During her first 12 months as San Diego’s newest poet laureate, Paola Capó-García organized community events, readings, workshops and multidisciplinary events, combining poetry and visual arts to make poetry more accessible and useful to people.
“My big push is just (helping) people reach for poetry more because I think there’s this misconception that poetry isn’t for everyone and that it’s just sort of pretentious or a high academia thing, and I really disagree with that,” Capó-García said. “I think everyone can read and write a poem, and I think that it can be a really useful tool, especially during difficult times, which we are absolutely living through right now.”
Capó-García, who is originally from Puerto Rico, was named San Diego’s latest poet laureate in February 2025. She is the third person to hold the position and the first woman to do so.
The city of San Diego launched its poet laureate program in 2020, and its cultural affairs department appoints each laureate for a two-year term. The goal is to help grow poetry, literature and spoken word locally.
In 2026, one of Capó-García’s main goals is to accomplish a project called Apertura (“opening” in Spanish), which just launched at the end of February. It involves publishing local poets through zines, in collaboration with Burn All Books, and creating free video poetics workshops.
Capó-García said the project also calls for a cohort to be selected to write a poem with her, and then a filmmaker will turn the group poem into an experimental short film. In addition, the Apertura project will be exhibited at the Athenaeum Art Center, inside the Bread and Salt building in Barrio Logan, from October through January 2027.
“I really wanted to combine poetry with visual art in different mediums just to get more people interested in poetry and to just show the visual connections between different mediums,” Capó-García.
She also wants to help teachers integrate poetry lessons into their lessons and create more poetry workshops at local high schools and inside prisons to educate people who are incarcerated.
“A big passion of mine is education and collaborations with community partners here in San Diego,” Capó-García said. “I love that feeling of being in the classroom … and seeing sort of (people’s) eyes light up when they get it or when they succeed at something. That’s like the best feeling in the world.”
She mentioned that her passion for teaching and mentoring comes from her family, especially her grandfather, who was an educator in Puerto Rico.
“Everyone in my family just really advocated for education, that knowledge is power,” Capó-García said.
She added that her fire for poetry stems from it not being taught enough in schools and in the community.
“I’ve seen kids’ lives change because they read a poem or wrote a poem and it allowed them to access a part of themselves that they hadn’t accessed before,” she said.
Capó-García is a former English language arts teacher at High Tech High Media Arts and professor at the University of California, San Diego and University of California, Davis. She currently teaches and mentors early-career educators and project-based learning curriculum for the High Tech High Graduate School of Education.
Capó-García moved to North Park from Northern California in 2013 when she was accepted into the creative writing master’s program at UC San Diego. She lived in North Park for four years, moved to a couple of other neighborhoods, but moved back to North Park four years later, where she currently lives.
“I love the proximity to grocery stores, businesses, places for me to run errands, but also the proximity to green spaces,” she said. “I like that it’s a mix of renters and homeowners… I also love that you feel a good amount of diversity in the area… I think it’s beautiful.”
Here are Capó-García’s favorite places in North Park.
Paola Capó-García is a poet, educator and San Diego’s current poet laureate. (Alfredo Castellanos Hambleton)
Q: Where is your favorite dining option?
A: My go-to North Park spot that consistently delivers is Kin Len on 30th. Their menu is different from other Thai restaurants, the environment is super casual and fun, and I love their beer selection. My must-orders are the tom yum wings, they’re magical, the papaya salad, the hat yai chicken and curry, my favorite, and the basil beef and mango sticky rice if there’s still room. While I love the burgers at The Wise Ox and the falafel at Falafel Heights and so many dishes at Mabel’s Gone Fishing, Kin Len has a special place in my heart.
Q: What is your favorite small retail business or pop-up vendor to support?
A: My favorite sneakers have all come from ACD Gallery, a small shop that stocks lots of independent streetwear brands and fun collaborations with bigger brands like Adidas. I always find at least one special thing that becomes my obsession for the next few months.
Emmarose Glaser, right, and Greg Donals, left, play with their dog at the Bird Park of Morley Field on Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025 in San Diego, CA. (Michael Ho / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Q: Where is your favorite open space?
A: I live two blocks away from Morley Field, so I love grabbing a smoothie at the tennis courts and walking my dogs around the dog park, the velodrome, the little league fields, the frisbee golf area, etc.
Q: Where is the best piece of artwork?
A: There is this bizarre but wonderful tennis-themed mural at the Balboa Tennis Club that my friends pointed out to me the other day. I hadn’t really noticed it after all these years, but now I’m obsessed with it. It’s a minimal depiction of a tennis court on a sunny day, almost in the style of David Hockney. I’m baffled by it every time I see it; it’s weirdly delightful.
Folk Arts Rare Records, a record shop inside Part Time Lover in North Park on Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (Kristian Carreon / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Q: Where is your favorite entertainment attraction or historic landmark?
A: A lot of my friends DJ vinyl regularly at Part Time Lover, so I find myself there a lot, ideally on non-crowded nights.