SAN JOSE, California (March 31, 2011)—The San Jose Museum of Art, in collaboration with Poetry Center San Jose and Arts Council Silicon Valley, will present its Second Annual Poetry Invitational on Saturday, April 9, 2011, from 1 to 3 p.m. In celebration of National Poetry Month, Nils Peterson, Santa Clara County’s first poet laureate, has invited other Bay Area poets to visit the Museum and write poems inspired by the art on view. The poets will read their works at the Museum on April 9. The reading is free with Museum admission. 

Participating poets will be: Len Anderson of Santa Cruz; Sally Ashton of Los Gatos (the 2011 poet laureate of Santa Clara County); Niki Escobar of Milpitas; Parthenia Hicks of Los Gatos; Persis Karim of Berkeley; David Perez of Campbell, Doren Robbins of Santa Cruz; and Vuong Vu of San Jose.

SAN JOSE MUSEUM OF ART

The San Jose Museum of Art is located at 110 South Market Street in downtown San Jose, California. The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $8 for adults, $5 for students and senior citizens, and free to members and children under 6. For more information, call 408-271-6840 or visit www.SanJoseMuseumofArt.org.

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Programs at the San Jose Museum of Art are generously supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, by operating support from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation; the James Irvine Foundation; the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation; the Adobe Foundation; and the Koret Foundation; the MetLife Foundation; and a Cultural Affairs grant from the City of San Jose.