Bill Berkson in Conversation with “Beat & Beyond: San Francisco Art 1950–2000” Seminar
May 2, our very last seminar meeting, we had a pleasure of Bill Berkson’s company. What a great end to a great semester! Thank you, everyone!
Born in New York in 1939, Bill Berkson is a poet, critic, teacher and sometime curator, who has been active in the art and literary worlds since his early twenties. Director of Letters and Science at the San Francisco Art Institute from 1993 to 1998, he taught art history, critical writing and poetry and directed the public lectures program there from 1984 to 2007. He studied at Trinity School, The Lawrenceville School, Brown University, Columbia, the New School and New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts.
He is the author of some twenty books and pamphlets of poetry — including Gloria, a portfolio of poems with etchings by Alex Katz (Arion Press, 2005), Our Friends Will Pass Among You Silently (The Owl Press, 2007), Goods and Services (Blue Press, 2008), Portrait and Dream: New & Selected Poems (Coffee House Press, 2009) and Lady Air (Perdika, 2010). His poems have also appeared in many magazines and anthologies. Other recent books are What’s Your Idea of a Good Time: Letters & Interviews 1977-1985 with Bernadette Mayer (Tuumba Press, 2006); BILL with drawings by Colter Jacobsen (Gallery 16 Editions, 2008); Ted Berrigan with George Schneeman (Cuneiform Press, 2009); Not an Exit with Léonie Guyer (Jungle Garden Books, 2011); and Repeat after Me, with watercolors by John Zurier (Gallery Paule Anglim, 2011).
