UCTV - University of California Television

Born in Dublin, Ireland, Eavan Boland is one of the foremost voices in Irish literature. Her ten volumes of poetry include Against Love Poetry, which was a New York Times notable book, and New Collected Poems. She is also a noted editor and translator. Her awards include a Lannan Foundation Award and an American Ireland Fund Literary Award. She is a professor of English and Creative Writing at Stanford University.

Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Lisa Chen earned a BA from UC Berkeley and an MFA from the University of Iowa. Her debut collection of poetry, mouth, received a 2009 award from the Association for Asian American Studies. Sesshu Foster says that Chen's work "startles with soulful complexity."

Dan Bellm has published three books of poetry, including Practice, winner of a 2009 California Book Award and named one of the Top Ten Poetry Books of 2008 by the Virginia Quarterly Review. His first collection, One Hand on the Wheel, launched the California Poetry Series and his second, Buried Treasure, won the Poetry Society of America's Alice Fay DiCastagnola Award.

Natasha Trethewey is author of Native Guard, for which she won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize; Bellocq's Ophelia, named a 2003 Notable Book by the American Library Association; and Domestic Work, selected by Rita Dove for the inaugural Cave Canem Poetry Prize. She received the 2008 Mississippi Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts for Poetry. Currently, she is Professor of English and Phillis Wheatley Distinguished Chair in Poetry at Emory University.

Knoxville, Tennessee native Graham Foust is the author of four books of poetry: As in Every Deafness, Leave the Room to Itself, Necessary Stranger, and A Mouth in California. David Olsen says Foust's "poems are carefully contained so that we can find a place in them." He directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Saint Mary's College in Moraga, CA.

This 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.

At nearly 90 years old, Richard Moore is the last of the legendary San Francisco Renaissance poets. Arriving in 1934, he was among the many émigrés to California during the Great Depression. His debut collection Writing the Silences marks his reemergence into today's literary world.

Hosted by Robert Hass and University Librarian Thomas C. Leonard, the kickoff features distinguished new members of the UC Berkeley English Department faculty introducing and reading a favorite poem.

A remarkably strong generation of women poets has emerged in Korea in the last decade. Five of them visited Berkeley, reading, and talking to Korean-American poets and the women poets of the Bay Area. This is a very rare chance to hear some of the most important and exciting voices in Asia: Jeongrye Choi, Young Mi Choi, Hwang Insuk, Chung-hee Moon and Ra Heeduk. They will read their work in English and Korean.

Born in San Francisco in 1930, world-renowned poet, essayist, and environmentalist Gary Snyder has published sixteen books of poetry and prose, and received the Pulitzer Prize in 1974 for Turtle Island. Snyder has traveled widely and lived for extended periods of time in Japan, where he studied and practiced Rinzai Zen. He is currently a professor at University of California, Davis.

One of the great postwar Central European poets, Slovenian Tomaz Salamun has published over thirty books. He has taught at universities around the world. He reads to an audience at UC Berkeley.

Songwriters Richie Furay (Buffalo Springfield, Poco) and Greg Laswell (Three Flights From Alto Nido) share tips on composing lyrics and then play music for host Karl Martin as part of the 2009 Writer's Symposium by the Sea sponsored by the Point Loma Nazarene University.

Born in Odessa, Ilya Kaminsky immigrated to the United States in 1993 when his family was granted asylum by the American government. Kaminsky teaches comparative literature, poetry and literary translation at San Diego State University.

Tracy K. Smith received degrees in English and creative writing from Harvard and Columbia, and was a Wallace Stegner Fellow in poetry at Stanford. Her first book, The Body's Question, was awarded the 2002 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, and her most recent collection, Duende: Poems, received the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets. She teaches creative writing at Princeton.

Robin Blaser emerged from the Berkeley Renaissance of the 1940s and '50s along with Jack Spicer and Robert Duncan, and later established himself as one of Canada's foremost experimental poets. In addition to numerous works of poetry, criticism, and translation, Blaser has also penned an English and Latin opera libretto entitled The Last Supper in collaboration with Sir Harrison Birtwistle.

Poet, editor, and scholar Juliana Spahr discusses her writing and research.

Jessica Fisher's Frail-Craft was the winner of the prestigious 2006 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition. She is a doctoral candidate in English at U.C. Berkeley and is coeditor, with Robert Hass, of The Addison Street Anthology, which chronicles Berkeley's rich poetic history.

