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Look Out
A 70-page perfect-bound poetry book by Berkeley poet Julia Vinograd, illustrated with drawings by Chris Trian. Cover photo by Bob Fischer. Cover design by Bruce Isaacson.
Paperback
Published January 1, 2016
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About the author
Julia Vinograd
81 books8 followersJulia Vinograd is a Berkeley street poet. She won the American Book Award of The Before Columbus Foundation. She received a B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley and an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 1, 2017
Julia Vinograd is my friend of many years and my poetry mentor, so I have no intention of attempting an objective review. I'll just say that her poetry keeps getting more surreal and, in my opinion, even better.
Did I mention that her mother was a poet published in the New Yorker and her father was a Cal Tech professor who was awarded a Nobel Prize for his work, then died of a heart attack before he could accept it? Can you imagine what Julia must have been like as a kid? Well here, she'll tell you:
The Child
She was put to bed hours ago but she's not sleepy.
She pads in her rockinghorse pajamas to the window,
shoves her nose against the cold glass and stares
into the garden that changes at night.
The garden stares back at her.
The child calls without a sound.
She's heard her parents talking,
she knows what they want for her.
She hears a toad spit in the garden,
she agrees, nodding a little.
Each day she shrugs off more of the world.
A fiddle player sees her and knows where she's going,
her parents try to hurry her past.
A beggar asks her to bring back faerie food.
Her father puts down his morning paper
and tells her how lucky she is,
she'll be going to a good school
and meeting all the right people.
The child knows how lucky she is,
the voices in the garden don't speak to just anyone.
Only children who call.
The child calls without a sound.
The garden opens for her.
Julia hawks her wares on the streets of Berkeley for $5 a book. That's the best price of poetry per pound you'll ever find. You can get your copy of Look Out by mailing her $6 USD to Julia Vinograd/ 1630 University Ave., #34/ Berkeley, CA 94703. Eventually it will be available on the Zeitgeist Press website at http://www.zeitgeist-press.com as well.
Did I mention that her mother was a poet published in the New Yorker and her father was a Cal Tech professor who was awarded a Nobel Prize for his work, then died of a heart attack before he could accept it? Can you imagine what Julia must have been like as a kid? Well here, she'll tell you:
The Child
She was put to bed hours ago but she's not sleepy.
She pads in her rockinghorse pajamas to the window,
shoves her nose against the cold glass and stares
into the garden that changes at night.
The garden stares back at her.
The child calls without a sound.
She's heard her parents talking,
she knows what they want for her.
She hears a toad spit in the garden,
she agrees, nodding a little.
Each day she shrugs off more of the world.
A fiddle player sees her and knows where she's going,
her parents try to hurry her past.
A beggar asks her to bring back faerie food.
Her father puts down his morning paper
and tells her how lucky she is,
she'll be going to a good school
and meeting all the right people.
The child knows how lucky she is,
the voices in the garden don't speak to just anyone.
Only children who call.
The child calls without a sound.
The garden opens for her.
Julia hawks her wares on the streets of Berkeley for $5 a book. That's the best price of poetry per pound you'll ever find. You can get your copy of Look Out by mailing her $6 USD to Julia Vinograd/ 1630 University Ave., #34/ Berkeley, CA 94703. Eventually it will be available on the Zeitgeist Press website at http://www.zeitgeist-press.com as well.
November 11, 2019
Julia Vinograd’s Look Out and Detours, published by Zeitgeist Press in Berkeley, teach me why she was SO MUCH MORE than “the Bubble Lady” of Telegraph Avenue. She changed things outside herself by changing herself and by seeing and feeling things differently because of what and who she had seen and felt. The real power and simple, original imagery of her poetry cut a sharp line directly between the intellectual voice of reportage and observation of Phebe and the overwhelmed verbal heart-lava of Disorder.
She reminds us that “I was young” in “ANNIVERSARY OF PEOPLE’S PARK,” but “I remember when heroism grew wild/ as dandelions/ and people talked about how to get rid of it.” Her balance of leaden truth distilled with our greatest human desires, dreams and hopes is ferocious and visceral while seamlessly blending her focus on immediate experience with the much-needed long view.
In MY COUNTRY, she says, “I rode a bright red royal tricycle/ through my endless country/ and never believed anything could change.”
And then the clarity of her persona and voice in TRUCK:
I drove a truck down a highway at night
following the white line to the middle of the road.
The truck was packed with poems
wrapped in brown cardboard boxes
and bumping against each other when I drove over
fallen branches from the storm. Beetles and dragonflies
crashed against the windshield
until I sprayed them loose.
There were no other cars. Hunting owls. Wet mice.
A rest stop coming,
coffee, burger, pie, bathroom, jukebox.
The poems dragging me back,
my feet on the gas pedal.
The white line opening me up again,
forever.
Now THAT is our poetry. That is our voice.
She reminds us that “I was young” in “ANNIVERSARY OF PEOPLE’S PARK,” but “I remember when heroism grew wild/ as dandelions/ and people talked about how to get rid of it.” Her balance of leaden truth distilled with our greatest human desires, dreams and hopes is ferocious and visceral while seamlessly blending her focus on immediate experience with the much-needed long view.
In MY COUNTRY, she says, “I rode a bright red royal tricycle/ through my endless country/ and never believed anything could change.”
And then the clarity of her persona and voice in TRUCK:
I drove a truck down a highway at night
following the white line to the middle of the road.
The truck was packed with poems
wrapped in brown cardboard boxes
and bumping against each other when I drove over
fallen branches from the storm. Beetles and dragonflies
crashed against the windshield
until I sprayed them loose.
There were no other cars. Hunting owls. Wet mice.
A rest stop coming,
coffee, burger, pie, bathroom, jukebox.
The poems dragging me back,
my feet on the gas pedal.
The white line opening me up again,
forever.
Now THAT is our poetry. That is our voice.
September 13, 2025
Got this from a bookshop in San Francisco, went in blind and absolutely loved it! I love how vivid and playful many of these poems are, but they are also very soulful and real. The last one “In these dark days” brought me to tears. So glad I stumbled across this collection!!
July 1, 2022
I liked some poems more than others, but the poems that I did enjoy, I really enjoyed.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews