When is art like poetry? Well, actually, art is a lot like poetry, says art critic and poet Bill Berkson. He expresses his ideas about art in Sudden Address: Selected Lectures 1981-2006, published by Cuneiform Press.

Three interesting books offer a view into the mind of a distinguished poet, critic, editor, publisher, teacher and curator. Bill Berkson has published acclaimed books of poetry, including Fugue State, and Hymns of St. Bridget and Other Writings. As a poet, he has been described as “a transformer of the mundane into the marvelous.” The first is his latest book of poetry. The verses in Our Friends Will Pass Among You Silently offer glimpses into his very distinctive perspective on the world.

Berkson, author of The Sweet Singer of Modernism and Other Art Writings, a book of art criticism, uses his poetic point of view to describe and analyze art. He says his poetry gives him a unique vantage point when it comes to understanding painting. “Maybe image-making is the closest thing to writing,” said Berkson. “Both painting and poetry occupy fictive spaces in the physical world.” More of his insights on art are now also included in Sudden Address: Selected Lectures 1981-2006 (pictured).

The last book, What’s Your Idea of a Good Time, covers the 1977 to 1985 collaboration between Berkson and Bernadette Mayer, a poet and author of Scarlet Tanager. During that time they interviewed each other on a range of topics. The book collects documents and letters, offering a collaborative portrait of two major American writers in action. The candor and intensity of these interviews centered on question and answer exchanges. Included are intimate musings on everyday life, childhood, marriage, poetry and other arts, cooking, weather, house and garden details, fashion, politics, philosophy, time, identity and morality.

Berkson lives in New York and San Francisco and has taught at the San Francisco Art Institute since 1984. He is a corresponding editor for Art in America and was a Paul Mellon Fellow for 2006 at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. The books are published by The Owl Press, Cuneiform Press and Tuumba Press, respectively. For more information, visit www.theowlpress.com; www.cuneiformpress.com; and www.spdbooks.org.