Poetry Night at Books Inc in the Castro April 24, 2008

Poets Randall Mann & Jonathan Braker will be reading their favorite and best written poems, celebrating National Poetry Month. Joining them will be the top 3 poets from our annual poetry contest.

Complaint in the Garden; from poolside to seaside, barroom to classroom, sex club to colonial Florida, Randall Mann's curiosity endeavors to discover, often ironically, the beauty of things in the world around him. These meditations--harsh, honest, explicit (though never vulgar), dark, and astute--reflect a sentiment for the urbane and the primitive in nature, history, love, and humankind. Mann invites readers into lush landscapes, sundry histories, and a contemporary gay San Francisco populated by those things and people loved and lost.

Jonathan Bracker explores his visits of Paris through his peotry in his collection, Paris Sketches. Like public sketches of the city done by artists, Bracker uses his poetry to describe the scenery of things witnessed and experiences undergone.

About Randall Mann:
Mann was born in Provo, Utah, and raised in Kentucky and Florida. He was educated at the University of Florida. His Poems and reviews have appeared in the Kenyon Review, New Republic, Paris Review, Poetry, Salmagundi, and Verse. He lives in San Francisco.

About Jonathan Braker:
Braker was born in New York City in 1936. He tought college English in several states and U.S. Navy ships at sea. Bracker’s work has appeared in America, Poetry Northwesr, Southern Poetry Review, The New Yorker, Writer’s Digest and other periodicals as well as in several anthologies.

Poetry Contest

Join us for a fun evening of exciting wordplay and creative rhyme schemes. Your creativity is the only limit. (that and 3 poetry entries!).

Call for submissions:
Books Inc. is looking for your poetry! The top 3 poems, judged by a panel of Books Inc. booksellers, will be rewarded with Books Inc. Gift cards. We will also feature the winning poems and poets at our 11th Annual Poetry Night Thursday, April 24th. Entrants are limited to 3 poems per person, 250 words per poem. Poems must be delivered in person or sent via USPS. No e-mail entries will be accepted. Please include full name and contact information

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Books Inc. is a locally owned and operated independent bookseller with 10 locations in California. Books Inc.’s origin dates back to the Gold Rush Days of 1851 when Anton Roman struck it rich in Shasta City, California and set himself up in business selling books. That small bookstore was moved, bought, sold, burned, rebuilt, renamed and became Books Inc., as we know it today, in 1946.

Today, with 10 Stores and 200 employees, Books Inc. serves as a shining example that independent bookselling can survive and prosper, even if we must dance among the elephants.

This Event is Free at Books Inc. 2275 Market St. San Francisco 94114
For Questions: 415.864.6777 or on the web at www.booksinc.net and
www.myspace.com/booksinccastro

Official Website: http://booksinc.net/NASApp/store/IndexJsp;jsessionid=abce54WcTE0rz62o2X7Jr?s=storeevents&eventId=371208