Berkeley Wall + Piece - Graffiti Poetry

Called the Banksy of poetry, Leslie Reed transforms everyday landscapes into a gallery of verse. Berkeley Wall + Piece offers 80 of her original graffiti poems inscribed on walls and fences near her home in Berkeley, California. A unique collection, fusing poetry and visual art, this book delivers themes of deepening spiritual awakening steeped in reflections on brokenness and healing in family relationships, and it reveals the beauty of an opening heart. Elizabeth Gilbert describes in Big Magic, the mysterious process where ideas offer themselves directly to potential creators. In natural surroundings, Leslie taps in, receiving words and rhymes whispered by her auditory muse, and much like American poet, Ruth Stone, she rushes to capture these - using immediately available surfaces. In England, Leslie chalked them on sea walls. Back home in Berkeley, she uses pen and Sharpie marker, creating a plein air poetry installation, centered on the fence at the Tamalpais Steps. The same spontaneous impact - that has moved hikers and observers to scrawl grateful replies amid the poems - awaits the reader here.