The release of Milvia Street, Berkeley City College’s annual art and literary journal, took place on the evening of Feb. 10 in the Berkeley City College Auditorium.
Authors portrayed their work on stage in front of images from the magazine that flashed behind them and Fungai Gora infused the event with enthusiasm as the emcee.
The presentation closed with a memorial reading for Paul Elias Taylor that included one of Paul’s poems from the 2016 journal, “Across the Fruited Plain.”
Faculty Leader Sharon Coleman and the Milvia Street Club expect readers to appreciate the variety and high quality of the art in this issue, made possible by a generous grant from the City of Berkeley’s Civic Arts Commission, in addition to the funding provided by the Berkeley City College English Department.
The grant permitted the inclusion of a full eight color pages in the magazine’s center, as well as the dramatic wraparound cover.
In addition to the artwork sprinkled throughout the edition’s 112 pages, Milvia Street features prose and poetry.
The introductory section of this year’s Milvia Street includes a statement that describes the current issue’s contents as follows:
“People took to the streets against police brutality not in one city — but in many this year. News and social media across the world took one or another perspective.
“Latent racism was publicly flaunted as groups to resist it formed like Black Lives Matter. Trauma and determination sparked those at the forefront and the sidelines.
“The editors of this issue of Milvia Street offer the stories, poems, and images as affirmations of the rich and beautifully diverse lives of our community and as an antidote to historic pain re-ignited by the evening news.
“The writers and artists of this issue, however, don’t look away from pain and oppression but reify them palpably as a means of transformation.”
Milvia Street 2016 will be available at two Berkeley bookstores, University Press Books at 2430 Bancroft Way and Pegasus Books Downtown at 2349 Shattuck Avenue, as well as at Pegasus Books in Oakland, 5560 College Avenue.
In addition, copies will be available at the 11th annual EcoFest at Laney College in Oakland, which will be held on April 20, 2017.
It is also possible to obtain copies by contacting Sharon Coleman at scoleman(at)peralta.edu.