The Grace of Crows:  Jerry Ferraz, long-time host of our ongoing poetry series at Bird & Beckett — and a key bard of the San Francisco poetic axis that runs through North Beach and the Mission District — will read from two chapbooks that have just been produced.  The first, The Golden Key is an epic work that he has long performed with guitar, though tonight he’ll read it without accompaniment.  The second is a set of poems he’s composed over the past few years on his frequent stays at the family’s Gill Ranch retreat up near the mouth of the Russian River.  Called The Grace of Crows, it comprises several dozen pieces of varying lengths born of his observation of the wildlife and natural world there.  Born in Eureka Valley, Jerry is inextricably linked with the poetry that has grown and flowered in and around San Francisco these many decades.

An open mic will follow Jerry’s reading.

Note that this reading series, which has been hosted at Bird & Beckett for a decade or more, will return to its traditional twice-a-month “first & third Mondays” schedule beginning with a February 3rd reading featuring Ronald Sauer and Michael Koch.