Living room on Woolsey Street is heart of Berkeley’s poetry scene

A little after 10 p.m. on a Saturday, in a second-story apartment unit on Woolsey Street, Andrew Kenower tucked a load of laundry under the kitchen table while his roommate Paul Ebenkamp chatted with poets and other guests still lingering. What is likely the longest running home-based poetry series in Berkeley had just concluded in their South Berkeley living room.

Now in its 14th or 15th year — the founders admit on their Instagram page that “we can’t quite remember” — the Woolsey Heights poetry reading series is a 21st-century salon where the domestic blends with the performative, where it feels as if art can exist for its own sake, an anomaly in a region where skyrocketing rents makes it challenging for many creatives to remain. 

Over the years hundreds of poets — from Portland to Poland — whether they’re famous or not, published or not, have stepped in front of the living room mic. At these mostly monthly readings, the audience varies greatly, from 20 to 50 people who, like the poets themselves, are drawn to the charm of this laid-back, quasi-underground affair, as participants in a disappearing literary scene. 

“The DIY aspect — that the reading is in someone’s house — is so special,” said Kelly Egan, an Oakland poet. “It’s so good for the artistic ecosystem of the Bay Area and poetry world. This used to be more common, but now everything’s gotten so expensive. So anything that anyone organizes becomes something they sort of have to commoditize. This has a different vibe that has nothing to do with commodification. It’s an endangered species in the Bay Area and in 2025. There are certain groups of people who are still living that out and this is one of those communities.” 

Ebenkamp estimated that the heyday of the Berkeley-Oakland poetry scene took place from around the 1980s to the 2010s. Small Press Distribution, which closed in March 2024, had a warehouse around the corner and hosted readings. The Dollhouse, a private house in Oakland, had poetry events called Artifact and Condensery, from around the late ’90s to the aughts. Another poetry series called Manifest was also held in an Oakland home. 

Some long-running series continue. Robert Hass, a former poet laureate and UC Berkeley English professor, began UC Berkeley’s Lunch Poem Series in 1995, which remains a showcase for prominent poets. And MK Chavez and Sharon Coleman founded Lyrics & Dirges in 2010, a monthly reading series for poets and other writers at Pegasus Books’ downtown branch with the aim, Coleman said, of presenting “an integrally diverse reading” at a time when “diversity was very tokenized.” 

But overall, “we’ve seen a reduction in the organizations remaining in the Bay Area, especially in Berkeley, that do this,” said Ebenkamp, a poet who has taught at Saint Mary’s College of California for years and recently began working at a Berkeley senior center. “So we’re really dedicated to doing what we do because there’s such an obvious need for it.” 

“We sort of inherited people from other series that folded or stopped,” Kenower said. 

Not interested in pennies, publishers or plaudits

What distinguishes Woolsey Heights from other poetry venues is what it is not and does not do. 

It does not announce upcoming reading on Instagram any sooner than a week before the event. It does not require RSVPing. 

The hosts have never worked with agents, publishers, universities, patrons or government institutions to promote a particular writer. They’ve never taken a penny from anyone. Nor do the hosts introduce readers by reading bios listing their bona fides. Instead, they’ll simply mention the poet’s name and where they’re from. 

Unlike most bookstore readings that only showcase poets who have published books, Woolsey’s hosts simply do not care. If people want to bring books and sell them, they can, but it’s more common for poets to exchange books. What’s most important is creating a space where poets can share nascent work with an appreciative audience who, like them, are often poets themselves, or writers of various stripes. 

“People often end up trying out new things that maybe they wouldn’t necessarily be comfortable trying out in any other venue,” said Ebenkamp, whose poetry collection The Louder the Room the Darker the Screen was published by the now-defunct Oakland imprint Timeless Infinite Light in 2015. 

“To me, this is for the freaks. That’s an ethos for us,” Ebenkamp said. “We’re very much open to the adventurous, freaky and experimental. We would like to see more of that rather than an end product with a barcode.”

Famous poets no more important than ‘lesser-known folks of the neighborhood’

The hosts’ disinterest in commoditizing the series is right up there with a disdain for placing poets within a hierarchy. When asked about well-known writers who have appeared, Ebenkamp initially hesitated, since “that’s contextualizing.” When pressed, he begrudgingly named the late Lyn Hejinian and Nathaniel Mackey. A Google search revealed that Peter Gizzi, a widely published poet based in Massachusetts, and Mandy Gutmann-Gonzales, a Chilean poet and novelist, have also passed through Woolsey’s front door, where a sign asks visitors not to let the cats out. 

“I am very happy to have hosted those people, but they are no more important than the lesser-known folks of the neighborhood,” Ebenkamp said. 

Those who read can be local, regional or just passing through. “I’m always trying to think of who has not read here,” Ebenkamp says. 

The audience fluctuates just as much. Not surprisingly, many poets were in the house, along with a father and daughter who were repeat attendees. Many were on a first-name basis with the hosts. 

