April is a time for poetry to shine across the country as National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world, unfolds. Befitting a world-class university, UC has a long poetic tradition, but you might be surprised by exactly how deep it goes.
In fact, UC Berkeley offered the nation’s very first university-level creative writing course, according to Robert Hass, professor emeritus of English at UC Berkeley and former poet laureate of the United States.
“The course was taught in 1918 by Witter Bynner,” Hass explains, “a friend of Wallace Stevens.” Bynner went on to produce one of the first English translations of Chinese literature with fellow UC Berkeley professor Jiang Kanghu, “Jade Mountain” — a book that, 100 years on, has never gone out of print.
UC Berkeley was also home to early figures in the feminist poetic tradition. Josephine Miles, the first woman tenured in the English department at Cal in 1947, taught among her many students Barbara Guest, who became a storied figure in one of poetry’s major 20th century movements, the New York School (despite her having attended UC Berkeley and UCLA — talk about poetic license!).
In the decades since, UC has produced enough poets to fill multiple anthologies — including Ishmael Reed, Thom Gunn and Adrienne Rich — to name a few. But perhaps most excitingly, poetry thrives across the university today.
At UC Berkeley this year, student Carli Torres organized the first Undergraduate Poetry Festival with fellow classmates; speakers included a range of prize-winning poets, among them Shelley Wong, alum and UCSF staffer, whose first book “As She Appears” won the 2023 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry. Coming together to celebrate poetry animated them all.
“You’re taken legitimately as a poet, as soon as you walk into class, by these incredible poets and teachers,” Torres said. “It makes it so easy to grow.” Inspired by a workshop taught by English professor Cathy Park Hong, Torres and a few other classmates founded the Creative Writers Association on campus for undergrads and jumped into organizing their own festival. For Wong, once an undergrad in the very same lecture halls, it was a thrill to be back as a featured poet.
“It’s a dream realized to read my debut book in the Maude Fife room, 22 years after graduation, where I’ve seen so many notable poets read,” Wong said. “I’m especially honored to be part of their first undergrad poetry festival and their history of poet alumni including Mai Der Vang, Joseph Rios, Thea Matthews, and Javier Zamora. I loved interacting with the undergraduates and wish I could go back to school, as we are truly living in a time of queer writer of color abundance and community.”
While it may not be possible to go back in time just yet, it is always possible to enjoy the work of poets springing from the page, any time of year. Check out a few of our selections of UC poets from across the system below. And if you’re still not sure if poetry is for you, give Robert Hass a chance to explain why poetry has captivated us for centuries, in this short talk for the UC Berkeley Greater Good Center.
A by no means comprehensive selection for your reading lists (please feel free to write in with your favorites!):
UC Berkeley
Robert Hass — professor emeritus of English at UC Berkeley, Hass is a former poet laureate of the United States (1995-1997), a National Book Award winner (2007) and Pulitzer Prize winner (2008). Read a selection of his work.
Cathy Park Hong — professor of English and Class of 1936 First Chair in the College of Letters and Science at UC Berkeley, Hong is the author of poetry collection “Dance Dance Revolution” and “Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning,” which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist (2020) and National Book Critics Circle Award winner (2020) for autobiography. Read a selection of her work.
Solmaz Sharif — assistant professor of English and author of “Look,” a National Book Award finalist, Sharif’s work grapples with Iranian-American identity and the language of war and the state. Read a selection of her work.
Esther Belin — an Institute of American Indian Arts and UC Berkeley alum and author of “From the Belly of My Beauty,” winner of the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. Read a selection of her work.
Noah Warren — a Ph.D. candidate at UC Berkeley, selected by Carl Phillips for the Yale Series of Younger Poets prize for his first collection, “The Destroyer in the Glass,” Warren helps coordinate the long-running Lunch Poems series, founded by Robert Hass, which you can watch on Youtube. Read a selection of his work.
Ishmael Reed — a professor at UC Berkeley for 35 years, now retired, Reed’s art extends from music to the novel and beyond, and his poetry collections have been nominated for National Book Awards and the Pulitzer Prize. Read a selection of his work.
June Jordan — professor of English and holder of the Chancellor's Distinguished Lectureship, Jordan was an important figure in civil rights and feminist movements and widely honored for her poetry, activism, essays and criticism. She passed away in 2002. Read a selection of her work.
