# @ucberkeleyofficial on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DcuR1i5j59E
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/69887242-ucberkeleyofficial-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/d361c1313f.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-08-31T23:34:39.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** UC Berkeley (@ucberkeleyofficial) — https://gondola.cc/ucberkeleyofficial

## Caption

“In first grade, I was lucky enough to discover books. I really feel like they saved my life. 

I grew up in a working-class family in Chicago, and I spent most of my life in situations where it didn’t feel safe to say I was a poet.

Once I learned to read, I didn’t stop. I just read and read and read. My home was the worst place in the world, but my room was my little haven.

After school, I’d walk to the library without my mother knowing and spend hours there.

Then, when I was 15, I was institutionalized. The bars on the inside of the hospital windows made it impossible to open them, so I didn’t see any sunlight while I was there. It was hell for me. 

The only book I had with me was Leaves of Grass by the 19th-century poet Walt Whitman. That’s what saved me. It was a beautiful thing to realize that everything’s connected and that, through writing, we are all talking to each other across time. 

When I got out a few weeks later, I had a profound moment when I knew: I am a poet. There was no longer a difference for me between writing poetry and living.

I moved to Wyoming to take a dishwasher position at a restaurant. That’s when I discovered cooking. It was creative, challenging and something I could believe in.

In 2015, I started at Berkeley’s Chez Panisse and soon became a lead cook. All the while, I was writing whenever I could. But I never showed my work to anyone.

I’ve since published more than 170 poems and received nominations for Best of the Net and a Touchstone Award. I often explore themes like food and housing insecurity, intergenerational trauma and urban history. 

Freedom of expression is incredibly important to me. That’s why I decided to come to Berkeley. I plan to major in English and minor in creative writing or rhetoric.

After I earn my B.A., I’d like to pursue an MFA in poetry and then a Ph.D. overseas. 

One day, I’d love to be a poetry professor. Because I struggled so much to find knowledge on my own, being able to share it with someone else is incredibly rewarding.” — Michael Battisto (mbattisto)

#UCBerkeley #BackToBerkeley

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## Tags

backtoberkeley, ucberkeley

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