The Berkeley Poetry Review (BPR) is a widely-distributed American poetry journal published by the undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

 and is considered the premier student-run poetry journal in the United States. Published annually since 1974, under the founding support of Josephine Miles

Josephine Miles

Josephine Miles was an American poet and literary critic; the first woman to be tenured in the English Department at the University of California, Berkeley. She wrote over a dozen books of poetry and several works of criticism....

, the review accepts submissions from across the nation.

Associated events

Beginning in 2005, the Berkeley Poetry Review has held an annual poetry event, Poetry After the Storm. With the support of California Poet Laureate Al Young

Al Young

Al Young is an American poet, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and professor. On May 15, 2005 he was named Poet Laureate of California by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. In appointing Young as Poet Laureate, the Governor praised him: "He is an educator and a man with a passion for the Arts...

, the event raises money every year for social awareness causes in New Orleans (such as the New Orleans Public Library Fund), and brings together poets from a variety of different backgrounds, including academic, slam, spoken word, and performance poetry.

Former performers include Michael Palmer

Michael Palmer

Michael Palmer is an American poet and translator. He attended Harvard University where he earned a BA in French and a MA in Comparative Literature. He has worked extensively with Contemporary dance for over thirty years and has collaborated with many composers and visual artists...

, Geoffrey G. O'Brien

Geoffrey G. O'Brien

Geoffrey G. O'Brien is an American poet. Educated at Harvard University and the University of Iowa, O'Brien has taught at Brooklyn College, The University of Iowa Writers' Workshop and has been the Distinguished Poet in Residence at St. Mary's College of California and the Holloway Lecturer in the...

, Kim Nalley

Kim Nalley

Kim Nalley is an American jazz & blues singer known for her powerful, 3½ octave range that can fill a room with no amplification, melodious scat, and striking stage presence. Nalley is "like Jessica Rabbit and Louis Armstrong at the same time," writer Giorgio Santeria said of her performance at the...

, Xero Skidmore, and Tung Hui-Hu.

In 2006 the Berkeley Poetry Review launched a new monthly poetry reading series at the U.C. Berkeley campus dedicated to working with Bay Area non-profit organizations whose focus is education and literacy to help them raise money through artistic events. Former poets include Leslie Scalapino

Leslie Scalapino

Leslie Scalapino was a United States poet, experimental prose writer, playwright, essayist, and editor, sometimes grouped in with the Language poets, though she felt closely tied to the Beat poets. A longtime resident of California's Bay Area, she earned an M.A. in English from the University of...

, Brenda Hillman

Brenda Hillman

Brenda Hillman , is an American poet. She was educated at Pomona College, and received her M.F.A. at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She is the Olivia Filippi Professor of Poetry at Saint Mary's College in Moraga, California...

, Giovanni Singleton, Cody Gates, Hugh Behm-Steinberg, Robert Thomas

Robert Thomas

Robert Thomas, Rob Thomas or Bob Thomas is the name of:* Rob Thomas , singer-songwriter, lead singer of Matchbox Twenty* Robert Thomas , 18th-century British counterfeiter, see Cragg Coiners...

, Carol Snow

Carol Snow

-Life:In 2002, she was resident poet at University of California Berkeley.She lives in San Francisco.-Awards:* 1989 National Poetry Series, for Artist and Model, selected by Robert Hass* Poetry Center Book Award),* Joseph Henry Jackson Award in Literature...

, Truong Tran

Truong Tran

Truong Tran is a Vietnamese-American poet, visual artist, and teacher. His collection dust and consciousness won the San Francisco Poetry Center Book Prize, and in 2003, he served as Writer in Residence for Intersection for the Arts...

, Kristen Sbrogna, and Jessica Fisher

Jessica Fisher

Jessica Fisher is an American poet, and was the winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition in 2007.She is the daughter of Ann Fisher-Wirth. She is a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California at Berkeley....

.

