WHO I AM IN TWILIGHT

Like John Lee Hooker, like Lightnin Hopkins,
like the blues himself, the trickster sonnet,
hoedown, the tango, the cante jondo,
like blessed spirituals and ragas custom-made,
like novels, like stories, like slick, slow
sly soliloquies sliding into novels,
like Crime & Punishment, like death & birth,
Canal Street, New Orleans, like eased,
erasable, troubled voices a whirling
ceiling fan makes in deep summer nights in
hot unheavenly hotels, Oklahoma, Arkansas,
Tennessee, like the Mississippi River
so deep and wide you couldn’t get a letter
to the other side, like Grand Canyon,
like Yosemite National Park, like beans &
cornbread, like rest & recreation, like love
& like, I know we last. I know our bleeding stops.

-Al Young

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 current sign features a poem by the American poet, screenwriter and author Al Young (1939-2021). Young, who studied and taught at the University of Berkeley, was named Poet Laureate of California in 2008-2005.