The UC-Berkeley Department of English is home to two ongoing poetry series named after Roberta C. Holloway, whose bequest to the Department in 1980 initiated both. One is the Roberta C. Holloway Poetry Readings, which presents eight to ten poetry readings each academic year, each featuring a Berkeley graduate student poet and a prominent visiting poet. The other is the Roberta C. Holloway Lectureship, which brings a poet to campus for one semester to teach a single poetry workshop and otherwise participate in campus literary life while also doing his, her, or their own work.
Roberta C. Holloway received her BA degree in English with honors from UC Berkeley in 1923 and her PhD in English here 23 years later, in 1945. As a poet and, in due course, one with a PhD in English, it was her lifelong ambition to teach, even if only briefly, at her alma mater, UC-Berkeley. This opportunity never came to Roberta Holloway; she spent her teaching years at San Jose State University. But, as she reached the end of her life, she was determined to make such an opportunity possible for other poets. She left what at the time was a generous but not astonishing amount of money to UC-Berkeley’s English Department as a bequest to be devoted to bringing a poet for a semester to Berkeley to teach and enjoy the remarkable creative and intellectual culture of the English Department’s literary community. The bequest, not having been squandered, has grown over the years—it is now sufficient to sponsor not only the Holloway lectureship but also the Holloway readings.
-Lyn Hejinian, 2021
Holloway Lecturers
1980-81: Sandra McPherson
1981-82: Louise Glück
1982-83: Naomi Shihab Nye and Frank Bidart
1983-84: Robert Hass
1984-85: Pamela White Hadas
1985-86: C.K. Williams
1986-87: August Kleinzahler
1987-88: Heather McHugh and Michael Palmer
1988-89: Paul Muldoon
1989-90: Tom Sleigh
1990-91: Medbh McGuckian
1991-92: Yusef Komunyakaa
1992-93: Lyn Hejinian
1994-95: Ron Johnson
1995-96: Jackie Kay
1996-97: Timothy Liu
1997-98: Linda Gregg
1998-99: Robert Polito
1999-00: Joshua Clover
2000-01: Anne Carson
2001-02: Norma Cole
2002-03: Carol Snow
2003-04: Geoffrey G. O’Brien
2004-05: Alice Fulton
2005-06: Mark McMorris
2006-07: Lisa Robertson
2007-08 Lytle Shaw
2009-10: Ariana Reynes
2010-11: Matthew Zapruder
2011-12: Judith Goldman
2012-13: Catherine Walsh
2013-14: Keston Sutherland
2014-15: Ed Roberson
2015-16: Mary Szybist
2016-17: Anna Moschovakis
2017-18: giovanni singleton
2018-19: Sarah Nicholson
2019-20: Farid Matuk
2020-21: Jen Hofer
2021-22: Karen Solie
2022-23: Harmony Holiday
2023-24: Tim Wood