May 13

Reading/Reception for 2025-2026 Youth Poet Laureate Valentina Zeff May 31

We’ll be celebrating our incoming youth poet laureate, Valentina Zeff, at a reading/reception at Modesto Junior College’s Science Community Center.  Come join us to listen to a few poems, meet youth poets, and learn about the youth poet laureate program.

Valentina Zeff is a sixteen-year-old poet from Modesto, California who is currently enrolled in the International Baccalaureate program at Modesto High School. Zeff has been writing free verse and ballad poetry since her freshman year of high school.

Zeff is active within her community and school through social and environmental activism, extracurricular projects, and volunteering. She was selected to be a member of the Park’s Youth Committee (April 2024-current), Modesto Youth Commission (October 2024-current), and student representative for Modesto High School’s Student Senate for both ninth and tenth grade. During the 2023-2024 Speech and Debate season, she was a top finalist for Original Spoken Word Poetry at State Qualifications. She is also the founder and Co-President of Modesto High School’s Book Club where she leads discussions on novels and poems of interest. Additionally, she is the Secretary and head layout editor/designer of the Panther Press, Modesto High School’s monthly newspaper.

Please come and help welcome our incoming Stanislaus County Youth Poet Laureate, Valentina Zeff!

The Stanislaus County Youth Poet Laureate program is administered by Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center (MoSt Poetry) with partners MJC Library & Learning Center & MJC School of Language Arts & Education, Stanislaus County Office of Education, Stanislaus County Library, and Stanislaus Library Foundation.

MoSt Poetry Summer Workshop “Writing Prose Poems: Breaking Free of the Line Break”

SATURDAY, JUNE 21, 2025       

1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

SALIDA PUBLIC LIBRARY

4835 SISK ROAD, SALIDA, CA 95368

 As the downtown Modesto library undergoes extensive renovations, the Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center (MoSt) will be kicking off its annual summer workshop series this year at a new location, the Salida Public Library.

Participants will be given the opportunity to read several outstanding examples of the form by noted practitioners and discuss them and how those pieces differ from other types of poetry.  As usual, though, the bulk of the time will be dedicated to having attendees begin crafting their own prose poems that afternoon. As always, we would love to hear what’s been written during the session, but only if you feel comfortable doing so.

We look forward to seeing you that day!!

May 04

2025-2026 Youth Poet Laureate Selected

May 1, 2025

Valentina Zeff, incoming junior at Modesto High School’s International Baccalaureate program, was selected as the Stanislaus County Youth Poet Laureate for 2025-2026. She will serve a one-year term, participate in several engagements throughout the year, and receive a $500 honorarium.

Valentina Zeff is a sixteen-year-old poet from Modesto, California who is currently enrolled in the International Baccalaureate program at Modesto High School. Zeff has been writing free verse and ballad poetry since her freshman year of high school. Valentina

Zeff is a sixteen-year-old poet from Modesto, California who is currently enrolled in the International Baccalaureate program at Modesto High School. Zeff has been writing free verse and ballad poetry since her freshman year of high school.

Zeff is active within her community and school through social and environmental activism, extracurricular projects, and volunteering. She was selected to be a member of the Park’s Youth Committee (April 2024-current), Modesto Youth Commission (October 2024-current), and student representative for Modesto High School’s Student Senate for both ninth and tenth grade. During the 2023-2024 Speech and Debate season, she was a top finalist for Original Spoken Word Poetry at State Qualifications. She is also the founder and Co-President of Modesto High School’s Book Club where she leads discussions on novels and poems of interest. Additionally, she is the Secretary and head layout editor/designer of the Panther Press, Modesto High School’s monthly newspaper.

The Stanislaus County Youth Poet Laureate is a program of the Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center (MoSt Poetry), in partnership with Stanislaus County Office of Education, Stanislaus County Library, MJC’s School of Language Arts & Education and Library & Learning Center, and Stanislaus Library Foundation. 

This program celebrates youth voices that are committed to artistic excellence, civic engagement, and social impact. The Youth Poet Laureate position was recognized by the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors with a county resolution for National Poetry Month in 2023 acknowledging this new role. 

City of Modesto Poet Laureate Angela Drew served as a judge along with fellow community members and champions for poetry: Chris Eddings, Stanislaus County Office of Education ELA/ELD Project Coordinator; Annie Snell, Youth Service Outreach/Supervising Librarian, Stanislaus County Library; Dr. Gillian Wegener, Assistant Superintendent for Oakdale Joint Unified High School District and City of Modesto past poet laureate; Zoe Byron, 2024-2025 Stanislaus County Youth Poet Laureate; and Mariah Ring, Community Outreach Specialist, Empower 8. 

Applicants for the Youth Poet Laureate program submitted an application and an artistic statement/biography indicating civic engagement and leadership background along with original poems and a video explaining their interest in the youth poet laureate position as well as performing several of their poems. Judges examined applicants on content, voice, and craft. Leadership and performance were also considered in determining the young person who will represent our communities as Youth Poet Laureate. 

