Wednesday 11/04: Pandemonium Press presents 1st Wednesdays In The Loft, featuring MK Chavez, Sharon Coleman, Andrew Dugas, and Rafael Jesús González. On guitar: Hao Tran. Curated by Leila Rae. An open mic precedes and follows the featured readers. Free, 6:45 p.m., Spice Monkey.
City Lights presents much-honored poet Edward Hirsch reading from Gabriel: A Poem, which was long listed for the 2014 National Book Award. Free, 7 p.m., City Lights.
Thursday 11/5: Thursdays at Readers (a series curated by San Francisco Poet Laureate emeritus, Jack Hirschman) features Nina Serrano and Thanasis Maskaleris. Free, 6:30 p.m. Readers Bookstore in Fort Mason.
City Lights hosts a gaggle of interesting poets for the release of Poems for the Millennium, Volume 5: Barbaric Vast & Wild: An Assemblage of Outside & Subterranean Poetry from Origins to Present from Black Widow Press, edited by Jerome Rothenberg and John Bloomberg-Rissman. The editors will be present along with poets Jack & Adelle Foley, Lyn Hejinian, Michael McClure, David Meltzer, and Julie Rogers. Free, 7 p.m., City Lights.
Friday 11/6: Studio One Reading Series presents Brenda Hillman, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, and Andrew Zawacki for the release of Four Poets from Minus A Press. Guests will receive a copy of the book. Free, 7:30 p.m., Studio One Art Center.
Saturday 11/7: Crows Of the Fall presents Liz Demi Green, Riss Rosado, Rajshree Lehka, and Hugh Behm-Steinberg. Free, 7 p.m., The Octopus Literary Salon.
Mythos Fine Art and Artifacts presents The Beat Scene: Film and Poetry by ruth weiss. ruth weiss (sic) will be reading her poetry with musical accompaniment by Hal Davis. Along with the poetry, several of the poet’s short films will be screened as well. ruth weiss is a very significant, if less famous, figure in Beat history, and this promises to be a memorable event. $20 sliding scale (no one turned away), 7 p.m., Mythos Fine Arts and Artifacts at Firehouse North Gallery.
Sunday 11/8: Poetry Flash presents Rebecca Foust and Susan Terris. Free, 3 p.m., Diesel, A Book Store.
Monday 11/9: The Creative Writing Department at SFSU opens its Writers on Writing course to the public on Mondays this semester. Taught by Robert Glück, the course features faculty and visiting writers reading from their works and discussing their creative process. Tonight’s featured writers is poet Alli Warren (Here Come The Warm Jets, published in City LIghts Spotlight Series). Free, 7 p.m., Humanities Building Auditorium at SFSU.
Tuesday 11/10: Rising star Siamak Vossoughi reads from his newly released short story collection, Better Than War at City Lights. Free, 7 p.m., City Lights.
City Arts and Lectures presents Dan Savage in conversation with Michelle Tea. That’s hot. $29, 7:30 p..m., Nourse Theater.
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This week’s theatre recommendation is the A.C.T. production of Eugene O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness! O’Neill, of course, is best known for the very serious family drama, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, but as a young writer, he offered a lighter, more humorous treatment of family life in Ah, Wilderness!, though still touching on some of his deeper themes. In his insightful review, Barry David Horwitz writes: “…for one moment, between the tragedies and disillusionment of his early and late periods, between socialism, idealism, literary experiments, and bourgeois critiques, the great O’Neill has a dream, literally and figuratively, of the world that never was… Ah, Wilderness! pulls out a golden strand that shines slyly against the fog of Depression in 1931.” Read the entire review here. For further information, click here.
For more extensive coverage of the Bay Area theatre scene, visit TheatreStorm.
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Evan Karp presents video of this week’s featured local author, Steve Orth. Click here to read an interview.
And here’s video of a recent SF Notable, Tracey Knapp, reading at the recent 8th Annual Beat Museum Poetry Festival.
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If you have a Bay Area event listing you’d like us to consider, please contact [email protected] as far in advance as possible, and include the date of the event in the subject line.