Jackson County poet and author Thomas Rain Crowe has embarked on a two-week reading and promotional tour in France for a new book which has just been published by La Main Courante Publishers.

The book, an anthology of poets who were part of the San Francisco Renaissance during the 1970s, is titled The Baby Beat Generation & The 2nd San Francisco Renaissance. Among others, it features Crowe’s poetry and a preface he wrote for the volume.

“This is an historic documentation of the 1970s literary scene in the San Francisco Bay Area, with photos, various memorabilia, poems, biographies, bibliographies, and a CD with several of the Beats and the ‘Baby Beats’ (the next generation of poets in direct line of the Beat tradition) recorded during those years,” says Crowe.

As part of the two-week reading tour, Crowe and six of the other Baby Beats included in the anthology will appear at 10 different locations in northern France to speak, read their poems and sign books. Readings have been booked in such well-known venues as the historic Shakespeare & Co. Bookstore in Paris, the American Library in Paris, the Modern Art Museum, the famed Café de la Mairie, and L’Alimentation, one of Paris’ hottest nightclubs, as well as variety of other venues between Paris and Lyon.

The Baby Beat Generation book is bilingual (French and English) and is 270 pages in length.

The Baby Beat Generation was released and in the stores in France in late November and is now available in the U.S. and being distributed by Small Press Distribution (SPD) in Berkeley, Calif. The American launch for the book was held at the Black Mountain College Museum & Arts Center in downtown Asheville on Dec. 16. Other celebrations and events commemorating the book’s publication and the 1970s San Francisco Renaissance are being planned for New York and San Francisco later in the winter and the spring of 2006. Thomas Rain Crowe is the author of several books of poetry and translations. His book Zoro’s Field: My Life in the Appalachian Woods, published by the University of Georgia Press, won the Ragan Old North State Award for the best book of nonfiction in the state of North Carolina for 2005. He will be reading and talking about The Baby Beat Generation in various bookstores and venues around western North Carolina during the coming months.