Funding

The Berkeley Poetry Review is funded by the Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC), the Student Opportunity Fund run by Chancellor Robert Birgeneau

Robert Birgeneau

Robert Joseph Birgeneau is a Canadian physicist, educator, and university administrator. He is the ninth chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, and was the fourteenth president of the University of Toronto from 2000 to 2004.-Biography:The first from his family to finish high school,...

, and grants from the Consortium for the Arts Research Center.

Masthead

Former editors include Josephine Miles

Josephine Miles

Josephine Miles was an American poet and literary critic; the first woman to be tenured in the English Department at the University of California, Berkeley. She wrote over a dozen books of poetry and several works of criticism....

, Robert Pinsky

Robert Pinsky

Robert Pinsky is an American poet, essayist, literary critic, and translator. From 1997 to 2000, he served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Pinsky is the author of nineteen books, most of which are collections of his own poetry...

, and Robert Hass

Robert Hass

Robert L. Hass is an American poet. He served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997. He was awarded the 2007 National Book Award and the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Time and Materials.-Life:...

. The current editors are Dilara Cirit and Danni Gorden.

Poets who have been featured in Berkeley Poetry Review

• Pablo Neruda
  Pablo Neruda
  Pablo Neruda was the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean poet, diplomat and politician Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. He chose his pen name after Czech poet Jan Neruda....
  
  , Chilean poet and writer, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
  Nobel Prize in Literature
  Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
  
  .
• Vladimir Nabokov
  Vladimir Nabokov
  Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
  
  , Russian-American novelist and poet, author of Lolita
  Lolita
  Lolita is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, first written in English and published in 1955 in Paris and 1958 in New York, and later translated by the author into Russian...
  
  (1955).
• John Ashbery
  John Ashbery
  John Lawrence Ashbery is an American poet. He has published more than twenty volumes of poetry and won nearly every major American award for poetry, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. But Ashbery's work still proves controversial...
  
  , influential and controversial American poet, winner of the 1976 Pulitzer Prize
  Pulitzer Prize
  The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
  
  , National Book Award
  National Book Award
  The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
  
  , and National Book Critics Circle Award
  National Book Critics Circle Award
  The National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle to promote the finest books and reviews published in English....
  
   for Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (1975).
• Paul Muldoon
  Paul Muldoon
  Paul Muldoon is an Irish poet. He has published over thirty collections and won a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the T. S. Eliot Prize. He held the post of Oxford Professor of Poetry from 1999 - 2004. At Princeton University he is both the Howard G. B. Clark ’21 Professor in the Humanities and...
  
  , Irish poet and winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize
  Pulitzer Prize
  The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
  
  .
• Lawrence Ferlinghetti
  Lawrence Ferlinghetti
  Lawrence Ferlinghetti is an American poet, painter, liberal activist, and the co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers...
  
  , poet and founder of the San Francisco bookstore City Lights
  City Lights Bookstore
  City Lights is an independent bookstore-publisher combination that specializes in world literature, the arts, and progressive politics. It also houses the nonprofit City Lights Foundation, which publishes selected titles related to San Francisco culture. It was founded in 1953 by poet Lawrence...
  
  , known for its publication of the literary works of beat poets such as Jack Kerouac
  Jack Kerouac
  Jean-Louis "Jack" Lebris de Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic...
  
   and Allen Ginsberg
  Allen Ginsberg
  Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
  
  .
• Czesław Miłosz, Polish poet, former Berkeley professor, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
  Nobel Prize in Literature
  Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
  
  .
• Robert Hass
  Robert Hass
  Robert L. Hass is an American poet. He served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997. He was awarded the 2007 National Book Award and the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Time and Materials.-Life:...
  
  , Berkeley professor, former Poet Laureate of the United States and recipient of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize
  Pulitzer Prize
  The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
  
   and 2007 National Book Award
  National Book Award
  The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
  
   for "Time and Materials."
• Lyn Hejinian
  Lyn Hejinian
  Lyn Hejinian is an American poet, essayist, translator and publisher. She is often associated with the Language poets and is well known for her landmark work My Life , as well as her book of essays, The Language of Inquiry .-Life:Hejinian was born in the San...
  
