A B O U T

Teré Fowler-Chapman, BFA CLC PRC (he/they)

poet, educator, life and recovery coach

Teré Fowler-Chapman is a dynamic cultural worker, educator, and youth advocate whose multifaceted work spans poetry, visual arts, and community engagement. Whether pulling poems off the page, creating blackout poetry, cutting up images from old worlds, or crafting new ones through intuitive card-making, their art centers on blackness, trans identity, queerness, spirituality, and sobriety. Teré’s work embodies a heartbeat and a tongue, engaging folx in meaningful discourse. For Teré, home is wherever their heart resides, and they are passionate about planting creative expression through workshops, exhibits, and performances. Their deepest commitment lies in planting poems behind bars with incarcerated youth. Teré’s workshops often weave inner child work, meditation, play, and creative expression. Always found crafting poems in classrooms, Teré believes they learn more from the future generation and are honored to cultivate a body of work that teaches the power of vulnerability by fostering others’ creativity. Although they reluctantly work with adults, Teré aims to create inclusive and equitable spaces for youth by exploring biases and privileges. They also facilitate workshops around self-care and inner child work within the community.

My work is guided by three core pedagogical principles: supporting marginalized students, balancing personal and academic growth, and centering experiential knowledge in the curriculum.

E X P E R I E N C E

Teré holds a BFA in English and Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University, is a certified transformative coach, and has accumulated over 160+ professional development hours from institutions including the University of Arizona Poetry Center, National Arts Strategies, Harvard University, and more. However, their most significant lessons have come from BIPOC femmes, LGBTQIA+ community members, elders, and Black youth. Teré’s academic path is focused on the sustainability of under-supported, non-traditional, and marginalized youth. With over eight years of performance and community organizing experience, they have facilitated workshops that combine creative writing with gender-inclusive pedagogy.

From 2012 to 2018, Teré founded and hosted Words on the Avenue, Tucson’s longest-running community poetry open mic. This project provided financial support to uplift POC in the Tucson community and established restorative protocols for addressing sexual harassment and violence. In 2014, they became the first Black trans Executive Director of the Tucson Poetry Festival, collaborating with their board to curate art and poetry events centered on yearly themes. Teré’s teaching career began at a local charter high school, where they co-created The Spokenword, a curriculum integrating social justice, community healing, and hip hop. Over five years, they established programs such as a mentor homeroom, hip hop club, gender sexuality alliance, spoken word club, and more. Teré’s work drew the attention of PBS/NPR Arizona Public Media, TEDx Tucson, and the University of Arizona, as well as cultural icons like bell hooks. Their classroom was recognized by the National Book Foundation in 2018.

The practice of storytelling starts with listening.

By 2019, Teré shifted roles to become an assistant principal, revising student handbooks, conducting cultural competency audits, and implementing equitable student processing practices. In 2020, they taught creative writing and social-emotional support to young adults on the autism spectrum through a therapeutic lens. During the pandemic, they focused on visual art, which led to their first exhibitions, and completed their bachelor’s degree in creative writing. In 2023, they published their debut full-length work, M O O N S H i N E.

C U R R E N T L Y

Teré Fowler-Chapman works in leadership, building org-wide practices that proactively supports the resilience and emotional well-being of young people. He is pursuing his MFA at Antioch University and currently calls Denver, Colorado, home. While in sobriety, he found reading and poetry recitation daunting and only performs when the stars aligns perfectly. Born into generational trauma, Teré now considers himself a product of emotional wellness. As a third-generation educator, following in the footsteps of his mother and grandfather, he is dedicated to removing systemic barriers for students. His curriculum supports first-year teaching artists’ and educators’ cultural competency, compassion, and overall growth. Additionally, he teaches poetry seasonally at various organizations across the country throughout the year. He currently is coaching but is not accepting any new clients for the remainder of 2024.

Outside of work, Teré enjoys cooking three-course meals, international travel (next stop: Rome in May 2025), continuous learning, playing pickleball (and beating your grandpa), and spending quality time with his beloved wife, renowned journalist, pop culture critic, and executive editor, Evette Dionne. Together they’re prepping for their newest edition and chapter coming soon #iykyk

All of Teré Fowler-Chapman’s work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.