San Diego Poet Laureate 2025-2027

Paola Capó-García is the author of CLAP FOR ME THAT’S NOT ME (2018), selected by D.A. Powell as the winner of Rescue Press' 2017 Black Box Poetry Prize. She currently designs professional development opportunities for K-12 educators as part of the High Tech High Graduate School of Education, where she also teaches and mentors early-career teachers. Before this she taught English Language Arts at High Tech High Media Arts, using poetry as a vehicle for project-based learning. Prior to her work at HTH, Capó-García taught at UC San Diego and UC Davis, where she earned an MFA in Creative Writing and an MA in English, respectively. She graduated from Syracuse University in 2009 with a BS in Magazine Journalism and English & Textual Studies. 

As a high school teacher, she loved exploring the possibilities of language with students through the art of storytelling, contemporary poetry, and radical literature. Her love of visual art and performance background inspired her to design projects ranging from book binding and printmaking to embroideries and piñatas, with a strong commitment to partnering with local artists and community activists. She also co-founded HTH Creates, a student-led club geared toward curating literacy and arts-focused events and resources for the HTH community.

Capó-García's poems have appeared in The Volta, The Texas Review, Puerto Rico en mi corazón, Latino Book Review, jubilat, Poetry Society of America, poets.org, and others. In 2020 she served as a mentor for Latinx in Publishing's inaugural Writers Mentorship Program, and in 2021 she was awarded Teachers & Writers Magazine’s Bechtel Prize for an article detailing her experience teaching creative writing virtually during the pandemic. As a journalist her work has appeared in BOMB, Variety, Remezcla, and ELLE, among others.  

Raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, she currently resides in North Park with her partner and dogs and every day dreams of new ways to make poetry feel more accessible and necessary.

Photo Credit: : Alfredo Castellanos Hambleton

For information on upcoming collaborations and events, follow www.paolacapogarcia.com and @whatwouldscullydo on Instagram.