About us
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. All programs center the literary arts, particularly poetry, without prejudice to any specific tradition. We celebrate all poetry traditions and collaborate with other organizations to co-sponsor programming in our endeavor to bring poetry to multiple communities in San José 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. The majority of our programs are free, open to the public and offer aspiring poets the opportunity to share their work during the open mic segment of the event.
Every PCSJ team member follows the organization's core values and principles of service, including respect, trust, stewardship, joy in service, and excellence. Our events are safe spaces of sharing and compassion for our membership and general community.
Upcoming events
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2026 San José Poetry Festival • Youth Poetry Workshop
Willow Glen Branch Library, 1157 Minnesota Avenue, San Jose, CA, USThe 12th Annual San José Poetry Festival continues!
This is Day Two of our four-day festival! In partnership with Willow Glen Branch Library, this free creative poetry workshop for youth will be facilitated by local poet Mighty Mike McGee as a part of the 2026 San Jose Poetry Festival!
Free! No registration required.
Mighty Mike McGee is a well-traveled poet and humorist from San José, California. He is the first and only spoken word performer to win both the 2003 National Poetry Slam Grand Championship and the 2006 Individual World Poetry Slam Grand championship. McGee is a co-founder of the live spoken word groups Tons of Fun University (TOFU) with Shane Koyczan and C.R. Avery. He also co-founded The Whirlwind Company with Mindy Nettifee, Brian S. Ellis, and Jon Sands, and the Poetry Revivals with Dan Leamen, Derrick Brown, Buddy Wakefield and Anis Mojgani. McGee was appointed Poet Laureate of Santa Clara County (Silicon Valley) for 2018 & 2019 and serves on the Poetry Center San José Board of Directors where he has directed the San José Poetry Festival since 2021. His first collection of humor and poetry, In Search of Midnight, is available through Write Bloody Publishing.
Join us every Friday at the Willow Glen Branch Library for a fun activity for kids. Activities may include arts & crafts, special performances or workshops, and board or video games.
Note: 2nd Friday of every month is free play with Legos®!
All supplies will be provided.
ADA Accommodation RequestsFollow Poetry Center San José on Facebook and Instagram for announcements about other amazing South Bay poetry events happening throughout the rest of the year. Help support Poetry Center San José by becoming a member.
San José Poetry Festival 2026 is presented by Poetry Center San José and sponsored in part by a Cultural Affairs grant from the City of San José; a grant from SVCreates, in partnership with the County of Santa Clara and the California Arts Council; and additional support from Anne & Mark’s Art Party and the Brandenburg Family Foundation. Many thanks to Four Points by Sheraton for hotel accommodations and Robertino R. Ragazza for his guidance and hospitality. We would like to acknowledge and offer our deepest gratitude to past and current venues worthy of your support: San José Stage, Central Park Library Santa Clara, Convergence Arts Center, SJZ Break Room, Art Boutiki (R.I.P.), Books Inc., Caravan Lounge, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, First Unitarian Church of San José, History/San José, MACLA, Cafe Stritch / Mama Kin (R.I.P.), Recycle Bookstore, The School of Arts and Culture (R.I.P.), Mexican Heritage Plaza, Tabard Theatre (R.I.P.), Willow Glen Public Library, Works/San José art & performance center and Hillbrook Upper School of San José. Please support these spaces however you can. And we thank all our volunteers whose time and effort make this festival possible.
1 attendee
2026 San José Poetry Festival – ¡Cultura Poetry Night! with Open Mic
·OnlineOnline#### The 12th Annual San José Poetry Festival continues!
This is Day Two of our four-day festival! This free Zoom event will feature Arnoldo Colibrí and Esperanza Cabrales and an open mic hosted by local poet Elizabeth Jiménez Montelongo as a part of the 2026 San Jose Poetry Festival!
#### RSVP for the Zoom link here
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¡Cultura Poetry Night!
Friday, August 21, 2026
6:30-8:30pm Pacific Time via Zoom
¡Cultura Poetry Night! celebrates the culture of people who identify as Raza, Chicana/o, Indigenous, or from their country of origin, whose heritage is rooted in areas that are now Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America. A multilingual event with two featured poets, guest poets, and open mic! Everyone is welcome to participate in this inclusive event presented by Poetry Center San José, hosted by Elizabeth Jiménez Montelongo, in partnership with La Raíz Magazine.#### About the Featured Poets
Esperanza Cabrales (they/them) is a queer Xicana slam poet, performer, jewelry maker, teaching artist, and educator based in Oakland. They lead poetry workshops through Bay Area Creative, working with TK through high school students. Esperanza organizes the Nepantla exploratory workshop series for QTBIPOC Creatives + Allies. Their work celebrates shared spaces, approaching emotions with curiosity, and the beauty of queer and cultural identities. IG: @nepantlainoakland @dreaming.eyeswideopen
arnoldo colibrí is a culture maker, artist, and writer living in Oakland. s a community-based poet, musician, visual artist, human rights organizer and a dedicated restorative justice practitioner/trainer. He has migrant roots that stretch from south Texas to the Pacific Northwest and is based in Oakland, CA (San Francisco Bay Area.) He is the editor and publisher of poetry and chapbooks such as, Poets against War & Racism / Poetas contra la guerra y el racism, and is the founder of Editorial Xingao. He runs the blog Art of the Commune. Website: www.arnoldogarcia.org // La Comuna: artofthecommune.wordpress.com // IG: @nepantlacomunaOPEN MIC:
Day-of sign ups are available at the beginning of the event and just before Open Mic.
