Thursday, October 13th, 7:00 pm

Six at Kaleidoscope:
San Francisco Poets
For the Ages
Buddhists, Beats & Beyond!

Bird & Beckett at Litquake
(offsite at 24th St & Folsom)

Bird & Beckett takes its show to the Mission District to meet Litquake on its own turf!

Poets David Meltzer, Neeli Cherkovski, Latif Harris, Julie Rogers, Walker Brents & Jerry Ferraz are all solidly familiar faces on Bird & Beckett’s poets’ stage in the nearby neighborhood of Glen Park, where high-caliber readings have been a constant feature of the programming since the shop’s founding.  Tonight, we’re proud to bring them to Kaleidoscope, one of the most vital young venues in the Mission District, found next door to Philz Coffee just off the corner of 24th & Folsom.

As it happens, Jerry Ferraz was on the very first bill of poets presented in the bookshop back in 1999, when someone told us about a guy you’d see wandering all around town with a small guitar and a poncho, playing with a flamenco inflection, singing and reciting on buses and at construction sites… a San Francisco youth of the era who now doesn’t remember certain years of the 1960s but can deliver a twelve-minute tale of mystic proportions without dropping a word or missing a beat.

Jerry will kick off the reading for us at Kaleidoscope, a scrappy storefront space on 24th Street a few yards from the corner of Folsom, that will proceed with towering, legendary poets Latif Harris and Neeli Cherkovski, followed by another set led off by the enigmatic and surreal musings of Walker Brents before he yields the stage to American Buddhist poet Julie Rogers and everyone’s favorite beat icon, David Meltzer.  Bios of these august poets, particularly Latif, Neeli and David, would be too voluminous to give here, so we’ll refer you to our own “Events” page or the Litquake site (click here) for a brief rundown — though we must also point you to David’s wonderfully evocative site, Meltzerville.com.  Suffice to say, they have been hugely important features on the landscape of one of America’s most storied literary scenes for decades.

Six more sure footed and fascinating poets you’ll not find!  We’re proud to present them to the surging throngs who are haunting this beautiful town as we write this for the 12th annual running of the writers on the San Francisco streets and alleyways that is Litquake!

We’d like to dedicate this reading to San Francisco’s current Poet Laureate, Diane di Prima, who has been in Bird & Beckett’s corner since the early years, and who is emblematic to us of the true poet!