In my search to discover the poetry scene in the San Francisco bay area, I turned to the knower of all things: The Internet. With help from this magical place I found a poetry festival very close by and of course I added it to my calendar to check out.

Last Saturday, I went to the 13th Annual Berkeley Poetry Festival.

The festival was a small gathering, a handful of local presses selling their chapbooks and journals, the readings of local poets and then an open mic by lottery -sadly  my name wasn’t called and so I didn’t have the opportunity to read. Of the local poets featured, Gabriel Cortez was my favorite. His poem, Perfect Soldiers, was especially powerful.