World-renowned poet Diane di Prima, one of the preeminent writers to emerge from the Beat generation, wrote in Manhattan for many years before relocating to San Francisco, where she has been for nearly four decades. Her 43 books of poetry and prose have been translated into over twenty languages.

Arthur Sze is an internationally known writer and celebrated translator. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Sze teaches at the Institute of American Indian Arts, and is the first poet laureate of Santa Fe, where he resides.

Born in Mexico City, Monica de la Torre came to the United States in 1993 on a Fulbright scholarship to study at Columbia University. Her poetry explores with great depth both the boundaries and the permeability of imposed identity, combining a playful use of form and dry humor with a hint of hopefulness.

Revolutionary poet, playwright, and activist Amiri Baraka is recognized as the founder of the Black Arts Movement, a literary period that began in Harlem in the 1960s and forever changed the look, sound, and feel of American poetry.

Rich in its landscapes and its search for personal discovery, John Matthias' poetry encompasses vast territories of history and culture. He has published more than twenty-five books, twelve of which are poetry, and is the editor of Notre Dame Review. This is his first visit to the west coast in over twenty-five years.

Considered by literary critics to be one of the finest living English language poets, Walcott also is a playwright, author, visual artist, and professor. His presentation includes poetry and commentary

A prominent figure in California's poetry scene for decades, Joanne Kyger writes poetry influenced by her practice of Zen Buddhism and her ties to the poets of Black Mountain, the San Francisco Renaissance, and the Beat Generation.

Born in Seoul, Korea, Myung Mi Kim travels to the root of language, connecting speech and culture in a rich web of immaculate phrases. Kim strips words to the bone, using fragments and white space to enhance her themes of dislocation and first language loss.

Iraqi poet Dunya Mikhail immigrated to the United States in 1996 after increasing harassment over her poetry, which confronts war and exile with subversive depictions of suffering. In 2001 she was awarded the UN Human Rights Award for Freedom of Writing.

Part antiphonal rant, part rhythmic whisper, Nathaniel Mackey reads from his new book of poetry and talks about his writing to an audience at UC Santa Cruz where he is a professor of literature. Mackey recently received the 2006 National Book Award for poetry.

Author, poet, pastor and professor Eugene Peterson charms his audience as he recalls his effort to translate the Bible into The Message, an interpretation geared for modern readers. The book has such wide appeal that U2's Bono began quoting from it at concerts. But when told of this, Peterson's response was "Who is Bono?" Peterson is joined host Dean Nelson in Part 2 of the 2007 Writers Symposium by the Sea, sponsored by Point Loma Nazarene University.

Born in Brooklyn to an Iraqi father and a Syrian mother, Jack Marshall explores the cultures and cities that shaped his artistic awakening.

The recent recipient of the prestigious Academy of American Poets Wallace Stevens award for "outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry," Michael Palmer is regarded as "one of America's most important poets" by Harvard Review.

Will Alexander has created a contemporary alchemy of surrealist vision in his own electric incandescent language. Coined the Césaire of America, his poetry is full of imagistic and intelligent unraveling.

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and recent US poet laureate Ted Kooser gives a public reading and answer questions on his art during a visit to UC Davis.

Born in Beijing, China, and raised in Massachusetts, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge molds language with seemingly effortless beauty and grace that invites the reader on a journey between worlds. She has published three books of poetry. Her selected poems, "I Love Artists," is forthcoming from UC Press (April, 2006). Tune is as she reads a selection of her poems before a live audience at UC Berkeley.

Mary Karr's work has been deemed "hardboiled, hardedged, hardbitten" by Poetry. Her allure is a gripping combination of savvy intelligence and an utter refusal for sentimentality. Karr is the author of four volumes of poetry including the forthcoming "Sinners Welcome" (Harper Collins, 2006), and the memoir, "The Liars' Club." Tune in as she reads a selection of her poetry before a live audience at UC Berkeley

A prominent figure in the wide-open poetry movement of the 50s, Lawrence Ferlinghetti gave voice to a generation that changed the face of poetry forever. Challenging the elite's definition of art and the artist's role, Ferlinghetti founded City Lights Bookstore, providing a meeting place for writers, artists, and intellectuals for over a half century. Ferlinghetti's A Coney Island of the Mind continues to be the most popular poetry book in the United States. His most recent work, Americus Book I was published by New Directions in 2004. Tune in for this reading before a live audience at UC Berkeley.

