Poets-in-the Schools » Poet Bios

Adan Baca: Adan Baca, PhD was born in San Francisco, CA, grew up in Española, NM and currently lives in Albuquerque, where he is a therapist working with at-risk youth and their families. Adan is the founder and publisher of El Llano Heights Press. His poem "New Found Indifference for the City Different" was recently included in the Harwood Anthology and his poem "I don't have to Hate You to be Free" was featured in the film “Committing Poetry in the Time of War.”

Jenny Goldberg lives in Taos. She describes her work this way: “My poems live up against the wall, spark from friction, pray for connection, yet writing them is a slap in the face.” Her work has been published in Blue Mesa Review, Amelia Magazine, Manzanita Quarterly, Sin Fronteras as well as in two anthologies from Sherman Asher Publishing (Santa Fe), “Another Desert: Jewish Poetry of New Mexico” and “Written with a Spoon: A Poet’s Cookbook.”

Manuel González: Manuel Gonzalez is a Spoken Word poet from Albuquerque, New Mexico. He began in poetry slam and has performed in four national poetry slams. He has since been featured in the PBS special, “My Word is My Power.” He teaches workshops on inspiration, self-expression, and poetry. He writes, "I eat poetry for breakfast and it keeps me well all day long. ”

Joan Logghe: Joan Logghe works at poetry in community, off the academic grid in La Puebla, New Mexico, where she and her husband, Michael, raised three children and built three houses. Her awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry Grants, A Mabel Dodge Luhan Internship, and a Barbara Deming/Money for Women grant. Her teaching life includes Ghost Ranch Abiquiu, University of New Mexico-Los Alamos, Santa Fe Girls’ School and Santa Clara Day School. She taught poetry in Bratislava, Vienna, and Zagreb, Croatia in 2004. Her books in print are Twenty Years in Bed with the Same Man (La Alameda Press, a finalist for Western States Book Award), Blessed Resistance (Mariposa Printing and Publishing), Sofia (La Alameda) and Rice (Tres Chicas). Her website: www.joanlogghe.com. She has a BA in English from Tufts University.

Enríque Martínez: Enrique(sykryk) Martinez is a 28 year-old writer, artist, activist, and musician born and raised in Española, NM. He is one of the founders of the Spanapalooza Youth Summit and organizes concerts and workshops at the Hands Across Cultures Teen Center. Enrique is also the president of Sweet Seven Thousand's Baaadassss Comics, a local comic artist collective, which focuses on education, awareness and self-expression.

Rachelle Mechenbier Rachelle Mechenbier is an exceptional communicator and poet. She has taught in Alameda Middle School and Santa Fe High School. She created a writing program built around a framework of empathy and tolerance. Her Spanish language skills are an important asset to her both as teacher and a poet. Rachelle is a member of the same writing group as a number of other, distinguished poets, including Joan Logghe, Michelle Holland and Ann Hunkins. This is her first year with Poets-in-the-Schools.

Sawnie Morris: Sawnie Morrie is a poet living in Taos, New Mexico. Her writing has appeared in “The Journal,” “The Kenyon Review,” “The Women's Review of Books,” and “The Drunken Boat.” She is the recipient of a number of literary awards, including a Texas Pen Literary Award and a National ACLU Creative Non-fiction Award. She teaches literature and writing courses periodically at UNM - Taos, holds an M.F.A. from Vermont College, and is currently pursuing a Masters in Social Work.

Danny Solís: Daniel S. Solis began writing poetry at the age of five. As a slam poet, Danny is four-time Boston City Champion, two-time Asheville, NC City Champion, two-time Albuquerque City Champion, two-time Southeastern Regional Champion, Taos Poetry Circus Champion, Southwestern Superslam Champion, LEAF Art Festival Champion, Phoenix Poetry Festival Champion and the International Individual Poetry Slam Championship in Oxford, England. Solis was also a member of two teams that won National Poetry Slam Championships as well as a member of the American team that won the International Poetry Slam Championship. Solis’s work has been anthologized in REVIVAL! Spoken Word from Lollapalooza, SLAM, The Art of Competitive Poetry, Spoken Word Revolution, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Slam Poetry, and most recently, in The Harwood Poetry Anthology. He is the author of three books of poetry, The Other Thing, Confusion Song, and Lucky Boy as well as a CD of poetry and music, Demo Peligroso.

Polly Summar is a career journalist who found poetry inside her when she discovered the writing of June Jordan. After finishing a master's degree in journalism at Northwestern University that sought to harden students to the ways of the world, she decided to listen to her intuition when it came to learning "how to write" anything. She currently works for the Santa Fe bureau of the Albuquerque Journal and has been published in The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Omni magazine and American Photographer.

Rosalía Triana Rosalía Triana has worked as an Artist in Residence for much of her adult life, beginning after graduating with a degree in Theatre. In fact, much of her personal presentation (purple hair and all) has been shaped by the necessity of being thrust into a new classroom and having to make contact with students in an immediate and personal way. She feels that it is her job to give them permission to be who they are, to write and speak their truth, and in the process to help them learn to communicate what they feel in the clearest and most effective manner. For the past 8 years she has been director of the Theatre Program at Northern New Mexico College. She is a native New Mexican who lives in Ojo Caliente I worked in New York in film and stage for 12 years.

Beata Tsosie: Originally from Santa Clara Pueblo, Beata lives with her husband and two children in El Rito. She 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 very effectively employed in communicating with students and teachers alike.

Nena Villamil Nena Villamil is a recent MFA graduate of the Creative Writing Department at New Mexico State University, where she was a teaching associate as well as program coordinator at the NMSU Writing Center. At State, Nena has been a teacher in the Upward Bound program, in which she worked two Saturdays a month with low income high school students to develop their academic skills in order to get ready for college. Presently she is working for nonprofit organizations as a Poet-in-the-Schools and as a grant writer.