California Poets in the Schools

Founded in 1964, California Poets in the Schools is one of the largest literary artists-in-residence programs in the nation. We encourage students throughout California to recognize and celebrate their creativity, intuition, and intellectual curiosity through the creative poetry writing process. We provide students with a multicultural community of published poets, specially trained to bring their experience and love for their craft into the classroom.

CPitS serves 25,000 students annually, in hundreds of public and private schools, juvenile halls, after-school programs, hospitals, and other community settings. We also partner with the California Arts Council to broadcast the Poetry Out Loud recitation program to high schools and audiences throughout the state.

The basic residency model includes a series of in-class, hands-on poetry writing workshops that encourage literacy skills: writing, reading and oral presentation. Curriculum is tailored to individual teachers needs with a focus on “success for all” young poets.

Some schools or classrooms choose to publish poetry anthologies; your visiting poet can help with this. We also strive to publish student work in the wider community.