California Poet Laureate Al Young has created a profound and enduring body of work that represents our time. Young's numerous publications in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and for the stage and screen explore the American, human condition through the lens of the individual voice. Tune in as he reads a selection of his poems before a live audience at UC Berkeley.

Juan Felipe Herrera traveled as a child with his parents through many small farming towns and cities in California, until finally settling in San Diego. He has taught poetry from kindergarten to the university level and is the author of numerous poetry and children's books, including Calling The Doves, which won the Ezra Jack Keats Award, and Crashboomlove, which was prized with the Americas Award. He also wrote Upside Down Boy, which was adapted into a musical in New York City, and Laughing Out Loud, I Fly, winner of a Pura Belpré honor award. He holds the Tomás Rivera Endowed Chair in Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside.

U.S. Poet Laureate (2004-2006) Ted Kooser is a major poetic voice for rural and small town America and the award-winning author of ten collections of poetry, most recently 2004's Pulitzer Prize-winning Delights and Shadows. Nebraskan Kooser often draws from his native Great Plains and his poems are acclaimed for their simple, straightforward style. Kooser reads from his poetry before a standing-room only audience in Campbell Hall at UC Santa Barbara.

"There's love and sadness at the root of those poems. There is also a bridge, a language that reads," writes Yusef Komunyakaa who selected Kim for the 2002 Walt Whitman Award for her debut collection of poetry, Notes from the Divided Country. Garrett Hongo writes of the collection, "Kim's brilliantly crafted, brave new poems move us into an emotional union with the seemingly far-flung past of Korea political geography...what voice, what witness, what glorious descendancy." Formerly a Stegner fellow and Fulbright scholar, Kim now resides in New York State.

Born in St. Petersburg, Russia but raised in New York City, Eugene Ostashevsky is a poet, scholar and reckless metaphysician. A book of his poetry, The Off-Centaur, was published by Germ Folios, and his volume The Compleat Unraveller will be published in 2005 by Ugly Duckling Press. He is editor and co-translator of the forthcoming anthology, OBERIU and the Chinars: Russian Absurdism, 1927-1941. Ostashevsky won the 2003 Wytter Bynner Poetry Translation Fellowship for his translations from Russian. He teaches at NYU.

Barbara Guest has published over ten volumes of poetry. One of the original members of the New York School of Poets, Guest reinvents herself with every book. Her recent titles include Miniatures and Other Poems, Rocks on a Platter, and Selected Poems. Charles Bernstein writes that Guest's works "have become an integral part of the fabric of contemporary American poetry." A graduate of UC Berkeley, Guest has been honored with the Frost Medal for Distinguished Lifetime Achievement by the Poetry Society of America. She resides in Berkeley.

"Seductive, edgy, gothic and sublime, these poems haunt the body as much as the soul," wrote Beckian Fritz Goldberg of Frank Paino's second book, Out of Eden. Lynda Hull has said of his first book, The Rapture of Matter, "These fearless poems go where they must with a visionary fervor, guiding the reader through the darkest passages of experience and reminding us of the best, most redemptive qualities of the human spirit." Frank Paino was born in Cleveland in 1960 and lives in Berea, Ohio. He formerly published under the name Frankie Paino before changing genders.

Harryette Mullen admits to being "licked all over by the English tongue." Her fifth poetry collection, Sleeping with the Dictionary, published by UC Press, was a finalist for the National Book Award and for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry for its "gleeful pursuit of the ludic pleasure of word games." Her work combines the experimentation of the French OULIPO group with an American funk and political awareness. Mullen is associate professor of English and African American Studies at UCLA. Her other books include Muse & Drudge and Trimmings.

A range of Berkeley luminaries read and discuss their favorite poems. This year's line-up: Barbara Ertter (Jepson Herbarium), H. Mack Horton (East Asian Languages), Amy Kautzman (Doe Library), Elaine Kim (Ethnic Studies), Ray Lifchez (Architecture), Cam Nguyet Nguyen (Southeast Asian Studies), Bob Osserman (Mathematical Science Research Center), Laura Perez (Chicano Studies), John Prausnitz (Chemical Engineering), and Frank Worrell (Education).

Lyn Hejinian is the author or co-author of 14 books of poetry, including most recently "My Life in the Nineties" and "The Fatalist," as well as the award-winning "My Life." Poetry Flash has described My Life as a work that has "real, almost hypnotic power, obvious intelligence, and [is] astonishingly beautiful."