Robert Duncan — a UC Berkeley alum, Duncan won the National Poetry Award for his book, “Ground Work I: Before the War.” His 1944 essay “The Homosexual in Society” was a landmark declaration of gay experience published well before the emergence of an organized gay rights movement. He passed away in 1988. Read a selection of his work.
Thom Gunn — a British-born poet widely hailed for capturing postwar San Francisco gay life in traditional poetic forms, Gunn taught at UC Berkeley. He passed away in 2004. Read a selection of his work.
Lyn Hejinian — a professor of poetics and contemporary literature at UC Berkeley, Hejinian’s work “My Life” is considered a major avant-garde text of the so-called Language movement. Her work was widely celebrated. She passed away in 2024. Read the UC Berkeley remembrance and a selection of her work.
Czeslaw Milosz — Polish-American poet and recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1980, Milosz was a professor of English at UC Berkeley. His fellow Berkeley professor, Robert Hass, translated his work. He passed away in 2004. Read a selection of his work.
UC Davis
Gary Snyder — professor emeritus of English at UC Davis and UC Berkeley educated, Snyder won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry and an American Book Award for his poems, which frequently embrace ecological themes. Read a selection of his work here.
Joe Wenderoth — a professor of creative writing at UC Davis, Wenderoth’s work is widely anthologized and includes “Letters to Wendy’s,” a novel/serial poem written on restaurant comment cards. Read a selection of his work.
Katie Peterson — professor and director of the UC Davis graduate creative writing program, Peterson has published seven books, earning wide acclaim. Read a selection of her work here.
Sandra Gilbert — professor emerita of English at UC Davis, Gilbert is a leading feminist critic in addition to her American Book Award-winning work as a poet. Read a selection of her work.
UC Irvine
Monica Youn — a professor of creative writing in the MFA program at UC Irvine, Youn’s poems have won acclaim and awards from many corners, including the William Carlos Williams Award of the Poetry Society of America for “Blackacre.” Read a selection of her work.
Amy Gerstler — a professor of creative writing in the MFA program, Gerstler is a National Book Critics Circle Award-winner whose works mix humor with serious themes. Read a selection of her work.
Yusef Komunyakaa — a graduate of the UC Irvine MFA program, Komunyakaa is a Pulitzer Prize winner for his book, “Neon Vernacular.” His work touches on themes from his upbringing in the South as a Black man before the Civil Rights era and the Vietnam war. Read a selection of his work.
UCLA
Harryette Mullen — a professor of English at UCLA (and a UC Santa Cruz alum), Mullen’s poems explore cultural critique and code-switching in making meaning. Her collection “Sleeping with the Dictionary” was a finalist for the National Book Award. Read a selection of her work.
Kay Ryan — a double UCLA alum known for her dry, compressed lyrics, Ryan is a Pulitzer Prize winner and was the poet laureate of the United States from 2008-2010. Read a selection of her work.
UC Merced
Vanesha Pravin — a professor in the writing department, Pravin’s first book, “Disorder,” was awarded the prestigious May Sarton Prize for Poetry by The American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Read about the award.
Samantha Tetangco — a professor in the Global Arts, Media, & Writing Studies department (and a UC Berkeley alum), Tetangco’s forthcoming collection, “Hope You Blend In: Studies in Color & Light,” was a finalist for the 2023 National Poetry Series. Read a selection of her work.
UC Riverside
Allison Adelle Hedge Coke — distinguished professor of creative writing at UC Riverside, Hedge Coke’s acclaimed corpus addresses Indigenous history, injustice and the environment, among other themes. Her first book, “Dog Road Woman,” won the American Book Award. Read a selection of her work.
Frank Bidart — a UC Riverside alum whose life changed when he discovered English literature on campus, Bidart won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for his collection, “Half-light: Collected Poems 1965–2016.” Read a selection of his work.
Billy Collins — a UC Riverside alum, member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and one of the most widely read poets in America, Collins served as the poet laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. Collins was named a “Literary Lion” by the New York Public Library and won the National Poetry Series prize for “Questions About Angels.” Read a selection of his work.
Juan Felipe Herrera — former Tomás Rivera Endowed Chair at UC Riverside’s creative writing department (now professor emeritus), and a UCLA alum, Herrera was the poet laureate of the United States from 2015-2017. Son of a family of farmworkers and once a farmworker himself, Herrera is a foundational voice in Chicano poetry. Read a selection of his work.
Jasmine Elizabeth Smith — a recent alum of UC Riverside’s MFA program (‘19), Smith is a Cave Canem fellow whose first book, “South Flight,” won the Georgia Poetry Prize. Read a profile of her here and a selection of her work here.