*****
Presented by: Poetry Center San José pcsj.org @poetrycentersanjose
Host: Elizabeth Jiménez Montelongo
IG: @elizabethjimenezmontelongo / FB: @ejmontelongo
Community Partner: La Raíz Magazine http://laraizmagazine.com
IG: @laraizmagazine / FB: @laraizmagFollow Poetry Center San José on Facebook and Instagram for announcements about other amazing South Bay poetry events happening throughout the rest of the year. Help support Poetry Center San José by becoming a member.
San José Poetry Festival 2026 is presented by Poetry Center San José and sponsored in part by a Cultural Affairs grant from the City of San José; a grant from SVCreates, in partnership with the County of Santa Clara and the California Arts Council; and additional support from Anne & Mark’s Art Party and the Brandenburg Family Foundation. Many thanks to Four Points by Sheraton for hotel accommodations and Robertino R. Ragazza for his guidance and hospitality. We would like to acknowledge and offer our deepest gratitude to past and current venues worthy of your support: San José Stage, Central Park Library Santa Clara, Convergence Arts Center, SJZ Break Room, Art Boutiki (R.I.P.), Books Inc., Caravan Lounge, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, First Unitarian Church of San José, History/San José, MACLA, Cafe Stritch / Mama Kin (R.I.P.), Recycle Bookstore, The School of Arts and Culture (R.I.P.), Mexican Heritage Plaza, Tabard Theatre (R.I.P.), Willow Glen Public Library, Works/San José art & performance center and Hillbrook Upper School of San José. Please support these spaces however you can. And we thank all our volunteers whose time and effort make this festival possible.
1 attendee
2026 San José Poetry Festival - Writing Worksop with Lee Herrick
Renzel Room at History Park, 1650 Senter Road, San Jose, CA, USThis is Day 3 of our four-day festival! Photo credit: Curtis Messer
Join us in the Renzel Room inside History Park for an in-depth writing workshop with California Poet Laureate Lee Herrick. Pens and paper can be provided.
Tickets now on sale. Reserve your seat here.
I've Been Here and Never Been Here: Writing Poems About Place and Displacement
How can our poems be rooted but also rootless so that they are grounded but also free? This workshop will explore strategies for writing poems that they are located in a place: a room, a city, someone's arms. From there, we will explore strategies for moving beyond the place into a sense of displacement or wonder. Bring your ideas for a poem about a place or a difficult or important experience or memory. To write creatively is transform an experience. It can be liberating. We will write a poem, have time to share, and leave with strategies and ideas to write more.
Folks can bring paper or a laptop or tablet. Ages 14+ welcome.Our Workshop Facilitator
Lee Herrick is the California Poet Laureate. He is the author of four books of poems: In Praise of Late Wonder: New and Selected Poems (Gunpowder Press, September 2024); Scar and Flower, finalist for the 2020 Northern California Book Award; Gardening Secrets of the Dead; and This Many Miles from Desire.
He is co-editor of The World I Leave You: Asian American Poets on Faith and Spirit (Orison Books 2020) and Afterlives: An AGNI Portfolio of Asian Adoptee Diaspora Writing. His poems appear widely, in The Poetry Foundation, Academy of American Poets, The Place That Inhabits Us: Poems from the San Francisco Bay Watershed, Naming the Lost: The Fresno Poets; Poetry Goes to the Movies; Indivisible: Poems of Social Justice with a foreword by Common, HERE: Poems for the Planet, with a foreword by the Dalai Lama, and Dear America: Letters of Hope, Habitat, Defiance, and Democracy, among others. Herrick serves on the advisory board of Terrain.org and Sixteen Rivers Press. He co-founded LitHop in Fresno. He has taught in Qingdao, China; at Kundiman in New York City, and for twelve years in the low-residency MFA program at University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe.He was born in Daejeon, Korea and adopted as an infant. He lives with his family in Fresno, California and served as Fresno Poet Laureate from 2015-2017. He teaches at Fresno City College. He is the 10th California Poet Laureate, and the first Asian American to serve in the role. In April 2025, he became the first California Poet Laureate to be officially reappointed to a second two-year term.• • • • •
Follow Poetry Center San José on Facebook and Instagram for announcements about other amazing South Bay poetry events happening throughout the rest of the year. Help support Poetry Center San José by becoming a member.
San José Poetry Festival 2026 is presented by Poetry Center San José and sponsored in part by a Cultural Affairs grant from the City of San José; a grant from SVCreates, in partnership with the County of Santa Clara and the California Arts Council; and additional support from Anne & Mark’s Art Party and the Brandenburg Family Foundation. Many thanks to Four Points by Sheraton for hotel accommodations and Robertino R. Ragazza for his guidance and hospitality. We would like to acknowledge and offer our deepest gratitude to past and current venues worthy of your support: San José Stage, Central Park Library Santa Clara, Convergence Arts Center, SJZ Break Room, Art Boutiki (R.I.P.), Books Inc., Caravan Lounge, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, First Unitarian Church of San José, History/San José, MACLA, Cafe Stritch / Mama Kin (R.I.P.), Recycle Bookstore, The School of Arts and Culture (R.I.P.), Mexican Heritage Plaza, Tabard Theatre (R.I.P.), Willow Glen Public Library, Works/San José art & performance center and Hillbrook Upper School of San José. Please support these spaces however you can. And we thank all our volunteers whose time and effort make this festival possible.
1 attendee
Past events
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