About this Event
On Tuesday, November 17 ( 6-7:30 pm) contemporary poets and Norman Fischer and Kit Robinson will read from work informed by their distinct experiences of Zen in our series on The Practice of Creativity: Expressions of the Dharma in the Arts and the Natural World. This is an in-person event at the Center for Creativity Inquiry (2210 Harold Way) in Downtown Berkeley. A reception will follow.
is a poet, author, and senior American Zen Buddhist priest. A former abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center, he is the founder and teacher of the Everyday Zen Foundation, a network of spiritual communities and projects dedicated to sharing Zen and Buddhist teachings widely with the world.
A graduate of the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Norman began publishing poetry in the late 1970’s as part of a San Francisco Bay Area group of experimental writers, and has since published more than thirty books of prose and poetry. His most recent poetry titles are Selected Poems 1980-2013, There Was a Clattering as…, Through A Window, and Men in Suits. His latest Buddhist titles are When You Greet Me I Bow: notes and reflections from a life in Zen, and the forthcoming, The Great Road: Zen Master Dogen’s Art of Continuous Practice.
is a Bay Area poet, writer, and musician. Kit has said, “Poetry is language on a holiday. Free to go where it will. But it is not jobless. The job of poetry is to continue, despite everything that is pitted against it.”
He is the author of 30 collections of poetry, most recently Tunes & Tens (Roof, 2025). His 1991 chapbook Counter Meditation traces his entry into zazen practice at the Berkeley Zen Center under the direction of Sojun Mel Weitsman. This set of 38 short poems refers to zazen, dream life, love, language, Helsinki, Leningrad, the Gulf War, writing, and music. Robinson’s papers are collected at The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
Event venue & nearby stays
Center for Creative Inquiry, 2210 Harold Way, Berkeley, United States
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