  , poet, essayist, translator, and current poetics professor at the University of California, Berkeley
• Federico García Lorca
  Federico García Lorca
  Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...
  
  , Spanish poet and dramatist.
• Robert Pinsky
  Robert Pinsky
  Robert Pinsky is an American poet, essayist, literary critic, and translator. From 1997 to 2000, he served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Pinsky is the author of nineteen books, most of which are collections of his own poetry...
  
  , poet and former Poet Laureate of the United States (1997-2000).
• Ishmael Reed
  Ishmael Reed
  Ishmael Scott Reed is an American poet, essayist, and novelist. A prominent African-American literary figure, Reed is known for his satirical works challenging American political culture, and highlighting political and cultural oppression.Reed has been described as one of the most controversial...
  
  , poet and novelist.
• C.K. Williams, poet and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
  Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
  The Pulitzer Prize in Poetry has been presented since 1922 for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author. However, special citations for poetry were presented in 1918 and 1919.-Winners:...
  
   in 2000 for Repair (1999).
• Brenda Hillman
  Brenda Hillman
  Brenda Hillman , is an American poet. She was educated at Pomona College, and received her M.F.A. at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She is the Olivia Filippi Professor of Poetry at Saint Mary's College in Moraga, California...
  
  
• Diane di Prima
  Diane di Prima
  Diane Di Prima is an American poet.-Early life:Di Prima was born in Brooklyn. She attended Hunter College High School and Swarthmore College before dropping out to be a poet in Manhattan...
  
   a renowned female poet from the Beat Generation
• Al Young
  Al Young
  Al Young is an American poet, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and professor. On May 15, 2005 he was named Poet Laureate of California by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. In appointing Young as Poet Laureate, the Governor praised him: "He is an educator and a man with a passion for the Arts...
  
  , current California Poet Laureate
• Billy Collins
  Billy Collins
  Billy Collins is an American poet, appointed as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. He is a Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York and is the Senior Distinguished Fellow of the Winter Park Institute, Florida...
  
  , poet and former Poet Laureate of the United States (2001-2003).
• Galway Kinnell
  Galway Kinnell
  Galway Kinnell is an American poet. He was Poet Laureate of Vermont from 1989 to 1993. An admitted follower of Walt Whitman, Kinnell rejects the idea of seeking fulfillment by escaping into the imaginary world. His best-loved and most anthologized poems are "St...
  
  , poet and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
  Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
  The Pulitzer Prize in Poetry has been presented since 1922 for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author. However, special citations for poetry were presented in 1918 and 1919.-Winners:...
  
   in 1983 for Selected Poems (1982).
• Josephine Miles
  Josephine Miles
  Josephine Miles was an American poet and literary critic; the first woman to be tenured in the English Department at the University of California, Berkeley. She wrote over a dozen books of poetry and several works of criticism....
  
  , poet and the first woman to be tenured in the English Department
  English studies
  English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language , English linguistics English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language (including literatures from the U.K., U.S.,...
  
   at the University of California, Berkeley.
• Thom Gunn
  Thom Gunn
  Thom Gunn, born Thomson William Gunn , was an Anglo-American poet who was praised both for his early verses in England, where he was associated with The Movement and his later poetry in America, even after moving toward a looser, free-verse style...
  
  , British poet.
• Gary Soto
  Gary Soto
  Gary Soto is a Mexican-American author and poet.Mexican-American parents Manuel and Angie Soto . In his youth, he worked in the fields of the San Joaquin Valley and in factories in Fresno. Gary's father died in 1957, when he was just five years old...
  
