CCA celebrates the creativity of our community, through our cinema and arts, generating transformative experiences designed to ignite minds and connect people.
In line with this mission, CCA is pleased to partner with Elizabeth Jacobson, the fifth Poet Laureate of Santa Fe, for poetry workshops and readings.
Upcoming Poetry Events (Scroll Down For More Information on Each)
Intimate Immersion Poetry Workshop with Elizabeth Jacobson: October 2, 9, 16 & 23, Thursdays, 4:30 – 6:30
Community Reading Series: October 4
Found Objects, Found Poems – A pop-up workshop with Wayne Lee
Date: August 24, 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
CCA Cinema Gallery and Conference Room
Cost: $5-30 (half the proceeds will be donated to CCA)
In this workshop, we will look at how poets have written “found poems” by using existing texts and refashioning them as poems. Participants will be prompted to write two new poems—one based on found text and one based on sculptures in artist James Gould’s exhibit “Foundlings,” which is on display in the CCA Cinema Gallery through July 27th.
Wayne Lee (wayneleepoet.com) was awarded the Fischer Prize and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and four Best of the Net Awards. Lee’s poems have appeared in Tupelo Press, Slipstream, The New Guard, Writer’s Digest and many other journals and anthologies. His collection Dining on Salt: Four Seasons of Septets was published by Cornerstone Press in April, and his collection The Beautiful Foolishness is forthcoming from Casa Urraca Press in March 2026.
Intimate Immersion Poetry Workshop with Elizabeth Jacobson: October 2, 9, 16 & 23, Thursdays, 4:30 – 6:30
Poet Elizabeth Jacobson is offering a new session of her popular workshop series Intimate Immersion. During this four-week in-person intensive, the focus is on generating new poems, critiquing each participant’s work, revising poems, and looking at elements of craft. Each meeting, participants are invited to bring a new poem (with copies for everyone) for workshop discussion. Since this is the first look, the process creates a deep. concentrated attention different from preparing critique notes ahead of time. Additionally, contemporary poems are
provided as a catalyst for the following week’s writing prompt. This is an intimate, focused immersion to reinforce the writing practice and foster the evolution of new poems.
Class size limited to 8 Participants
Each meeting, participants are invited to bring a new poem (with copies for everyone) for workshop discussion. Since this is the first look, the process creates a deep, concentrated attention distinctive from preparing critique notes ahead of time. Additionally, contemporary poems are provided as a catalyst for the following week’s writing prompt.
This is an intimate, focused immersion to reinforce the writing practice and foster the evolution of new poems.
Tuition (for all four in-person sessions): $250. No class fees can be refunded after two weeks prior to start date.
Please register early as class size is limited to 8 participants. Class meets in CCA’s conference room, which is in the same building as the Cinema.
About Elizabeth Jacobson:
Elizabeth Jacobson was the fifth Poet Laureate of Santa Fe, New Mexico and an Academy of
American Poets Laureate Fellow. Her third collection of poems, “There Are as Many Songs in the
World as Branches of Coral” is just out from Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press. Her previous
book, “Not into the Blossoms and Not into the Air,” won the New Measure Poetry Prize
(FVE/Parlor Press, 2019) and the 2019 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for both New Mexico
Poetry and Best New Mexico Book. She is the reviews editor for the online literary journal
Terrain.org.
Community Reading Series
October 4, 5:00-6:30pm in the CCA Muñoz Waxman Gallery
Sliding Scale $5-$20.
Free One-Card Tarot Readings!
About the writers:
Santa Fe Youth Poet Laureates
Maiya Brock is a queer and soft-spoken introvert who writes poetry to elevate her voice and put her art into the world. She holds the title of 2025-26 Santa Fe Youth Poet Laureate as well as 2024-25 Poetry Slam Champion at the New Mexico School for the Arts. Maiya is an avid reader and knitter who enjoys long, quiet walks and nerdy discussions.
Sofia Salazar, one of two Santa Fe Youth Poet Laureates for 2025-26, is a senior studying music at NMSA (New Mexico School for the Arts). She has a great love for poetry in all forms, from lyrics to dialogue. Sofia has won 2 poetry slams at NMSA and gone to New Mexico All-State three times for choir. She is a freshman at UNM for Interdisciplinary Arts and hopes to continue pursuing her love of writing and music.
Tony Barnstone teaches at Whittier College and is the author of 23 books and a music CD. His new books are Apocryphal Poems (Nirala Press); a co-translation from the Urdu, Faces Hidden in the Dust: Selected Ghazals of Ghalib (White Pine Press); and a creativity tool, The Radiant Tarot: Pathway to Creativity (Redwheel/Weiser) with artist Alexandra Eldridge. He has published seven other books of poetry, in addition to numerous translations from Chinese, anthologies, and world literature textbooks. Among his awards are: The Poets Prize, the Strokestown International Prize, the Pushcart Prize in Poetry, The John Ciardi Prize, The Benjamin Saltman Award, and fellowships from the NEA, NEH, and California Arts Council. His forthcoming critical book is Cyborg Modernism: William Carlos Williams, Technoscience and the Arts. He is currently working on a libretto for an opera.
Miriam Sagan is the author of over thirty books of poetry, fiction, and memoir. She is a two-time winner of the New Mexico/Arizona Book Awards as well as a recipient of the City of Santa Fe Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts and a New Mexico Literary Arts Gratitude Award. She has been a writer in residence in four national parks, Yaddo, MacDowell, Gullkistan in Iceland, Kura Studio in Japan, and a dozen more remote and interesting places. She works with text and sculptural installation as part of the mother/daughter creative team Maternal Mitochondria (with Isabel Winson-Sagan) in venues ranging from RV parks to galleries.
Yuyutsu Sharma, Punjab-born, has been called a “world-renowned Himalayan poet,” and the “Himalayan Neruda.” A vibrant force on the world poetry stage, Yuyutsu is the recipient of fellowships and grants from The Rockefeller Foundation, Ireland Literature Exchange, Trubar Foundation, Slovenia, The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature and The Foundation for the Production and Translation of Dutch Literature. He is the author of eleven poetry collections, most recently, The Alchemy of Nine Smile: Nine Longer Poems and Lost Horoscope, year, and he travels the world conducting creative writing workshops. Yuyutsu curated Himalayan Literature Festival 2024 in collaboration with New York Writers Workshop in Kathmandu. Additionally, he edits Pratik: A Quarterly Magazine of Contemporary Writing.
With Special Guest, Artist Alexandra Eldridge
Alexandra Eldridge has had over forty solo shows and participated in numerous group shows throughout the United States and internationally including Paris, London, Belgrade, Ljubljana, New York, California, and Santa Fe; her work is in many private collections worldwide. She has been commissioned to paint murals in the Place de Vosges, Paris, as well as book covers for twenty- four books of poetry. Alexandra is cofounder of Golgonooza, an establishment for the arts based upon the philosophies of William Blake and she is the creator of The Radiant Tarot.
This program is supported by the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry.
The Community Reading Series is curated by former Santa Fe poet laureate Elizabeth Jacobson.
