Writing By Writers...

In an age of impending political doom, immigration raids, and ongoing oil wars, there’s no better moment than now to purposefully seek out the good around us. As poets, we are immersed in it all, and influenced by everything: the awful and the awe-inspiring; the hurt and the hope that follows; the insidious and the immaculate, alike. It takes time, space, and practice to sift through the noise and positively hone your energy. In this two-hour course, we’ll study how contemporary poets from various backgrounds have used the spectrum of emotion and experience — from rage to rebirth — to generate poems that are, ultimately, grounded in gratitude. Poets who have found joy despite, or perhaps because, of the times. From there, we’ll use writing prompts that will encourage us to do the same, while leaning on group discussions, brainstorms, and guiding examples to inform our sense of ideation, voice, and possibility. And we'll sit with everything that emerges in between.

About The Faculty: Alan Chazaro is the author of These Spaceships Weren't Built For Us (Tia Chucha Press, 2026), Notes from the Eastern Span of the Bay Bridge (Ghost City Press, 2021), Piñata Theory (Black Lawrence Press, 2020), and This Is Not a Frank Ocean Cover Album (Black Lawrence Press, 2019). He is a graduate of June Jordan’s Poetry for the People program at UC Berkeley and was selected as a Lawrence Ferlinghetti Poetry Fellow at the University of San Francisco. His work can be found in NPR, The Guardian, SLAM, GQ, L.A. Times, and more. Prior to becoming a traveling journalist and poet, he worked as a full-time educator for 12 years, with experience as a high school English teacher and graduate-level creative writing professor. He was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area as the son of Mexican immigrants, and is currently based in Veracruz.