Welcome to the Garden! This walk through the Allen Ginsberg Community Poetry Garden is a sound scape of poems produced in collaboration with local artists and community members, Left Margin Lit, the University of California Berkeley's African American Studies Department, and the Berkeley Arts Magnet School at Whittier, with support from the UC Berkeley Chancellor's Partnership Fund. We invite you to join us, take a wander around, and find a place in this garden and in these poems.

Maw Shein Win, El Cerrito's First Poet Laureate ('16-'18), has kindly offered this wonderful piece on nature and its resilience as a contribution to the poetry garden project.

This 3rd grade BAM student recorded this lovely poem about being outside as part of the poetry garden curriculum.

Willem is a 4th grade student at the Thousand Oaks school and this poem is inspired by our garden friends the worms!

This student recorded this lovely poem about flowers as part of the poetry garden curriculum.

Alexandra is a 3rd grade student at BAM and wrote this poem about the grass.

Blue Fay, a student poet, composed this poem over a period of eight weeks. It is an observational poem — drawing weekly inspiration from the plum, apricot, peach, and apple trees in his front yard in Southern California. The poem tracks the development of the trees from late winter until the height of spring, from bare branches to branches heavy with fruit.

Camila Elizabet Aguirre Aguilar, a Community Poet and Student Educator, was inspired to write this poem by The Poetry Garden and springtime in Berkeley.

Camila Elizabet Aguirre Aguilar's Poem Miss Daisy Lady

Arielle is a third grader at BAM and this poem is about all the wonderful parts of nature pie reminds us of.

Joanna is a 2nd grade student at the Thousand Oaks school and wrote this poem about tall trees and the squirrels that enjoy them so much.

Zaida is a 2nd grader at the Thousand Oaks School and this poem is about roots in the ground and roots of the self.

Ian is a second grade student at the Thousand Oaks School and this poem is about trees.

This poem was composed during a zoom meeting by students, teachers, and parents at BAM, community poets, and members of the poetry garden project team. It is read by Rachel Richardson and Julia McKeown. Rachel Richardson is the coordinator of the 2021 BAM Poetry Garden Project in collaboration with Left Margin LIT and UC Berkeley's African American Studies Department. Rachel is the author of two books of poetry and the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and Stanford's Stegner program. She teaches adults in the community through Left Margin LIT, and lives in Berkeley. Julia McKeown is a poet, folklore graduate student, and aspiring gardener. They dearly miss performing at open mics and were grateful to get a chance to speak poetry into the garden.

Community Praise Poem for the Garden read by Rachel Richardson and Julia McKeown

Poetry Garden

12 ECHOES

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The Echoes

Maw Shein Win's Poem Thistle

Aviva's Poem

Willem's Poem Diary of a Worm

The Flowers

Alexandra's Haiku for the Grass

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