These video clips are the part of a series highlighting recent readings held by SF State’s Poetry Center and American Poetry Archives. Visit this website regularly for fresh poetic content.
On September 24, Bay Area poets and artists gathered at McRoskey Mattress Company to pay homage to poet, art writer and teacher Bill Berkson (1939 – 2016). He was a professor emeritus at the San Francisco Art Institute, described by Publishers Weekly as “a serene master of syntactical sleight and transformer of the mundane into the marvelous.” The program included 30 tributes by Bay Area poets and artists. The Poetry Center and The Green Arcade sponsored the event.
Michael Wolfe reads from his notes compiled across the course of the evening at the Bill Berkson Memorial Tribute.
Renny Pritikin reads from his tribute to Bill Berkson.
John Zurier remembers Bill Berkson and reads three short poems by him.
Alli Warren reads from Bill Berkson’s and Bernadette Mayer’s collaborative book, What’s Your Idea of a Good Time?: Interviews and Letters 1977 – 1985.
Amy Trachtenberg remembers Bill Berkson and reads from his “What Piero Knew” in The Sweet Singer of Modernism and Other Art Writings 1985 – 2003.
Margaret Tedesco reads Bill Berkson’s “For the Heart of the Second Floor.”