Lunch Poems

This monthly series is free and open to the public. No tickets required, but come early for a seat. Oct. 6: Robert Hass Reads Czeslaw Milosz Born in San Francisco, Robert Hass is a California poet but his poetry, translations, and essays reveal an intimacy that transcends the borders of states and nations. With his direct clarity and promotion of literacy in “places where poets don’t go,” he served two years as U. S. Poet Laureate (1995-97). His numerous books include Sun Under Wood, Time and Materials, and The Apple Trees at Olema: New and Selected Poems. Hass’s numerous accolades include the MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship, two National Book Critics' Circle Awards, and the Pulitzer Prize. Hass has translated many of the works of Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet, Czesław Miłosz.

Nov. 3: Clayton Eshleman Reads Aime Cesaire

Clayton Eshleman has released three translations this year: Solar Throat Slashed, by Aimé Césaire, co-translated with A. James Arnold; Curdled Skulls Poems, by Bernard Bador, translated by Eshleman and the author; and Endure, by Bei Dao, co-translated with Lucas Klein. Poet Wang Ping has called the latter work “a timely new translation by a master translator”. His long career has spanned the years as well as the globe. Eshleman lives with his wife Caryl in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

Dec. 1: Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon

Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon was awarded the Cave Canem Poetry Prize for Black Swan, her debut collection of poems that mixes vernacular language with classical mythology, modern struggles with Biblical trials, and gives voice to women past and present. With her second, ]Open Interval[, nominated for the 2009 National Book Award, Van Clief-Stefanon “marries a wildness of vision with a lens-maker’s precision.” She is co-author, with Elizabeth Alexander, of the chapbook Poems in Conversation and a Conversation. She is currently working on a third collection of poetry, The Coal Tar Colors. She lives in Ithaca, N.Y., and teaches at Cornell University.

Feb. 2: giovanni singleton

This reading celebrates the publication of ascension (Counterpath Press), the first book of poems by giovanni singleton, coordinator of Lunch Poems. She has recently been selected by the Poetry Society of America for its biennial New American Poets series. singleton is a recipient of a New Langton Bay Area Award Show for Literature and has been a fellow at Squaw Valley Community of Writers, Cave Canem: A Workshop for African-American Poets, and the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference. She is founding editor of nocturnes (re)view, a critically acclaimed journal dedicated to artists andwriters of the African Diaspora and other contested spaces.

March 1: Louise Gluck

From the Academy of American Poets Prize in 1968 for Firstborn to the Wallace Stevens Award in 2008 for “outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry,” Louise Glück has a place in the contemporary canon of American poetry. She has received the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize along with fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller foundations. In 2003-2004, she served as U. S. Poet Laureate. Her latest collection of poems is entitled A Village Life. A New York native, Glück is the Rosenkranz Writer in Residence at Yale University.

April 5: Richard Berengarten

Richard Berengarten (aka Richard Burns) was born in London in 1943. George Szirtes described him as “one of the major half-hidden poets of England”. The author of more than twenty books, Berengarten has been something of a maverick in contemporary British poetry. Two of his books are regarded as contemporary classics: The Manager and The Blue Butterfly, an elegy for victims of a Nazi massacre in former Yugoslavia. A book of essays about his work, The Salt Companion to Richard Berergarten, has recently appeared. He is a Bye Fellow at Downing College, Cambridge. This will be his first reading in the Bay Area in almost 20 years.

May 3: Student Reading

One of the year’s most lively events, the student reading includes winners of the Academy of American Poets, Cook, Rosenberg and Yang prizes, as well as students nominated by Berkeley’s creative writing faculty, Lunch Poems volunteers, and representatives from student publications.