POETRY

1968: A Fifty-Year Retrospective

Bad Crowd
by Corey Weinstein
an energetic poem that reveals how being in with the bad crowd in the sixties wasn’t actually bad
People’s Park
by Steve Surryhne
a poem about the living theatre that was Berkeley’s People’s Park protests in the late sixties​

More Poetry . . .

A Sidewalk Tale
by Mike Lambert
a poem about a mysterious sign left on a sidewalk that first trips the poet and then shakes him out of his writer’s block​
Going Home
by Rodney J. Shapiro
a touching and sometimes humorous poem of how going home isn’t always what we hoped it would be​
Leaving
by Rodney J. Shapiro
a poem about how a parting can feel blank and empty, even more than sad
Confessions of a Pigeon Hater
by Elsa Fernandez
a humorous poem about how a perennial pigeon hater changes her view of them from robber barons to warriors​
Haibun 1
by Mary Heldman
a haibun portraying a touching yet dichotomous dream-vision of the poet’s mother​

. . . and More Poetry

Haibun 2
by Mary Heldman
a haibun depicting a child’s delight at the ‘tiny transubstantiation’ of Fourth of July sparklers​
Ode to the Slash
by Thomas O. Davenport
a sardonic ode praising the slash for making the poet's work easier​
On the Disappearance of My Best Friend
by Vivian Imperiale
a sad poem about losing a good friend, twice​
What It Really is About
by Vivian Imperiale
a compassionate poem about how to treat homeless people respectfully​
Shaving Oedipus’ Reflection
by Allen Wilson
a stark and blunt investigation of the meaning and scope of father-son relationships, as the poet gazes at his reflection in the bathroom mirror​
Binding Belief
​by Kathryn Santana Goldman
a photo-poem that explores the reason for and purpose of belief​
Arc of Falling Leaves
by Angie Minkin
a haiku triplet that weaves together subtle images to form an arc of falling leaves​
Flower Power 2018
​by Angie Minkin
a haibun that recreates the flavor and beauty of the yearly Flower Piano event in San Francisco’s Botanical Gardens​
Vertical Divider
The Body
​by Janice Fuhrman
a poetic reflection on the nature of bodies, individual, universal, alive and dead​
Waiting
​by Janice Fuhrman
a poem where illness is ‘seen’ as a room the unwitting poet is slammed into​
Labyrinth Whispers
​by Kathryn Santana Goldman
a photo-poem that imagines a labyrinth coaxing the walker to ask questions and even find answers
Bits, Riffs, Scenes
by Steve Surryhne
a nitty-gritty view, in bits, riffs and scenes, in and out of the ‘bus station’ we call life
Daydream
by Elinor Gale
a gentle, compassionate and humorous haibun that makes old-age memory loss seem almost okay​
I Fed Her Blueberries
​by Elinor Gale
a poem about the eve of an aged mother’s death, written with deep sentiment and no sentimentality, only feeling and humor​
A Book Report
by Kaaren Strauch Brown
a poem in book report form that both satirizes and laments the nuclear incident at Chernobyl​
Vertical Divider

​The Vistas & Byways Review is the semiannual journal of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and visual arts by members of OLLI at SF State.
Vertical Divider

​The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State University​ provides material support to the Vistas & Byways volunteer staff.