Poetry Express Berkeley

6/3/19 Bruce Isaacson Plus Julia Vinograd Retrospective  host Elaine

PLEASE BRING YOUR FAV JULIA POEM OR A POEM ABOUT HER

Bruce Isaacson met Julia Vinograd in 1985 during SF’s open reading / spoken word resurgence.  He earned degrees from Claremont McKenna, Dartmouth and Brooklyn College, where he submitted a thesis to noted American poet Allen Ginsberg.  Julia first introduced him to Ginsberg’s work.  Together with Julia and the poet David Lerner, Bruce co-founded Zeitgeist Press, which started as the house press for the infamous Cafe Babar readings, as David Lerner called it, Gladiator School for Poets. Today, Bruce serves as publisher for Zeitgeist, with over 100 poetry titles to date. He has lived in Michoacán, Mexico, New York City, Los Angeles, Berkeley-San Francisco, and Leningrad, Russia.  He lives today in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he was the first Poet Laureate of Clark County, Nevada, a community of two million souls encompassing the City of Las Vegas and the Las Vegas Strip.  His latest book is Crossing Over, which includes stories of Julia, Lerner, and the poet David Gollub.

Here is a one page poem from the book:

My Heart When It’s a Whale

after David Gollub

Mostly roaming silent in dark waters

It is as   a thing put steaming

To cool in a tub    darker

Than time,   times to come, that is

Not times past   which are placed

In the afternoon light of memory   like

Family photos   framed on a

Shelf no one looks at,   or a

Cup of wrong coffee,   you look

Knowing it’s yours   while saying aloud

To no one   ‘that’s not mine’   that’s my

Heart holding its breath   in the

Deep, lost, with nowhere to go,   looking up at

Desire like the sun   seen through

Three miles of water,   remembering how

Fabulous it was to be young,   now that

Murder’s at the border   of your

Eyebrows like overgrown bushes

Trimming them’s like   trying to walk a cat, like

“Trying” to save a marriage,   like trying to

Raise a child   when you

Already raised   a monster,  Dreamzilla’s

Little brother    playing with

Firetrucks with an   x,   t-r-u-

Ex-wives and   ex-lovers,   ex-

Communicado’d saints,   shining hopefully at

History   while lost in language,   like

A whale,   who comes to   the surface   and

Blows,   grateful to breathe,   but still

Lost   in the wallows and wonders

of the deep.

We are celebrating the poetry life of Julia Vinograd. 

   Here is a poem appropriate to the moment by Julia:

IN THESE DARK TIMES

You must feel loved when you read this.

Lean against the hand

stroking the back of your neck.  Relax.

In the pocket where you once kept marbles

is a small bag full of kisses.

Open it.  Let it go.

Someone's humming in the next room

with a throaty laugh at every missed note

because mistakes don't matter.

No, don't go see.

You don't even have to listen.

You are loved.

There's a warm smell coming from the kitchen

and the puppy's nibbling your slippers

but you're too comfortable to get angry.

There are so many people who want this.

Just this.

Believe me, they are not your enemies.