While living along the beautiful, windswept beaches and white cliffs of southern England in 2017-2018, Leslie Reed began hearing lines of poetry at Louisa Bay beach in Broadstairs, Kent. To capture these words, she wrote them with beach chalk onto the seawalls. In an effort to preserve the pieces before the rain and tides could wash them away, she began to photograph what became a substantial collection of graffiti poems. On returning to California, she found a similarly inspiring environment among the Redwood, Bay Laurel and Live Oak trees by Codornices Park in Berkeley, where she takes dictation from the Muse, writing the poetry she hears onto the fence along the Tamaulipas Steps. She signs, dates, and photographs each piece to preserve the series and to trace the trajectory of her poetry. Thematically, the pieces touch on spirituality, personal growth and family relationships.
Considering herself Berkeley’s Graffiti Poet, Leslie Reed regularly adds her poetry to open-mic events, spiritual gatherings and to poetry readings in the San Francisco, California area. At the group’s invitation, Ms. Reed has twice read and discussed the body of her poetry with the University of California, Berkeley’s undergraduate Live Poets’ Society.
The U.C. Berkeley Daily Californian podcast, Poetic Pontification, produced an episode called On Spontaneous Poetry about her work at: https://open.spotify.com/episode/24ON78yLUziSZrfnDjeobL. A second pod cast where she dives deep into the process of creating her poetry appears on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9cL4DfodJ4. Voetica, the spoken poetry web site, hosts recordings of Leslie Reed reading 18 graffiti poems, along with the typed lines of each poem and photographs at: https://voetica.com/voetica.php?collection=4&poet=1038. Additional pod casts with the artist are currently in production.
In relation to visual art, Leslie Reed’s series of 10 photographic collages, Soul Journey, has hung in group shows at REN Gallery in Los Angeles, California and at 111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco, California. In addition, Soul Journey featured in a solo show at York Street Gallery during the regional Power of Women art show run through the Tate Gallery’s Turner Museum of Art in Margate, UK. Her visual artwork is held in private collections in the US, England and France. Ms. Reed has also created stained glass windows, which are installed in private homes and commercial spaces throughout the US.
In 2022, Leslie Reed self-published Graffiti Poetry, her first collection of poetry and photography. Her memoir with the working title The Myth of the Bad Mother will go to print in 2025.
Ms. Reed teaches a series of classes on creativity. In 2024, she debuted Shadow Canvas, Closure through Creativity, which has helped students in the US and Europe to process and turn grief and loss into peace and empowerment. Through spiritual centers in California and Utah, she also offers a class called Intuitive Writing for Spiritual Expansion.
Leslie Reed holds a B.A. in Russian Studies from Colgate University and a Master’s Degree in French Literature and Civilization from Middlebury College. She studied stained glass at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts. Ms. Reed is also a 2007-2008 Fulbright Scholar.
