Judith Tannenbaum

Judith Tannenbaum (1947–2019) was an educator, poet, writer, and speaker. She shared and taught poetry in schools and community centers, and was faculty with WritersCorps, a highly respected project that placed professional writers in community settings to teach creative writing to youth. Tannenbaum found a passion for prison justice and reform after teaching at San Quentin State Prison through the California Arts Council and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. She continued to give poetry workshops and performances in prisons and juvenile facilities nationally. Her memoir, Disguised as a Poem: My Years Teaching Poetry at San Quentin (Northeastern University Press, 2000), is considered essential reading for anyone wishing to teach art in prisons. Through her work at San Quentin, Tannenbaum fostered a 20-year-long friendship with poet Spoon Jackson, and the two recounted their lives and experiences in the double memoir, By Heart: Poetry, Prison, and Two Lives (New Village Press, 2010).