Poetry Santa Cruz | About Poetry Santa Cruz

Bios for the members of the Board of Directors of Poetry Santa Cruz

Len Anderson
Tom McKoy
Dennis Morton
Adela Najarro
Tilly Shaw

Len
photo by Sandra Vines Walker Len Anderson has a BA and PhD in Physics from UC Berkeley. He worked for four years in experimental elementary particle physics and nearly 16 years at Measurex Corporation (now part of Honeywell), developing sensors for the automation of paper manufacturing. He and his wife have lived in Live Oak since 1998.
Len has been writing poetry since 1985 and has studied with Richard Maxwell, Robert Bly, Joseph Stroud, Joseph McNeilly and Sally Ashton. His work has appeared in a variety of literary journals, anthologies and other publications. He is a winner of the Dragonfly Press Poetry Competition, the Mary Lönnberg Smith Poetry Award (Cabrillo College) and has received a Pushcart nomination from The DMQ Review. His first collection of poems is Affection for the Unknowable (Hummingbird Press, 2003). He has also published a chapbook, BEEP: A Version of the History of the Personal Computer Rendered in Free Verse in the Manner of Howl by Allen Ginsberg.
At Poetry Santa Cruz, Len serves as Secretary-Treasurer. He has primary responsibility for publicity (flyers, email announcements, press calendar announcements, website maintenance), meeting notes, research on readers, database, PA system and archives, financial records and budgets, non-profit status, grant applications and reports, member thank you letters & premiums, event setup, and is Contact Person. He has directed the High School Poetry Competition and helps coordinate our other big events, Poet/Speak, our volunteers, and liaison with Poetry Center San Jose.
Contact: len@poetrysantacruz.org

Danusha Danusha Laméris graduated from UCSC with a B.A. in art. Since then, she has turned to poetry, with work published in Lyric, Poetry Northwest, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Sun and The Crab Orchard Review as well as in a variety of other journals. Her poems have also appeared in the anthologies In a Fine Frenzy: Poets Respond to Shakespeare and Intimate Kisses. Last year she was a finalist for the 2010 New Letters Prize in poetry. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize two years in a row. She lives in Santa Cruz, California with her husband Armando.

Tom Tom McKoy has lived in Santa Cruz for 28 years. He has a BA in English from the University of Virginia and an MS in Procurement and Contract Management (PCMAN) from St. Mary’s College. He retired from Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company where he was a Contract Negotiator. He has studied with and been inspired by Joe Stroud as well as Tom Marshall. Tom’s work has been published in Porter Gulch Review. In 2009 he joined the Board of Poetry Santa Cruz where he helps with the production of the High School Poetry Competition, assists with the monthly readings, and serves as occasional wheel-man. He delights in the poetry scene in Santa Cruz and feels privileged to participate in its furtherance. He has done theater work with Soquel Creek Community Theater and Actor’s Theater. He attended all three days of Woodstock, has hiked the complete John Muir Trail, and successfully memorized the Gettysburg Address in the 9th grade. (Do not ask him to repeat it now.) He has no visible piercings or tattoos. He and his wife Ellen McCarthy live within shouting distance of downtown Santa Cruz.

Dennis Dennis Morton serves as President of Poetry Santa Cruz. He was educated at Syracuse University and The State University of New York, College at Oswego, where he studied poetry with Lewis Turco, author of the classic The Book of Forms.
In 1983 he moved to Santa Cruz from upstate New York. For 15 years he worked in the retail natural foods industry, organizing, managing, and owning natural foods stores.
For the past several years Dennis has taught writing workshops to incarcerated youths and led poetry workshops in alternative education class rooms. For thirteen years he has co-hosted The Poetry Show on KUSP, a public radio station serving the central California coast. (The Poetry Show is the oldest radio poetry program in the country.) Dennis also reviews films for KUSP as a member of The Film Gang. (The Poetry Show and The Film Gang are now podcast on the KUSP website.) Dennis also assists the Features Editor at Good Times, (a local A&E weekly newspaper) by recommending poems and essays for inclusion in The Poetry Corner, a twice-monthly full-page column.
Dennis books the readings for Poetry Santa Cruz and serves as Master of Ceremonies at the Tuesday evening reading series.
Contact: dennis@poetrysantacruz.org

Dennis Adela Najarro holds a doctorate in literature and creative writing from Western Michigan University, as well as an MFA from Vermont College. She currently teaches at Cabrillo College as part of the Puente Project, a program designed to support Latinidad in all its aspects, while preparing community college students to transfer to four-year colleges and universities. Her extended family’s emigration from Nicaragua to San Francisco began in the 1940s and concluded in the eighties when the last of the family settled in the Los Angeles area. She has published poems in numerous journals, including Notre Dame Review, Nimrod International Journal of Poetry & Prose, Blue Mesa Review, Crab Orchard Review, ACM: Another Chicago Magazine, Artful Dodge, and Cimarron Review. She currently resides in Santa Cruz.

Tilly By birthright a New Englander, Tilly Washburn Shaw came west to Santa Cruz, California, in mid-life, to join in building a new campus of the University of California in the late 60's, often returned later to Massachusetts in the summer. She did her bachelor's degree at Swarthmore, her doctorate at Yale in Comparative Literature; taught at Haverford College, Douglas College of Rutgers, and Yale University before joining the Literature faculty at UC/Santa Cruz. When younger, she published a book on three modern poets and later began writing poetry herself. After 37 years of teaching, she retired to the enjoyments of age, lives in Santa Cruz with her fruit trees, friends, writing groups and books, does lay counseling with seniors, travels, swims in any ocean she is able to. Her first collection of poems is Swimming Closer to Shore (Hummingbird Press, 2002).
Tilly Shaw helps with our member relations, distributing membership premiums, sending out thank you letters and renewal reminders. She also provides liaison with UC Santa Cruz, which brings some of our visiting readers into their Creative Writing classrooms and pays them through the George Hitchcock Fund, thus making their long-distance travel affordable. Tilly also assists at our events by introducing readers.
Contact: tilly@poetrysantacruz.org