Please Continue MCOE's Mendocino County Poets in the Schools Program in Our County High Schools

Please find a way to continue funding the Mendocino Poetry in the schools (MPITS) program and its Poet Teachers. This program has operated uninterrupted in Mendocino County since 1974, when it was brought to Mendocino by Mary Corbert Norte, Duane Big Eagle, and Floyd Salas. A branch of California Poets in the Schools, a program that began SF State in 1964. Like current poet teachers, they travelled all over the county; today there are dozens of active elderly poets in our community who started writing due to this program.

Since Blake More became its director in 2001, MPITS has produced 23 countywide anthologies, dozens of poetry slams, countywide readings, radio shows, and school & classroom publications. Mendocino County students have repeatedly been featured in statewide publications and journals. They have won national competitions and entered prestigious universities. Poetry and those who inspire it in our youth are very much part of this county’s culture.  

MPITS Poet-Teachers are accomplished, professional poets specially trained to work in classrooms. They bring a proven, standards-based curriculum that combines reading, writing, and performing poetry in ways that engage and inspire every student, and have worked with tens of thousands of Mendocino county students to date. Teachers, administrators and students ask for it each year.

We ask that you find a way to continue this valuable, life-affirming program. Students need creative communication skills and emotional intelligence building now more than ever.

Thank you.

Blake More, Area Coordinator, Mendocino County Poets in the Schools    Contact the author of the petition