ON WEDNESDAY, JULY 26 WE'RE CELEBRATING AMY BERKOWITZ'S GRAVITAS IN GOLDEN GATE PARK!
FEATURING POETRY BY TRUONG TRAN AND MODERATION BY EMILY PINKERTON
6:00PM PRE-READING GATHERING, 7:00PM START TIME
About This Event
Join us for an evening in the park with light refreshments, readings, and a conversation between Amy Berkowitz and Truong Tran moderated by Emily Pinkerton. This event will take place near our Inner Sunset location, close to the Big Rec Ball Field in Golden Gate Park on MLK Jr. Way (photo of approximate location below). We'll have copies of all of our authors' books for purchase.
Praise for Gravitas
"GRAVITAS is elegant, spare, and true. Berkowitz writes beautifully heart-breaking poetry."—Myriam Gurba
"The gravitas of GRAVITAS emerges not only from its sharp indictment of serial abusers (and the people and institutions who protect them) but from its quieter moments shared between women: cooking and making art and drinking wine and asking each other about yeast infections and faith. Amy Berkowitz is a writer of astonishing depth and talent, and her GRAVITAS deserves to be read andreread. I didn’t realize how badly I needed it."—Jeannie Vanasco
"Amy Berkowitz's GRAVITAS reminds us of our roles as teachers, citizens, and conscious human beings. It reminds me of my responsibilities to my students: to use my voice, to claim my agency, and to say, hey motherfuckers, I see you hiding behind closed
doors."—Truong Tran
“With an unflinchingness inherent to its title and the community-minded honesty of kitchen talk, GRAVITAS lambasts institutions that shroud abusers in the protection of their tenure, breaking apart a closed-lip social code that once stifled both Berkowitz and her MFA peers. In an all-caps MAGIC return to form, Berkowitz’s poems smoke, paint, cook, ride, kick, and punch—honoring the resilience of survivors who, even when faced with insidiousness, continue to find beauty in their lives."—Sadie Dupuis
About Gravitas
Frank, conversational, and darkly funny, Gravitas examines the tendency of MFA programs to teach women that their lives aren’t worth writing about. These poems bear witness not only to alienation but also to the bittersweet joy of being forced to invent alternative ways of living and writing.
About Amy Berkowitz
Amy Berkowitz is the author of Tender Points (Nightboat Books, 2019). Her writing and conversations have appeared in publications including Bitch, The Believer, BOMB, and Jewish Currents. She lives in San Francisco, where she’s working on a
novel and a nonfiction project. More at amyberko.com.
About Emily Pinkerton
Emily Pinkerton (she/they) lives and writes in the San Francisco Bay Area. She holds an MFA from San Francisco State University, and her writing has previously appeared in Pome, ZYZZYVA, Juked, BlazeVOX, Foglifter, and Berkeley Poetry Review, among others. Emily is the author of three chapbooks: Natural Disasters (Hermeneutic Chaos Press, 2016), Bloom (Alley Cat Press, 2018) and Adaptations (Nomadic Press, 2018). She was a 2020 Fellow at The Writers Grotto, and a 2017-2018 Writer in Residence at Alley Cat Books in San Francisco. More of Emily's publications can be found at thisisemilypinkerton.tumblr.
About Truong Tran
Truong Tran is a Vietnamese-American poet, visual artist, and teacher. He is an author of eight collections of poetry, artist book, and a children's book. As a visual artist Tran is best known for mixed media pieces and light installations. His work is in private collections, and has been featured in solo gallery shows as well as museum exhibitions across the Bay Area. As a teacher, Truong Tran has over twenty years experience as a professor of Creative Writing to both graduates and undergraduates, and has mentored thousands in the community.
Event Accessibility
- This is an outdoor event.
- There is a paved walkway leading to the reading's location, with no stairs between the path and the reading location. The reading itself will take place on grass.
- Folding chairs will be provided. Blankets for sitting on the ground are encouraged for those who wish and are able to do so.
- Accessible public restrooms are available about 100ft away from this reading location.
- As this event is outdoors and away from Internet access, we cannot offer livestreaming at this time. Thank you for understanding.
- Please see the map of our approximate location below. We will have signage to make clear you are in the right place! ID in alt text.