David St. John was widely praised and was a National Book Award finalist for Study for the World's Body. Recent books are The Red Leaves of Night from HarperPerennial and Prism from Arctos Press, and his newest, The Face , a book-length poem. His image-rich work muses on both ecstasy and loss.

Maxine Hong Kingston burst on the literary scene in 1976 with her book, "The Woman Warrior" . A UC Berkeley graduate and professor, she has delighted audiences with books such as "China Men" and "Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book". In recent years she has started to write more poetry, including "To Be the Poet" from Harvard University Press.

After hosting Lunch Poems for eight years, Robert Hass has finally been prevailed upon to read his own poems in the series. Former Poet Laureate of the U.S., Hass is a UC Berkeley professor who has made important contributions in poetry, criticism, and translation. His books of poetry are Sun Under Wood, Human Wishes, Praise, and Field Guide, the latter winner of the Yale Younger Poets Award. His critical essays are assembled in Twentieth Century Pleasures, and the poets he has translated include Czeslaw Milosz, Tomas Tranströmer, and masters of Japanese haiku.

Poet Michael Harper makes a rare West Coast appearance for this installment from the Lunch Poems series. Harper has published over ten books of poetry, including Songlines in Michaeltree: New and Collected Poems and his book Dear John, Dear Coltrane was nominated for the National Book Award.

**ADULT AUDIENCE** Robert Thomas is a Bay Area native whose first book, "Door to Door", won the Poets Out Loud Prize and has created a sensation.

A stellar range of campus figures read and discuss their favorite poems. This year's line-up: Nezar Alsayyad (Architecture, Middle Eastern Studies), John Berry (Native American Studies), Frederick Dolan (Rhetoric), Elizabeth Dupuis (Doe Library), Jocelyne Guilbault (Music), Ray Lifchez (Architecture), Martha Olney (Economics), Christos Papadimitriou (Computer Science), Pablo Spiller (Haas School of Business), Steve Tollefson (College Writing).

Charismatic poet Cornelius Eady uses deft paradoxes to meet the world's absurdities head-on. In a powerful reading of his own work, Eady recites like a jazz singer croons, emphasizing his poetry's hard-hitting content.

Dynamic poet Luis Rodriguez speaks of urban life in an accessible voice. With charismatic energy, Rodriguez engages the audience by telling his poignant life stories.

Cutting-edge poet Mary Ruefle speaks with daring humor. Playful and inventive, Ruefle extends the territory of literature into realms that only poetry can reach.

World-acclaimed young poet Li Young Lee fuses memory, family, culture, and history in his work. Meditating on the vulnerability of humanity, Lee produces passionate and profound lyrical poetry.

UCSB Professor Francisco Lomeli interviews The Taco Shop Poets, a group of guerilla-type poets who began literally in the streets near taco shops in San Diego. Realizing that poetry could be shared openly as a form of immediate, on the spot, community communication, they have created their own brand of poetry.

Poet Brenda Hillman writes of the realms where the division between the sensual and spiritual dissolve. In her passionate reading, Hillman uses language to explore the edges of human consciousness.

Novelist and poet Demetria Martinez reads and discusses her novel of the sanctuary movement of the 1980's. Martinez links religious, gender and ethnic concerns in her powerful narratives and poetic compositions.

Noted translator and poet Coleman Barks, a Distinguished Visiting Fellow in the UCSB College of Creative Studies, presents the poetry of 13th century Afghan-born Sufi mystic and poet, Jelaluddin Rumi. Bark's intense and artful translations convey Rumi's insights into the human heart and its longing for passion and daring. Barks performs the words of Rumi, accompanied by musicians Barry and Shelly Phillips. 

Lucille Clifton is the author of numerous children's books and books of poetry, including The Book of Light, Terrible Stories, Two Headed Woman and Good News About the Earth. In 1988, Clifton became the first author to have two books of poetry chosen as finalists for the Pulitzer Prize (Good Woman and Next). She is Distinguished Professor of Humanities at St. Mary's College of Maryland

Caribbean poet Kamau Brathwaite is widely recognized as one of the world's most important living poets. He is the author of twenty-four collections of poetry as well as several plays, including Roots.

Malawian poet, linguist and human rights activist Jack Mapanje discusses his work, which caused his imprisonment for about three and half years by dictator Hastings Banda of Malawia.

Author and poet Kathleen Norris talks about the craft of writing and her sources for inspiration in this interview with Dean Nelson as part of the Point Loma Nazarene University's 2002 Writers Symposium by the Sea.

