Book Release for Since When, a Memoir by Bill Berkson

Since When (Coffee House Press 2018) takes us through a life of friendship, admiration, and long conversation between poets, visual artists, critics, performers, and activists, with the incomparably bighearted and worldly poet Bill Berkson at its center. Join us as we celebrate the release of Berkson’s memoir with readings and reflections from Connie Lewallen, Phong Bui, Andrei Codrescu, Holland Cotter, Charles North, Ron Padgett, Kyle Schlesinger, Anne Waldman, and others to be announced.

“Bill was a still point in a turning world. He made grace and kindness, careful intelligence and everyday happiness, seem properties of a social commons–where you found yourself, when around him, and missed, when not. This beautiful book immortalizes that spell.”
–Peter Schjeldahl

 

 

 

 

Bill Berkson

Bill Berkson (1939-2016) was born and grew up in New York and spent much of his life in the Bay Area, where he taught art history and poetry at the San Francisco Art Institute. A prolific poet and art critic, his many books and collaborations include: Invisible Oligarchs; Expect Delays; Portrait and Dream: New & Selected Poems; BILL, a words-and-images collaboration with Colter Jacobsen; Lady Air; Snippets; Not an Exit, with drawings by Léonie Guyer; Repeat After Me, with watercolors by John Zurier; a new collection of his art writings, For the Ordinary Artist; and Parties du corps, a selection of his poetry in French translation. Since When, a “memoir in pieces” was released by Coffee House Press in 2018.