Lunch Poems, Berkeley’s storied noontime poetry series, is held in Morrison Library (inside Doe Library). The series is free and open to all audiences.
- All readings from 12:10 to 12:50 p.m.
- Event contact: [email protected]
- Past readings are posted to YouTube
Sherwin Bitsui
Sept. 5, 2024
Sherwin Bitsui is the author of the poetry collections Dissolve (2018), Flood Song (2009), and Shapeshift (2003). He is Diné of the Todích’ii’nii (Bitter Water Clan), born for the Tlizílaaní (Many Goats Clan), and has received fellowships from the Lannan Foundation and the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation. He holds an A.F.A. degree from the Institute of American Indian Arts Creative Writing program. Bitsui has also received a Whiting Award, a grant from the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry, and a Truman Capote Creative Writing Fellowship. He teaches at Northern Arizona University.
Following his reading, Bitsui will give a craft talk and sign books in Morrison Library. This section of the program will conclude at 2 p.m.
This event is co-presented by the Arts Research Center and Lunch Poems.
Elisa Gonzalez
Oct. 3, 2024
Elisa Gonzalez’s debut poetry collection, Grand Tour, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG) and named one of the best books of 2023 by The New Yorker. FSG will also bring out her novel, The Awakenings, and a nonfiction book, Strangers on Earth. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. A graduate of Yale University and the New York University M.F.A. program, she has received fellowships from the Norman Mailer Center, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Rolex Foundation, and U.S. Fulbright Program. She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, and a Whiting Award.
John Shoptaw
Dec. 5, 2024
John Shoptaw is the award-winning author of Times Beach (University of Notre Dame Press, 2015). His latest collection, Near-Earth Object (Unbound Edition Press, 2024), has a foreword by writer and artist Jenny Odell. Shoptaw began his education at Southeast Missouri State University and graduated from the University of Missouri at Columbia with B.A. degrees in physics and comparative literature and English. He earned a Ph.D. in English at Harvard University, and he taught for some years at Princeton University and Yale University. He teaches poetry as well as environmental poetry and poetics at UC Berkeley, where he is a member of the Environmental Arts & Humanities Initiative.
Megan Fernandes
Feb. 6, 2025
Megan Fernandes is a South Asian American writer living in New York City. She is the author of The Kingdom and After (Tightrope Books, 2015), Good Boys (Tin House, 2020), and I Do Everything I’m Told (Tin House, 2023). She earned a Ph.D. in English from UC Santa Barbara and an M.F.A. in poetry from Boston University. Fernandes is an associate professor of English and the writer-in-residence at Lafayette College, where she teaches courses on poetry and environmental writing.
Jessica Fisher
March 6, 2025
Jessica Fisher is the author of Frail-Craft, which won the 2006 Yale Younger Poets Prize, and Inmost, which won the 2011 Nightboat Poetry Prize. Her latest collection, Daywork, was published in 2024 by Milkweed Editions. She is the co-editor of The Addison Street Anthology, with UC Berkeley Professor Robert Hass. Her honors include the 2012 Rome Prize, a Holloway Postdoctoral Fellowship in Poetry, and a research grant from the Hellman Foundation. She holds a Ph.D. in English from UC Berkeley, and she is currently an associate professor of English at Williams College.
Geffrey Davis
April 3, 2025
Geffrey Davis is the author of One Wild Word Away (2024) and Night Angler (2019). His debut collection, Revising the Storm (2014), was awarded the A. Poulin Jr. Poetry Prize and was named a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. He is also the co-author of the chapbook, Begotten (URB Books, 2016), with F. Douglas Brown. His honors include a 2019 National Endowment for the Arts Grant for Creative Writing, an Anne Halley Poetry Prize, a Dogwood First Prize in Poetry, a Wabash Prize for Poetry, an Academy of American Poets Prize as well as fellowships from Bread Loaf, Cave Canem, and the Vermont Studio Center. Davis teaches in the M.F.A. in Creative Writing and Translation program at the University of Arkansas and in the low-residency M.F.A. program for The Rainier Writing Workshop.
If you require accommodations to participate in this event, please contact Coordinator Camille Santana Considine at [email protected] or 619-708-2181 at least 7-10 days in advance of the event.
The Lunch Poems series, founded by Professor Robert Hass, is supported by Dr. and Mrs. Tom Colby, the UC Berkeley Library, the Morrison Library Fund, the Arts Research Center, the UC Berkeley English Department, the Deans’ Office of the College of Letters & Science, and Poets & Writers, Inc. For more information or to be added to the Lunch Poems mailing list, please email [email protected] or follow @PoemsLunch on Instagram and X (formerly known as Twitter).