Please join us for an evening dubbed “Writers Painting Their Voices” as author John Curl reads from his powerful novel of McCarthy era resistance, The Outlaws of Maroon, joined by poet and literary critic Jack Foley performing some of this poems in tandem with his partner Sangye Land. These writers will use their voices to…

San Francisco Poet Laureate Kim Shuck in association with the Academy of American Poets and Bird & Beckett Books presents Fire Thieves 7 Fire Thieves Board the Peace Train Bird and Beckett Books, 653 Chenery Street in San Francisco Wednesday, January 29th at 7pm (doors at 6:30pm) Joyce Jenkins, Gary Gach, Judy Bernhard, Val Ibarra,…

Jun Jun Li invites you to Bird & Beckett this evening with this promise! “Tonight, you are going to a one of the kind life experience! Storytelling by Jun Jun, Dance performance by Jun Ting, Live music, Live painting, Living souls… Looking forward to see your beautiful faces at 7pm.” Jun Li’s Deep Sea in…

$20 suggested donation; pay what you can. Pianist Grant Levin has gained great acclaim on the San Francisco jazz scene since his move here in 2001; since that time, Bird & Beckett has been pleased and honored to present him hundreds of times — and we look forward with great anticipation to his last-Sunday-of-the-month bookings…

A rich gathering of poets will celebrate the work of Bob Kaufman, collected in a new volume from City Lights Books, edited by Neeli Cherkovski, Raymond Foye and Tate Swindell, with a forward by devorah major. Lawrence Ferlinghetti said of Kaufman, “He was an original voice. No one else talked like him. No one else…

$20 cover charge; sliding scale available James Mahone Quartet James Mahone, saxophone Eddie Mendenhall, piano Giulio Xavier Cetto, bass Hamir Atwal, drums Two sets of jazz standards by four of the Bay Area’s very best! James Mahone got his start as a founding member of the legendary Los Angeles jazz combo called Black Note, alongside…

$20 suggested donation/sliding scale available. Talk about your San Francisco jazz… On the fourth Friday of each month, our weekly jazz in the bookshop series features The 230 Jones Street, Local 6 Literary Jazz Band — in direct line of descent from the Chuck Peterson Trio, which started the whole “jazz in the bookshop” thing…

Eveline Kanes is a poet and literary translator . Her poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals. Her book translations range from biography and fiction, to history, poetry and sociology. Her chap book, A Coin Worn Thin, appeared in 2015. Her current work is under submission. Susan Dambroff is a poet, performer, and teacher. Her…

Amy Glynn is an award-winning poet and essayist whose work appears widely in journals and anthologies including The Best American Poetry. Her first poetry collection, A Modern Herbal, was published in 2013 by Measure Press; her second, Romance Language, is forthcoming in early 2020. She has received the Carolyn Kizer Award from Poetry Northwest, the SPUR…

From ancient times on, each generation spins its own visionary accountings out of threads of events only the universal psyche has ever fully embodied in memory. Whether in times of cultural evolution or devolution, fairy tales entertain, disturb, and edify, existing as offerings for us to contemplate, even as the ages roll on. Each fairy…