Please join Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center in celebrating new Stanislaus County Youth Poet Laureate Valentina Zeff at an event on Saturday, May 31, at 1:00 p.m. in the Science Community Center at MJC West. You will hear original poems from the new youth poet laureate and meet our youth poet laureate participants. To learn more, visit www.mostpoetry.org/contests/ypl.

May 04

Second Tues: Tama Brisbane & Rosa Lane May 13

Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center is pleased to present Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Rosa Lane (Maine, East Bay) & Tama Brisbane (Stockton)

Tuesday, May 13, 2025, 7:00 pm PST at Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Orangeburg Ave, in the Roseburg Square shopping center

Limited open mic; sign up at the event. Hosted by Gillian Wegener & Stella Beratlis

Rosa Lane

Rosa Lane, poet and architect, was found to be the youngest girl to have built a house. She was 11 years old when she built her 1st home, which is featured in a book entitled Making Ourselves at Home: Women Builders and Designers (Papier Mache Press, 1995). But Lane’s primary love is poetry. She is the author of four poetry collections: Called Back (Tupelo Press, 2024); Chouteau’s Chalk (University of Georgia Press, 2019); Tiller North (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2016); and Roots and Reckonings, a chapbook published by Granite Press East under a grant from the Maine Arts Commission. 

Cover of Rosa Lane's Called Back

Most recently, her work was selected as the Best of Poetry for the 2024 Geminga Prize, winner of the 2023 Morton Marcus Memorial Poetry Award, runner-up for the 2023 River Heron Poetry Prize, and named finalist for the 2023 Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Competition (Cork, Ireland) and the 2023 Australian Book Review‘s Peter Porter Prize (Melbourne) among other awards. 

Lane’s latest poems have appeared in Catamaran, Crosswinds, Five Points, Nimrod, RHINO, River Heron Review, Southword, Third Coast, and elsewhere. She splits her time between the North Bay and coastal Maine, her native home where she lives with her wife. Website: www.rosalane.com

About CALLED BACK

“Rosa Lane’s Called Back breaks through the membrane that separates us from Dickinson’s time. Here, we enter Dickinson’s world brand new with the vigor of research re-imagined, obsession expressed with prolific inventiveness and mounting urgency, and language that astonishes in its apt, abundant, and irresistible embrace of sound. This is a book fearless in its approach and lavish in its accomplishment.”

– Rebecca Kaiser Gibson, author of The Promise of a Normal Life: A Novel

Tama Brisbane

TAMA L. BRISBANE is the City of Stockton’s Poet Laureate Emerita. She served four historic terms from 2015-2023, presenting well over 300 times, including the inauguration of the city’s first Black Mayor, Michael Tubbs. Her debut Laureate project helped engineer Stockton’s return to All-American City status with an innovative spoken word presentation incorporating dozens of multigenerational, multiethnic voices. Her performance as Guest Poet at The King Center and Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta led Martin Luther King III to say to her, “your words matter.” She remains in constant demand as
a keynote speaker and spoken word artist.

Tama is also President of With Our Words LLC, and a Program Director with Concrete Development Inc. In her capacity as a literary and performing arts consultant, she develops curricula, programs, and events across the United States and around the world. The impact of her words and her works have positively shifted creative and cultural landscapes in Stockton and beyond.

More info at calendar listing.

Welcome 2025-2026 Youth Poet Laureate: Reading & Reception

We’ll be celebrating our incoming youth poet laureate, Valentina Zeff, at a reading/reception at Modesto Junior College’s Science Community Center.  Come listen to a few poems, meet youth poets, and learn about the youth poet laureate program.

Valentina Zeff is a sixteen-year-old poet from Modesto, California who is currently enrolled in the International Baccalaureate program at Modesto High School. Zeff has been writing free verse and ballad poetry since her freshman year of high school.

Valentina ZeffZeff is active within her community and school through social and environmental activism, extracurricular projects, and volunteering. She was selected to be a member of the Park’s Youth Committee (April 2024-current), Modesto Youth Commission (October 2024-current), and student representative for Modesto High School’s Student Senate for both ninth and tenth grade. During the 2023-2024 Speech and Debate season, she was a top finalist for Original Spoken Word Poetry at State Qualifications. She is also the founder and Co-President of Modesto High School’s Book Club where she leads discussions on novels and poems of interest. Additionally, she is the Secretary and head layout editor/designer of the Panther Press, Modesto High School’s monthly newspaper.

Please welcome our incoming Stanislaus County Youth Poet Laureate, Valentina Zeff!

The Stanislaus County Youth Poet Laureate program is administered by Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center (MoSt Poetry) with partners MJC Library & Learning Center & MJC School of Language Arts & Education, Stanislaus County Office of Education, Stanislaus County Library, and Stanislaus Library Foundation.