About Me
Classes I Teach
Spring 2026
| CRN | Course | Sec. | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 47369 | EWRT 41 | 50Z | Poetry Writing |
Ken Weisner was born in Oakland and grew up there in the ‘60’s. After attending Oberlin College and the Iowa Writers Workshop, he went to UC Santa Cruz for PhD graduate work in literature in 1982 and has lived there ever since. Ken has been teaching writing and literature at De Anza College since the mid-nineties part time, and since 2000 full time. Since 2024, Ken has taught through the De Anza emeritus faculty program. Ken teaches poetry writing and is the author of the 2024 poetry collection from Shanti Arts Press, Songs for the Great Horned. His previous collections include The Sacred Geometry of Pedestrians (2002), Anything on Earth (2010), and Cricket to Star (2019), all from Hummingbird Press. Ken currently edits and advises the national edition of Red Wheelbarrow through De Anza, but will pass the baton to colleague Amy Leonard in 2027. For many years Ken edited Quarry West through Porter College at UCSC. Ken led poetry workshops at Salinas Valley State Prison from 2014 to 2022. He was interviewed about his poetry on KSQD radio by Dion O'Reilly (4/6/20), and by Julie Murphy about his work bringing creative writing workshops to incarcerated writers (4/26/20), and subsequently about his own new work as well (4/3/22). Ken also participated in a one hour "Hive" tribute (7/10/22) to the late beloved Santa Cruz poet Robert Sward.
Ken's poetry has been featured on the “Poets Against the War” website (2003),The Music Lovers Poetry Anthology (Persea, 2007), and John Chandler and Wilma Marcus Chandler’s “Willing Suspension Armchair Theater” production of Lost and Found: The Literature of Fathers and Sons (May, 2009). Garrison Keillor read Ken's poem "The Gardener" on The Writer's Almanac in August of 2010. His poetry has appeared in recent editions of the Catamaran, Chicago Quarterly Review, Porter Gulch Review, DMQ Review, Hilltromper, Perfume River Poetry Review and Monterey Poetry Review. Ken pubished four poems in the spring, 2017 issue of the online journal Phren-Z, and four in the fall, 2017 issue of Nine Mile—a print and online journal out of Syracuse, NY. His poem "Hunger" appeared in the 2020 Porter Gulch Review. "Troll's Confession" appeared in the spring, 2022 Xinachtli Journal, and a poem about the first major league at bat of Mike Yastrzemski appeared in the April, 2022 "The Twin Bill." Poems from Kens' new collection about the great horned owl were published recently in Phren-Z, Caesura, Catamaran, and in the winter, 2023 edition of Jung Journal: Culture and Psyche. His poem "Fascist Giant Helium Balloon Parade" will appear in the sequel anthologyWinter in America (Still — an anthology of art and poetry that explores the consequences of the 2024 presidential election. Ken will curate the Cabrillo Music Festival poetry webpage in 2026 in memoriam of his friend, the haiku master Joan Zimmerman.