About Me
Classes I Teach
Spring 2023
| CRN | Course | Sec. | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 44166 | ELIT 11 | 01Z | Introduction to Poetry |
| 47369 | EWRT 41 | 50Z | Poetry Writing |
Winter 2023
| CRN | Course | Sec. | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 00755 | EWRT 1A | 10Q | Composition and Reading |
| 36509 | LART 250 | 10Q | Academic Reading and 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 and to settle down in 1982. Ken has been teaching writing and literature at De Anza College since the mid-nineties part time, and since 2000 full time. Ken teaches poetry writing at De Anza and is the author of the poetry collections The Sacred Geometry of Pedestrians (2002) and Anything on Earth (2010), and most recently Cricket to Star (2019), all from Hummingbird Press. Ken is a teacher and editor of poetry. He currently edits and advises the national and student editions of Red Wheelbarrow through De Anza. For many years Ken edited Quarry West through Porter College at UCSC. Ken continues to teach a poetry workshop at Salinas Valley State Prison. He was recently (2020, 2022) interviewed on KSQD radio by "Hive Collective" members Dion O'Reilly (4/6/20) and Julie Murphy. He was interviewed by Murphy about his work bringing creative writing workshops to inmates (4/26/20), and then about his own new work (4/3/22). He also participated in a one hour "Hive" tribute (7/10/22) to the late beloved poet Robert Sward.
Ken Weisner’s poetry has appeared in divergent mediums including 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." Ken recently completed a chapbook manuscript that communes with a stunning creature, the great horned owl, about many of the intense laments and ecstasies of life during a difficult time. Several of these poems have aoppeared in Phren-Z, Caesura, Catamaran, and will appear in the winter, 2023 edition of Jung Journal: Culture and Psyche.