Alex Traube, Executive Director and Program Coordinator
Founder and executive director of New Mexico CultureNet, Alex Traube has been an artist, artist-in-the-schools, teacher, editor, and information technology consultant. He has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, University of New Mexico, Santa Fe Community College, Santa Fe Preparatory School, Louisville School of Arts, and at Robertson High School, the latter as part of the former New Mexico Artist-in-the-Schools program. He is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and an Illinois Arts Council Grant. He founded CultureNet in 1997.

Hakim Bellamy, Poet-in-the-Schools
Hakim Bellamy is a two-time National Champion in the Poetry Slam scene. He was a member of the 2005 National Poetry Slam Champs Team from Albuquerque, and a year later, the UNM team won the 2006 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational. He’s been published in the Harwood Anthology, the Earthships Anthology, Sin Fronteras Journal, A Bigger, Looking Back at Place, and How to…Multiple Perspectives on Creating a Garden, a Life, Relationships and Community. He currently works as the Community Programs Coordinator at the New Mexico Office of African American Affairs.

Jasmine Sena Cuffee, Poet-in-the-Schools
Jasmine Sena y Cuffee, a native of Albuquerque’s South Valley, has been active member of the Metro Area arts community both as a performance poet and as a staff member at the National Hispanic Cultural Center and has worked extensively with the youth of Albuquerque and New Mexico in both capacities. As a performance poet and slam poetry champion, Jasmine has led numerous writing workshops and performances throughout New Mexico and the Western U.S. Jasmine is the program manager of a National AmeriCorps program Public Allies New Mexico, a prograqm which focuses on developing young community leaders for the non-profit sector. She is currently working on her first manuscript of poetry.

Manuel González, Poet-in-the-Schools
Manuel González is a next-generation performance poet from Albuquerque. His enormous heart and generous spirit touch all who encounter him. A product of the barrio, he inspires young people who respond to his deeply moving sincerity and charisma. He is a poet of immense grace and power.

Colleen Gorman, Poet-in-the-Schools
Colleen Gorman is Dinéh (Navajo), originally from Chinle, AZ. She was on the 2002 Albuquerque Poetry Slam Team that represented Albuquerque at the National Poetry Slam in Minneapolis that year. Colleen is also a multi-media artist and uses the tools of pencil, charcoal, and paint as well as videography and 3D animation. In college, she won the Domie Award for Originality for producing a full-dome animation for the NM Museum of Natural History Lodestar Planetarium's international animation competition, the Domefest. Colleen is the Director of Warehouse 508, Albuquerque's youth-driven teen arts & entertainment center in downtown Albuquerque.

Carmelita Jaramillo, Poet-in-the-Schools
The education magazine KEY featured Carmelita on its cover in 2007 and dubbed her “The Empress of Poetry.” At that time, Carmelita was a senior at Santa Fe High School and president of that school’s poetry club. As a precocious, brilliant and charismatic poet, she is capable of moving audiences with her words and presentation. At present, she is a Pre-med undergraduate at the University of New Mexico and a member of the New Mexico CultureNet board of directors.

Joan Logghe, Santa Fe Poet Laureate and Poet-in-the-Schools
One of the New Mexico’s elite poets, the widely respected and oft-published Joan Logghe brings a lifetime of writing, teaching and parental experience to mentoring young writers. She is a “page poet,” a writer whose poems are first meant to be seen and read on the page. Her approach provides an essential counterpoint to performance poets like Danny Solís and Manuel González.

Rachelle Mechenbier, Poet-in-the-Schools
Rachelle Mechenbier is a certified Language Arts teacher as well as a passionate poet. She has taught at Alameda Middle School and Santa Fe High School as well as at Prafor Academy, in El Puerto de Santa Maria, Spain. Being bilingual (English-Spanish) is a valued asset in her work in the Poets-in-the-Schools program.

Danny Solís, Poet-in-the-Schools
The “father of slam poetry” in northern New Mexico, Danny Solís has mentored and inspired an entire generation of performance poets. He organized and directed the National Poetry Slam Finals, which were held last summer in Albuquerque and won by a local team, most of whom he had mentored. Solís has worked with New Mexico CultureNet since 2002.

Beata Tsosie Peña (Pueblo of Santa Clara), Poet-in-the-Schools
Beata embodies a quiet, strong passion for language that she is able to convey to audiences who hear her read as well as to students in the schools where she visits. The fact that she is a Native American and parent gives her a sensibility that is effectively employed in communicating with students and teachers alike.