Poetry Center San José Events

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.