San Francisco Poet Dan Brady Featured May 19 At Third Thursday Poetry And Jazz
By Blake More
On Thursday, May 19, at 7:30pm The Third Thursday Poetry & Jazz Reading Series will feature SF Poet Dan Brady. The reading will take place at the Arena Market cafe and will begin with live improv jazz, followed by a featured virtual reading with Dan Brady, then open mic with jazz improve, and finally the reading will conclude with more live improv jazz.
Daniel was born in New York City in 1952. When his father died n 1960 his mother moved the family to California. There she managed to raise him as well as his six siblings and did remarkably well despite trying circumstances. He obtained a BA in Sociology at San Francisco State in 1975 and began performing at poetry venues at about that time. Later, in 1985 he went back to SF State, earned a teaching credential, began a career in elementary educations in 1987 and so, for a time, writing was set aside. He married in 1989 and a few years later returned to writing via haiku, but science fiction, being dear to him, also followed, as did various kinds of poetry. By 1998 he was again appearing at poetry venues in San Francisco and by 2011 was curating Sacred Grounds, the longest running poetry open mic known, on Wednesday nights. He’s been published numerous times, mostly in small presses but now, occasionally, on line. His writing has several themes, philosophy, the nature of reality or humanity, politics, love, the natural world and meditative pieces on life, death, as well as evolutionary and or revolutionary considerations. Dan retired from teaching in 2014 and has begun producing books of poetry, haiku, and fiction.
Dan very much enjoys writing and says it’s good for the heart, mind, and health; he is fascinated by how words fit, chime, rhyme, and flow. As to his motive he says he writes because he cannot be silent and believes the right set of words, presented in the right setting, is one of the ways civilization evolves and transforms lives. He has said poetry is the formless becoming form; the light of creation, making sense of what is beyond sense – and that it’s a calling as eternal as the poet’s answer. As to method, he has often said he takes dictation and revises poems over time and it can be a matter of minutes or years to before a piece settles into final shape – still it is always fascinating.
Honored by small press publication and recognized in contests, he has been honored in the Poet’s Eleven Series, the renowned S.F. Peace and Hope’s anthology, has ties with the Bay Area Poet’s Coalition and the Haiku Poets of Northern California. Over the decades he’s led workshops, featured at venues in and around San Francisco, and has supported the poetry community with the SF One Page Guide to Open Mic Poetry, The Global Open Mic, and encouraging poets in his role as curator of the Sacred Grounds open mic poetry series known for Good food and fine poetry since 1972.
Third Thursday Poetry & Jazz is supported by The Third Thursday Poetry Group, many anonymous donors, and Poets & Writers, Inc. through a grant it has received from The James Irvine Foundation.
