I've taught poetry in a wide variety of settings from primary school classrooms to maximum security prisons, and have written widely about this work in books and journals including PMLA and Teaching Artist Journal. In California, I created Arts-in-Corrections’ newsletter, wrote their book-length Manual for Artists Working in Prison, and developed the Handbook for Arts in the Youth Authority Program. I have also completed a feasibility study for arts programming in Minnesota state prisons; chaired panels and served as keynote speaker at many conferences on prison, prison arts, and teaching arts; and taught in prisons in eight states. I currently serves as training coordinator for WritersCorps in San Francisco.

An Invisible Rope: Portraits of Czeslaw Milosz (Ohio University Press / Swallow Press, 2011), By Heart: Poetry, Prison, and Two Lives (New Village Press, 2010), Days I Moved Through Ordinary Sounds (City Lights Publishers, 2009), Jump Write In: Creative Writing Exercises for Diverse Communities (Jossey-Bass, 2005), Disguised as a Poem: My Years Teaching Poetry at San Quentin (Northeastern University Press, 2000), Teeth, Wiggly as Earthquakes: Writing Poetry in the Primary Grades (Stenhouse Publishers, 2000), In the Crook of Grief's Arm (Nehama Press, 1993), Songs in the Night (Nehama Press, 1988)

Solid Ground (edited for WritersCorps) (Aunt Lute Books, 2006), Changing Light (Harper Collins, 1991)

100 Words, Convolvulus, Coracle, Parthenon West Review, Poetry Flash, Rattle, Tule Review