor. Her poetry collection, Ex Vivo: Out of the Living Body, published by Hip Pocket Press in 2012, is inspired by odd stories, remarkable words, and the mysteries of the human body. In 2019, she taught high school workshops as part of the Academy of American Poets Laureate fellowship granted to Molly Fisk, to facilitate the poetry anthology, California Fire & Water, which responds to California’s climate crisis. She was a co-editor of the book, which includes one of her poems. She is an associate editor of the book Small, Bright Things, a collection of 100-word stories by teens, with local author and editor, Kim Culbertson. Kirsten is also the host of Nevada County Library’s monthly “Poetry Happy Hour,” a free, low pressure opportunity to appreciate and write poems (on the third Thursday of every month at Nevada City's Communal Cafe.) Her new manuscript, Grieving Birds, was a 2023 finalist for the Gunpowder Press Dryden-Vreeland book prize. To read more of her work, and find her upcoming events, visit her website: kirstencasey.com.

Lalli Dana Drobny, Nevada

Lalli Dana Drobny received her MA in Writing from the University of Iowa and has been leading experiential, contemplative workshops for folks of all ages ever since. She especially enjoys co-creating spaces where children can welcome, nurture, celebrate, and share their voices. Her sessions inspire healthy doses of curiosity, creativity, and imagination.

Lalli founded KindMind – the Heart of Wellbeing in 2002. She has been teaching Mindfulness and Writing classes at SBCC since 2003, and became a Poet-in-the-Schools in 2019.

A Resonant Healing Practitioner since 2021, Lalli designed "Shake, Rattle, and Write – Create Your Own Self-Care Concoction" for the global 2024 Resonance Summit on The Healing Power of Play.

As a writer and facilitator, Lalli leans into nature, wanting to honestly acknowledge life's beauty and messiness, joy and struggle. She holds hope that art can help humans ground, grow, and harmonize. Her "circle wide" was published in Spring - Women's Inspiration for the Season of Hope and New Beginnings.

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