Our Mission

Poetry Center San José's mission is to nurture and promote diverse literary expression in our community as a means of exploring, defining, and enriching the human experience.

In furtherance of our mission, we offer programs and services to stimulate passion for the literary arts and to inspire and support emerging and established writers. We collaborate with other organizations to ensure that these programs and services reflect the diversity of our community and to involve people from a wide range of backgrounds as audience and members.

Board of Directors

Robert Pesich, President & Fund Development
Dianne Wright, Secretary
Amber Weaver, Treasurer
Tshaka Campbell, Beautiful Black Books
& Tiny Room Poetry Series
Brandon Luu, Program Chair
Lesa Medley, Poetry Lounge & Poetry Exchange
Elizabeth Jiménez Montelongo, ¡Cultura Poetry Night!
David Perez, Poets@Play, Naomi Clark Poetry Library
Scorpiana Xlent, Slam Master – San José Poetry Slam
Nils Peterson, Emeritus

Advisory Board

Kara Erdodi Arguello
Sally Ashton
Alexandria Bentley, Editor‑in‑Chief Cæsura
Bill Cozzini
Darrell Dela Cruz, Volunteer Coordinator
Maggie Diamond, Email Support
Carolyn Dille
Erica Goss
Anshu Johri, Bauchhaar
Kimy J.M. Knight, Managing Editor, Cæsura
John Mathias
Pushpa MacFarlane
Mighty Mike McGee, Third Thursday Open Mic
Dennis Noren
Karla Santiago-Reyes, Director of SCC Youth Poet Laureate Program
Sree Sripathy
Karen Phan Trias

Funders

Poetry Center San José is a member supported organization and is funded, in part, by grants from Applied Materials Foundation, the City of San José's Office of Cultural Affairs, Literary Arts Emergency Fund, supported by the Mellon Foundation, Poets & Writers, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and by SVCreates, in partnership with the County of Santa Clara, and the National Endowment for the Arts. We also thank Brandenburg Family Foundation and Anne & Mark's Art Party for their generous giving.