Housmans is celebrating the paper-back release of the uncollected poetry and plays of the seminal American poet Jack Spicer, edited, and with a brilliant introduction, by Daniel Katz. We are delighted to have Daniel with us in the shop to help celebrate Spicer’s work.

Be Brave to Things shows legendary San Francisco Renaissance poet Jack Spicer at the top of his form, with his blistering intelligence, painful double-edged wit, and devastating will to truth everywhere on display. Most of the poetry here has never before been published, but the volume also includes much out-of-print or hard to find work, as well as Spicer’s three major plays, which have never been collected. Here one finds major unfinished projects, early and alternate versions of well-known Spicer poems, shimmering stand-alone lyrics, and intricate extended “books” and serial poems. In writings that range in date from his first days in Berkeley in 1945 through to the final months of his life, 20 years later, one sees the full development of Spicer as a writer.

Daniel will begin the evening by speaking about the project and then reading a few of his favorite poems from the book. This will be followed by a poetry reading from some contemporary ‘Martian poets’, influenced by Spicer’s work. These are: Mau Baiocco, Al Anderson, Sam Weselowski, Simon Smith, Paige Murphy, Nell Osborne, Cat Chong, JD Howse, Francis Jones and Dom Hale. There will be two intervals of 15 minutes each.

This event is free, but please RSVP.

BYOB! ALL WELCOME! See you there!