A STRANGE NEW COTTAGE IN BERKELEY

All afternoon cutting bramble blackberries off a tottering brown fence under a low branch with its rotten apricots miscellaneous under the leaves,
fixing the drip in the intricate gut machinery of a new toilet;
found a good coffeepot in the vines by the porch, rolled a big tire out of the scarlet bushes, hid my marijuana;
wet the flowers, playing the sunlit water each to each, returning for godly extra drops for the stringbeans and daisies;
three times walked round the grass and sighed absently;
my reward, when the garden fed me its plums from the form of a small tree in the corner,
an angel thoughtful of my stomach, and my dry and lovelorn tongue.

-Allen Ginsberg

Berklee’s poetry Walk was laid in October 2003 along Edison Street between Shattuck and Milvia Streets. The route includes 128 metal plates with excerpts from songs, each of which is related in one way or another to the city of Berkeley.

The plaque features a poem by the American poet Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) who was one of the prominent figures of the beat generation that operated in San Francisco and was characterized by writing in an associative and free manner