UC San Diego
Brandon Som — associate professor of literature in the department of Creative Writing at UC San Diego, Som is an award-winning poet whose collection “The Tribute Horse” explores the resilience of Chinese immigrants in the 19th century. His book, “Tripas: Poems,” an exploration of his dual Chinese and Mexican heritage, won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Read a selection of his work.
Jason Magabo Perez — poet laureate of the city of San Diego, Perez earned three degrees from UC San Diego (’03, MA ’13, PhD ’16) and champions immigrants and the working class in his poems. Read a selection of his work.
Eileen Myles — professor emeritus of fiction at UC San Diego, Myles is best known for their dry but moving poems that touch on political themes and daily life. Myles’ work has been widely recognized. Read a selection of their work.
Rae Armantrout — professor emerita of writing at UC San Diego, Armantrout is one of the most widely celebrated contemporary American poets along with being a UC Berkeley-educated native Californian. Her collection, “Versed,” won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2009 and the Pulitzer Prize in 2010. Read a selection of her work.
UC Santa Barbara
Shirley Geok-lin Lim — a professor emerita of English and two-time American Book Award winner, Lim is known for her poems as well as her scholarship on Asian and Asian American literature. Read a selection of her work.
Caleb Luna — a professor of feminist studies at UC Santa Barbara and a UC Berkeley alum, Luna’s first collection, “Revenge Body,” was widely praised for its engagement with tropes and discourses regarding race, size, sexuality and disability in media and culture. Luna was a University of California President’s Postdoctoral fellow and an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral fellow. Read a profile and learn more about their work.
Cherríe Moraga — a distinguished professor of English, Moraga is a longtime lesbian Xicana feminist activist and poet whose work has won widespread critical acclaim. Read more about her work.
Barry Spacks — a longtime professor of English whose poems were widely recognized, Spacks was also the first poet laureate of Santa Barbara. He passed away in 2014. Read a selection of his work.
Vickie Vértiz — a UC Santa Barbara lecturer in the writing program and a UC Riverside MFA alum, Vértiz’s second book of poems, “Auto/Body” — inspired by her experiences living in South East Los Angeles and its unique car culture — received the Ernest Sandeen Prize in Poetry. Her first book, “Palm Frond with Its Throat Cut,” won a 2018 PEN America literary prize. Read a profile and a selection of her work.
UC Santa Cruz
Gloria E. Anzaldúa — UC Santa Cruz educated (her Ph.D. was awarded posthumously), Anzaldúa was a hugely influential queer Chicana poet and scholar who collaborated with UC Santa Barbara’s Cherríe Moraga on the groundbreaking anthology, “This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color.” She passed away in 2004. Read a selection of her work.
Farnaz Fatemi — a UC Santa Cruz alum whose works engage with her Iranian-American identity, Fatemi is the poet laureate of Santa Cruz County whose work “Sister Tongue” won the 2021 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize, selected by Tracy K. Smith. Read a profile on Fatemi here and a selection of her work.
fahimi ife — a UC Santa Cruz professor of Global African Aesthetics, ife writes works exploring intimacy, sensuality, and beauty as it relates to natural life and metaphysics. Their debut, “Maroon Cheoreography,” received the Duke University Press Scholars of Color First Book Award. They have performed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of the African Diaspora, the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics, and Library of Congress. Read a selection from their work.
Nathaniel Mackey — a long-time UC Santa Cruz professor, now emeritus, Mackey has won the National Book Award three times for his innovative work, which is sometimes compared to jazz. His poems explore sound, memory, history and the mythology and experiences of the African diaspora. Read a selection of his work.
Adrienne Rich — legendary feminist, activist and poet, Rich taught at UC Santa Cruz later in her career and earned prizes for her poems including being selected by W.H. Auden for the Yale Series of Younger Poets prize for her first collection and the National Book Award for “Diving into the Wreck.” She passed away in 2012. Read a selection of her work.
Cole Swensen — a UC Santa Cruz alum, Swensen’s books have been selected for the National Poetry Series. “Goest” was a National Book Award finalist. Her work is sometimes linked to that of her recently passed friend and UC Berkeley professor Lyn Hejinian. Read a selection of her work.
Gary Young — professor of English at UC Santa Cruz, an alum of UC Irvine and UC Santa Cruz, Young is a leading American poet whose work has won, among other prizes, the William Carlos Williams award from the Poetry Society of America. Read a selection of his work.
