ROADS OF BREAD
  The Poetry of Eugene Ruggles

  Bird & Beckett Bookstore
654 Chenery Street, San Francisco, Calif.
Sunday, July 24 @ 2:30 p.m.

Jack & Adele Foley, Clive Matson, Doreen Stock, Delia Moon & Carl Macki...
Join us to celebrate the life & work of one of the city's all-time great poets with the hard cover release of -- Roads of Bread
his collected poetry now available in limited soft & hard cover editons from Petaluma River Press. 
Don't miss this chance to hear powerful  "deep image" poetry read by poets who knew and loved him.

Gene's poetry won wide acclaim, appearing in Poetry Magazine, the New Yorker and the Atlantic Monthly. His 1977 book, "Lifeguard in the Snow," was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and won the Great Lakes Colleges Association Award in Poetry. "Anyone who knows Gene knows his most astounding characteristic is his heart," said longtime friend and publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti, former San Francisco poet laureate and owner and founder of City Lights Bookstore. "He really empathizes with the downtrodden and the down-and-out. " The poetry benefits Ruggles organized attracted hundreds through the 1970s and early 1980s. Ruggles' benefits raised money and generated publicity for organizations such as Amnesty International and political causes such as the 18-month takeover of Alcatraz Island by American Indians in 1969 and the 1972 U.S. bombing of the Bach Mai Hospital during the Vietnam War. Ruggles attracted the best local poets, and others who traveled across the country to read at his benefits. They included Ferlinghetti, Andre Codrescu, Gary Snyder, Jack Hirschman, Kaye Boyle, and the international grand dame of poet activists, Muriel Rukeyser.

Bird & Beckett Books & Records
 654 Chenery Street
 San Francisco, Calif.
 415.586.3733
bird&beckett@yahoo.com