Rated R: Mature language and themes. Author, poet, screenwriter of "Smoke Signals" and satirist Sherman Alexie has been hailed as one of the most important writers of this generation. The New Yorker named him "one of the top 20 writers for the 21st Century." Alexie's most recent book is the acclaimed "The Toughest Indian in the World."

One of the significant Irish poets and scholars of our time, Maire MacEntee, discusses the influences that led to her becoming a poet.

Beat poet Michael McClure is the author of numerous volumes of poetry, plays, novels, and essays. McClure is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Obie Award for Best Play, and the National Poetry Association's Distinguished Lifetime Achievement in poetry. Tune in as he reads a selection of poems.

A remembrance of painter/sculptor Italo Scanga, featuring poet Quincy Troupe and the artist's reflections on his life and work.

The Flying Words Project consists of Deaf poet, Peter Cook, and his hearing collaborator, Kenny Lerner. Together the two have created a rich and vital form of performance art combining ASL signing, mime, movement and spoken word.

Corporate VP-turned writer, Dana Gioia sparked heated national debate with his Atlantic essay, and later his book, titled Can Poetry Matter? Essays on Poetry and American Culture. His third volume of poetry, Interrogations at Noon, and his libretto, Nosferatu, come out later this year. In this presentation, Dana Gioia talks about the state of poetry in American culture and reads from his and other poets' works.

Yusef Komunyakaa is known as a "jazz poet," a Southern writer and a "soldier poet." Author of nine books and winner of a Pulitzer Prize for poetry, Komunyakaa sets a provocative stage by rejecting the "write what you know" model in favor of the defying "write what you are willing to discover" premise.

Poet Angela Jackson uses a variety of voices and themes in an entertaining reading.

In verse called "radiant and passionate" by the New York Times, Jane Hirshfield's four collections of poetry articulate the interconnection of human and natural worlds. Tune in for this reading before an audience at UC Santa Barbara.

Trinidad resident Derek Walcott won the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature. Walcott has published twenty volumes of poetry and is also a published playwright.

Los Angeles-born Kamau Daaood is a poet, educator, and community arts activist, whose performances often combine word paintings with Griot funk, blues, hip hop and hard bop.

Yugoslavian-born Charles Simic was winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1990, as well as numerous other awards and fellowships.

Rita Dove, former Poet Laureate of the U.S. and recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, is one of the most honored figures in modern American literature. Among Dove's many honors is the 1993 NAACP Great American Artist Award.

UCLA professor Harryette Mullen's poetry and short fiction addresses issues of feminism and femininity. Ms. Mullen's work has been called "powerful picture poems with music."

Novelist, playwright, filmmaker & UCSD professor Fanny Howe reads selections from her award-winning work at La Jolla's Sherwood Auditorium.

Demetria Martinez's powerful novel, "Mother Tongue," grew out of her experiences as a reporter covering the plight of El Salvadoran and Guatemalan refugees in the mid-1980s.

Poet and educator Thylias Moss reads selections from her award-winning collection, "Small Congregations."

Experience the poetry of Jorie Graham in this episode of Artists on the Cutting Edge.

Native American poet and performance artist Joy Harjo reads a selection of her work, and discusses the variety of influences (including music) on her artistic development.

Chinese-American poet Wang Ping reads selections from her award-winning work and discusses the evolution of her style from ethnocentric influences to multicultural concerns.

Winner of multiple awards for literary excellence, writer and educator John Ashbery is a seminal force in modern poetics. In an enlightening installment of Artists On The Cutting Edge, Ashbery reads, and comments on, selected works.

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Galway Kinnell reads selections from his work, and discusses his influences and working methods in illuminating interview segments.

Poet and novelist Jessica Hagedorn reads short poems and excerpts from her novel "Dog Eaters," and offers her views on the responsibilites of being a multi-cultural writer.

***R RATING - language *** New York poet Jayne Cortez reads a selection of her award-winning work, which vividly reflects the energy, passions, rhythms and tensions of modern urban life from an African-American femininst perspective.

Chicano poet, novelist and screenwriter Jimmy Santiago Baca's vivid autobiographical writings reflect the mixed cultural influences of his Southwestern upbringing. Mr. Baca reads selections from his work before an audience at La Jolla's Sherwood Auditorium.

Poet Quincy Troupe and jazz guitarist Phil Upchurch combine spoken word and music in a fluid, dynamic performance centering on the African-American experience.