  , California poet acclaimed for his pieces on the Mexican American
  Mexican American
  Mexican Americans are Americans of Mexican descent. As of July 2009, Mexican Americans make up 10.3% of the United States' population with over 31,689,000 Americans listed as of Mexican ancestry. Mexican Americans comprise 66% of all Hispanics and Latinos in the United States...
  
   experience.
• Francisco Aragon
• Michael Palmer
  Michael Palmer
  Michael Palmer is an American poet and translator. He attended Harvard University where he earned a BA in French and a MA in Comparative Literature. He has worked extensively with Contemporary dance for over thirty years and has collaborated with many composers and visual artists...
  
  
• Leslie Scalapino
  Leslie Scalapino
  Leslie Scalapino was a United States poet, experimental prose writer, playwright, essayist, and editor, sometimes grouped in with the Language poets, though she felt closely tied to the Beat poets. A longtime resident of California's Bay Area, she earned an M.A. in English from the University of...
  
  
• Yusef Komunyakaa
  Yusef Komunyakaa
  Yusef Komunyakaa is an American poet who currently teaches at New York University and is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Komunyakaa is a recipient of the 1994 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, for Neon Vernacular and the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. He also received the Ruth Lilly...
  
  , recipient of the 1994 Pulitzer Prize
  Pulitzer Prize
  The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
  
  .
• Mark Levine
  Mark Levine
  Mark Levine is the name of:* Mark Levine , jazz musician* Mark Levine , host of Mark Levine's Inside Scoop radio show, and The American Dream television show on Press TV*Mark Levine , American poet...
  
  
• Victor Hernandez Cruz
  Victor Hernández Cruz
  Victor Hernández Cruz is a Puerto Rican poet.-Life:He moved to New York in 1954. He began writing at fifteen, and published his first collections of poetry in the late 1960s....
  
  
• Francisco X. Alarcon
  Francisco X. Alarcón
  Francisco Xavier Alarcón is an American poet and educator.-Life:He moved to Guadalajara, Mexico, when he was 6...
  
  
• Leonard Nathan
  Leonard Nathan
  Dr. Leonard E. Nathan, was an American poet, critic, and professor emeritus of rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley where he retired in 1991....
  
  
• Geoffrey G. O'Brien
  Geoffrey G. O'Brien
  Geoffrey G. O'Brien is an American poet. Educated at Harvard University and the University of Iowa, O'Brien has taught at Brooklyn College, The University of Iowa Writers' Workshop and has been the Distinguished Poet in Residence at St. Mary's College of California and the Holloway Lecturer in the...
  
  
• Richard Siken
  Richard Siken
  Richard Siken is an American poet. He is the author of a collection of poetry, Crush, which won the prestigious Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition in 2004, and is the editor of spork literary magazine...
  
  , winner of the 2004 Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition
  Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition
  The Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition is an annual event of Yale University Press aiming to publish the first collection of a promising American poet...
  
  .
• Aya de Leon
  Aya de Leon
  Aya de Leon is a writer, poet, and spoken word artist in the underground poetry scene in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her heritage of both Puerto Rican and African American influence her work to explore issues with race, gender, socio-economic class, etc.She attended Harvard University, where she...
  
  
• Jessica Fisher
  Jessica Fisher
  Jessica Fisher is an American poet, and was the winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition in 2007.She is the daughter of Ann Fisher-Wirth. She is a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California at Berkeley....
  
  , winner of the 2006 Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition
  Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition
  The Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition is an annual event of Yale University Press aiming to publish the first collection of a promising American poet...
  
  .
• Peter Cooley
  Peter Cooley
  Peter Cooley is an American poet and Professor of English in the Department of English at Tulane University. He also directs Tulane’s Creative Writing Program...
  
  
• Robet Sullivan
• Junichi semitsu
• Julie Carr
  Julie Carr
  Julie Carr is an American poet who has recently been awarded a 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry.She graduated from Barnard College with a BA in 1988, from New York University with an MFA in 1997, and from University of California, Berkeley with a Ph.D...