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ACTIVE POET-TEACHERS
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
Website: www.jessicamwilson.com
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.
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
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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 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.
Original Plays: Un Grano de Maíz • Francine's Dream for Intrepid Theatre's Refugee Art Project • Our Children / Nuestros Hijos, featured at The Old Globe’s New Voices Festival
www.lorenasantana.com
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.
Prior to joining CPITS, Lulu was a litigation attorney and Certified Family Law Specialist for 25 years in Napa and Sonoma Counties. After her retirement in 2021, Lulu became a Certified Buddhist Chaplain and was a resident Pediatric hospital chaplain at UCDavis Medical Center in Sacramento, where she resides with her husband and fur baby.
Lulu has been writing poetry since high school and has been honing her craft ever since. She is inspired by Jane Hirschfield, Naomi Shahib-Nye, William Stafford, Mary Oliver, David Whyte, Pablo Neruda, Rumi, and, especially, the poetry of the first free women ancestors of Soto Zen. She is grateful to be included in the CPITS community.
CENTRAL/NORTH CENTRAL
BAY AREA
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 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.”
An active member of Associated Writing Programs, Ms. Kaplan has given readings, workshops and presentations throughout the country regarding creative process, literacy and social change. Ms. Kaplan has received grants from the California Arts Council to serve as poet in residence at community mental health centers. She has also worked for Contra Costa County Schools as an instructor in the jails, and for Project Second Chance as the Detention Facilities Tutor Coordinator. Her honors include: Dorland Mountain Colony Fellow 1986/2018, Affiliate Artist at the Headlands Center for the Arts 1995-98, and a recipient of the Bay Area Award (New Langton Arts, 1996). She was selected to present work on the Tupelo Press website 30 poems/30 days July 2015. She has coordinated the Poetry Café for the Young Rhetoricians’ Conference held every year in Monterey, CA during the third weekend of June for the past ten years.
Across the Great Divide was published by Androgyne, in 1995, and her poems are contained in numerous literary anthologies, on-line 'zines and various journals.
Featured in the East Bay Monthly April 2012, Omnidawn Feature February 2010, A Train of Thought Upside Down (Scarlet Tanager 2012) The Berkeley Poets Cooperative: A History of the Times (Hip Pocket Press, 2013), and her work appears in issues of Amsterdam Quarterly and Kestral.
As an adjunct faculty member, Tobey Kaplan currently teaches and has taught literature, arts and humanities, creative writing and college composition at several East Bay community colleges, and had previously assisted families of the Native American community in Alameda County with navigating education opportunities. A long- time mentor poet-teacher for California Poets in the Schools, she remains committed to the primacy of imaginative language and the resilience embedded in story. As an art-education advocate, she has worked with developing collaborative partnerships between artists, organizations and public schools. She regularly develops performance pieces for theatre, literary work and music. Her own poetry is inspired by music and visual work and language where words dance off the page.
She lives in a fabulous Oakland neighborhood with her partner, performer Nan Busse and wonderdog Vida—who sadly passed away Nov 2022.
http://www.themonthly.com/byday1204.html
https://omnidawn.wordpress.com/2010/01/31/poetry-feature-tobey-kaplan/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPwkaW2ZzQY&t=26s
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 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.
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/
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
She is a featured short story author in - Wandering In Japan - The Spirit of Tokyo, Kyoto and Beyond.
Her poetry has been published in numerous anthologies and her articles: 'Sharing The Love' are published in the Echo Magazine.
Maxine is a writer for Dance Art Journal and publisher for FastForward Magazine, has held artistic residencies from SAFEhouse Arts, Stapleton and Djerassi, and recently published a poetry chapbook with Ghost City Press 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 since has taught poetry at Novato High School, San Rafael High School, Strawberry Point Elementary School, and Old Mill Elementary School. She also serves as a Poetry Out Loud coach at Tamalpais High School, and an artist-in-the-schools with Gallery Route One in Point Reyes. Visit her at www.poeticabythebay.com. She can be reached at mflasherduz@gmail.com for in-person or online classes.
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.
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.
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.
An elementary school teacher for many years, Lisa 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. www.lisashulman.com
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.
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.