As school ramps up for the fall, it can be helpful to add a few new lesson plans to your toolkit.  Join us for the 2nd Tuesday CalPoets' Lunchtime Meeting.  On September 14th we'll hear from three Poet-Teachers who will offer brief (20 minutes) synopses of poetry lessons that work well with K-12 youth.  

Specifically, we will hear from CalPoets' Network members:  Brennan DeFrisco (Area Coordinator, Contra Costa), Tama Brisbane (Area Coordinator, San Joaquin) and Terri Glass (Area Coordinator, Marin).

Brennan DeFrisco is a poet, educator, editor & drinker of coffee from the San Francisco Bay Area. He’s been a National Poetry Slam finalist, a Pushcart Prize nominee, 2017 Grand Slam Champion of the Oakland Poetry Slam, & Cal Poets area coordinator for Contra Costa County. He’s the author of A Heart With No Scars (Nomadic Press) & has served as poetry editor on the mastheads of Lunch Ticket & Meow Meow Pow Pow. Brennan facilitates creative writing and performance workshops as a teaching artist in schools, juvenile centers, and various arts education programs. His work has been published in Words Dance, Red Wheelbarrow, Drunk in a Midnight Choir, Collective Unrest, & elsewhere. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles.

Tama L. Brisbane  is the City of Stockton’s Poet Laureate. Now serving her fourth historic term, she has presented well over 200 times, including at the inauguration of Michael Tubbs, the city’s first Black Mayor. Her first Poet Laureate project was to help craft Stockton’s 2015 return to All-American City status with a groundbreaking, 10-minute spoken word group piece incorporating 2 dozen voices at the National Finals in Denver. Following her 2017 appearance as Guest Poet at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center and at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Martin Luther King III told her, “Your words matter.”  She is the Executive Director of With Our Words,  a 12-time youth poetry slam coach, and a County Coordinator for California Poets in the Schools, one of the largest writing residency programs in the nation. 

“Mama T” is also: a Susan B. Anthony Award Winner for Creative Arts, a University of the Pacific Woman of Distinction, a Black Women Organized for Political Action Honoree, a Stockton Arts Commission Comet Award Winner, a California Vision 2020 Ambassador, and a charter member of the Brave New Voices National Network. She serves on the boards of Tuleburg Press, Flourishing Families Inc., Central Valley Neighborhood Harvest and Stocktonia News Group. Her tireless work on behalf of Stockton and Central Valley voices, particularly young voices of color, has been recognized by both houses of the California Legislature as well as both houses of the United States Congress.  

Terri Glass is a writer of poetry, essay and haiku. She has taught widely in the Bay area for California Poet in the Schools for 30 years and served as their Program Director from 2008-2011. She is the author of a book of nature poetry, The Song of Yes, a chapbook of haiku , Birds, Bees, Trees, Love, Hee Hee from Finishing Line Press, an e-book, The Wild Horse of Haiku: Beauty in a Changing Form, available on Amazon, and book of poetry, Being Animal from Kelsay Books. Her work has appeared in Young Raven’s Literary Review, Fourth River, About Place, California Quarterly and many anthologies including Fire and Rain; Ecopoetry of California, and Earth Blessings.  She also has lesson plan guide called Language of the Awakened Heart available on her website, www.terriglass.com. She continues to oversee the Marin program for CALPOETS and teaches in Marin and Del Norte counties.