Before the readings began, Kit Robinson, a Berkeley poet who has authored two dozen collections of poems, sat cross-legged on the floor before moving to one of the many sofas. He hadn’t been to or read in the series in some years and said he came to the reading because he was “interested in hearing the work.”

The view from the living room

On Feb. 8, an audience of about 25, from grey-haireds to long-haireds, boomers to millennials, sat on unmatched area rugs or upholstered furniture covered in blankets and throws. Nearby,  the two resident cats were boxing. 

Every vertical space served as an opportunity for communication: posters from literary readings and kitschy cat art crowded the walls, including Ebenkamp’s own hand-drawn posters that declared “You Grow Throughout the World in Cultivated and Wild Forms” in luminescent letters to the more playful, “Finish What You’ve.” The multi-layered, art-filled home, with arrangements of dried flowers, endless shelves of books and a cabinet of vintage LPs, made the vibe feel more like 1975 than 2025. 

In such a close-knit community, many hear about the series through friends, like Chris Ashby, who co-runs a poetry series in Portland. He was one of two Portland poets who read, along with James Yeary. Ashby recited two untitled poems that were heavy on geological imagery and one that felt like a snapshot of a SoCal rodeo. Yeary described bodily parts and functions that called to mind the meditations on the Buddha’s body.

The final reader, Robert Blatt, lives in Benicia and has a background in experimental music. He followed a poem about prepositions with a piece called “Four Panels of Snow,” made up of single notes he struck on a glockenspiel he interspersed with exhalations or the utterance of the word “Oh.” 

Later Blatt explained how being in someone’s living room is different from other venues. The room was noticeably silent, he said, which allowed extraneous sounds of traffic and tenants talking elsewhere in the building to become incorporated into the performance.

“Those sounds were communicating with each other,” he said. “What you are reading becomes a reflection of the space you are in.”

Born of jam sessions and late-night revelry

Woolsey Heights was born out of musical jams that Kenower, a drummer, began across the street in his previous apartment. He moved in with Ebenkamp, and other roommates in the apartment, in 2011. The two had met while getting MFAs in creative writing from Saint Mary’s College of California in 2009, where they studied poetry with Brenda Hillman.

They chose the name for the series, which is not an actual neighborhood in Berkeley, because their Woolsey Street apartment enjoys the advantage of a second-floor view. “It was a joke,” Ebenkamp said, “but it stuck.”

Initially the event was more of a party scene. “People would be here until all hours of the night,” said Kenower, who works as a data analyst. “That doesn’t happen as much anymore, which is fine. We are more grown up.” 

The pandemic prompted outdoor readings in the courtyard that separates the building from another tall Edwardian. The food offerings are potluck, yet no one is required to bring something. That night, guests were invited to help themselves to sparkling water the hosts provided in the fridge or the Domino’s pizza or brownies some guests set out on the kitchen table.

Over the years the hosts have discovered that the ever-changing nature of both readers and audience can make for an exciting spontaneity. “If a bunch of people we don’t know show up, that’s a good sign that something vital is still happening,” Ebenkamp said. 

Perhaps because the series takes place in their home, Ebenkamp and Kenower treat the audience more like guests. “I work my ass off when I’m hosting,” Ebenkamp said. “I’m an introvert, but I want everyone to feel comfortable and create a beautiful environment.” 

For Kenower, the readings provide an opportunity to see friends, meet new people and make a space for poetry. “If someone is coming to town and a friend of a friend is coming to town, we will always be here,” he said. “It is nice to know we have come in the clutch for people.” 

Kenower records the sessions and posts them on his YouTube page so they are available to those who have missed the event as well as those who performed in it. 

Both Ebenkamp and a couple of attendees described the living-room series as a “third place,” what sociologists call places like barber shops, libraries, bars, gyms and bowling alleys where people come together that are distinct from their home (the “first place”) or workplace (the “second place”). As third places disappear, which studies have shown contributes to loneliness, private spaces like Woolsey Heights’ living room take on a greater role in creating connection.

“It is very beautiful and fulfilling and makes me extremely grateful to have my first place be the third place for so many people on a given night,” Ebenkamp said. “People appreciate the openness of the community and the openness of the practice.” 

Ebenkamp said the series would not be able to exist if the four-bedroom apartment he shares with three roommates were not rent-controlled. He said it was just “dumb luck” that he ended up in such housing. 

“Everyone should have the chance to live the way I have,” he said.

When the readings ended, Ebenkamp took the mic. He thanked the audience for attending, told them he loved them and invited them to stay on. Many would. He also announced that Lewis Freedman was going to read on March 8, which elicited some “ooohs” from the audience. The schedule for the series was going to be once a month during the summer, he said, before urging guests to “Write the fuck on!” 

Kenower then put on one of his vintage albums on the stereo, The Impressions’ Keep on Pushing from 1964, and let the first song, the traditional Gospel hymn “Amen,” get the last word.

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