Class of ‘22: Teresa (3rd from left), plus one baby.

“I’m really just a rock and roll girl,” says Teresa Gunn. “But this has made me a poet of the streets.”

“This” is Gunn’s program of arts for young mothers at the margins of San Diego’s education system.

“These are girls with dreams. I’ll read you something. This girl: listen to what she wrote: ‘My name is Destiny Wright. My dream is to be a writer. I love to write, because life is really hard, and I have lost people, and lost myself. When I have a pen, I can feel, I can cry, I can be happy, I can be sad, I can be safe, I can feel, I can tell you I am broken, I can tell you life is sad. But I will be OK. You will be OK. And we will be OK.’”

“This is what I get to be involved with,” Gunn says. “These girls are among the first high school graduates in their families, and they are the first college attendees in their family. Most — all? — are children and have children, but they have a daycare at the school, and there’s early childhood education, so their children are learning right along with their mommies. The school they go to, Lindsay Community School, was specifically developed for these young mothers. It’s an all-girl school.”

Participant reading her poem, 2019.

Gunn, a singer-songwriter who is famous for her monologue rock and roll drama, “Trailer Park Queen,” found herself suddenly on her own as a performer when her label, Lobe Candy, went out of business. “But then I got a call from a woman. She said ‘Would you donate twelve weeks of your time at this homeless school? Because we have students who are just shy of three credits to get their high school diploma. And if you would donate a semester [to teaching singer-songwriting], we could count it as a fine arts course, and they could receive their high school diplomas.’”

“I said ‘Look, I’m just a rock and roll queen. But what I’ll do is I will guide the students to research, write, produce and perform an original spoken-word concert, because spoken word is the simplest form of songwriting.’ And I said, ‘It would be based on their experience, as children who have been homeless, but still gotten themselves into school, and now are graduating from high school. And whoever among them shows up for the concert [to perform their piece onstage], they get their final grade.’ And she goes, ‘Done.’”

Gunn says, “I’m not a professor. I’m a recovering alcoholic. I have been 28 years sober. So I constructed a curriculum on the basis of the AA 12-step program, because I was familiar with that. Instead of twelve-step recovery, I made it, ‘Twelve steps to succeed in life through the arts.’”

The result? At the end of the course, “every single student shows up, reads her monologue, and the audience goes crazy! They rushed the stage, they were hugging and kissing the students. It’s just been an amazing success. And the then-President of City College Terry Bridges heard our story and said, ‘Yes, we want you here at City, and we’re going to put you in the Alcohol and Other Drugs Studies Department, and we’re going to call you Arts Education As Primary Prevention.’ And it has become a college course!”

Gunn’s theme for this year’s Spoken Word Concert: “I will save the world.” Date: May 15, 2pm, Education Cultural Complex Theatre, 4343 Oceanview Blvd. Donation at the door. Contact: 619-282-3355.