Stockton, California

The Heritage Writers Community is pleased to announce a series of presentations of Richard Berengarten’s poetic works in April of 2012 as part of National Poetry Month activities organized by community arts organizations.

Richard Berengarten is described by George Szirtes as “one of the major half-hidden poets of England” and by Alexander Petrov as “a great European poet.”

Berengarten’s scheduled performances:

• Wednesday, April 18, 3:30 p.m., with a reception following. University of the Pacific, 3601 Pacific Avenue, Stockton, Wendell Phillips Center, Room 140. The event is free.
• Thursday, April 19, 11:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m. San Joaquin Delta College, 5151 Pacific Ave., Stockton, Goleman Library. The event is free.
• Thursday, April 19, 7 p.m. The Haggin Museum, Victory Park, 1201 N. Pershing Ave., Stockton. The event is free with museum admission.  Admission is $5 for adults; $2.50 for ages 65+ and 10-17; and free for museum members.

This year, the five volumes of his Selected Writings  are republished in paperback by Shearsman Books: For the Living,  Selected Longer Poems 1965-2000 ; In a Time of Drought ; The Blue Butterfly ;  and Under Balkan Light . His current projects include Imagems , (statements on poetics, forthcoming from ‘corrupt books’, Paris, 2011) and Two to the Power of Six , a book-length poem based on the Yijing (I Ching ).

In March and April, Berengarten will be on tour in the USA, with several poetry readings in other areas, including a presentation of The Blue Butterfly at the Shoah Foundation in Los Angeles and an appearance in the Lunch Poems  series at Berkeley University.

Berengarten was born in London in 1943 into a family of musicians. He studied English at Cambridge (1961-1964) and Linguistics at University College London (1977-78). In 1975, he founded the international Cambridge Poetry Festival, which ran until 1985. He has lived in Italy, Greece, Serbia, Croatia and the USA, and has worked extensively in the Czech Republic, Latvia, Poland and Russia. 

He is currently a Praeceptor at Corpus Christi College and Bye-Fellow at Downing College. He also teaches at Emmanuel College, Jesus College, Pembroke College and Peterhouse, Cambridge.

The Heritage Writers Community is a six-year-old group of published and aspirant writers who meet monthly at the Haggin museum, give readings at local retirement and long term care hospitals, and produces a television show airing weekly on Comcast.  All writers welcome.

The event is funding in part by grants from Poets and Writers, Marian Jacobs Literary Forum, the San Joaquin Delta Cultural Awareness Program, and Humphreys College.