BEYOND BAROQUE presents WIDE AWAKE: POETS OF LOS ANGELES AND BEYOND

Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond (Beyond Baroque Books)

Join us for a special evening with four poets from one of our favorite local publishers.

"What is this aesthetic? I’d call it offhand if that didn’t sound dismissive. Perhaps a better word is “self-aware.” This is how Lummis refers to it in her introduction, which cites, as emblematic, Florence Weinberger’s “The Light Gatherers,” with its stirring image of those who “poke around the blasted pieces / for traces of what newspapers call ‘human remains’ / … Impossible to get it all.”...

That sensibility — of poetry as observation, of poetry as piecing together, of poetry as a way to see beneath the surfaces of a city that still, to some extent, defines itself by surfaces — is central to Wide Awake. It is both a diverse collection and a consistent one, a framing of voices, all trying to make sense of not Los Angeles in the abstract, but on the most concrete, experiential terms.

Lummis is an ideal guide for this endeavor — poet, anthologist, long-time L.A. literary booster — although perhaps the most essential aspect of the book is her generosity. As with its predecessor, 1997’s Grand Passion: The Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond, her intent here is not to showcase any particular school or aesthetic, but rather the range of Southern California poetry.

Praise for Wide Awake

"There is little myth in Wide Awake, just a set of personalities, perspectives: the poets of Los Angeles. Like L.A. itself, the book is a shifting landscape, formal and informal, collective and individual. The conversation it provokes insists we ask the most fundamental questions: Who are we? How do we live here? What is the essence of our engagement with this place?" - David Ulin, LA Times Book Critic

S.A. Griffin lives, loves and works in Los Angeles. Editor, The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (Firecracker Award), Mr. Griffin has been appeared in many poetry zines and anthologies including the upcoming Cross-Strokes edited by Neeli Cherkovski and Bill Mohr. In 2014 he released his newest collection of poetry Dreams Gone Mad With Hope on Punk Hostage Press. Since 1985 he has been touring extensively throughout the U.S. and Canada with poetry performance super groups The Lost Tribe, White Trash Apocalypse and The Carma Bums. From April-June of 2010 he toured the United States with his Poetry Bomb, “Elsie”. Named Best Performance Poet for The LA Weekly by Wanda Coleman, in 2011 he honored to be the first recipient of Beyond Baroque's Distinguished Service Award. On his blog talk radio show Onword he has had the real honor and privilege to interview many world class poets and writers including three time Poet Laureate of the United States Robert Pinsky, beat poet and writer Hettie Jones and Elizabeth Bishop, editor Poet Laureates of The United States. In 2014 he edited and published Michael Lane Bruner's Natural Geographics (Rose of Sharon Press) and most recently had the privilege to edit Scott Wannberg's newest book The Official Language of Yes for Perceval Press scheduled for release in August 2015. Father, husband and Vietnam era vet; he is owned by two beautiful cats.

Suzanne Lummis studied poetry at CSU Fresno, and has been a longtime teacher for the UCLA Extension Writers' Program. Open 24 Hours received the Blue Lynx Poetry Prize, and she's had poems in The New Yorker, The Antioch Review,Ploughshares, Hotel Amerika. Together with her students she wrote, The Poetry Mystique: Inside the Contemporary Poetry Workshop (2015). She's the 2015 recipient of Beyond Baroque's George Drury Smith Outstanding Achievement in Poetry Award. And she's one of the Nearly Fatal Women.

Harry E. Northup has had ten poetry books published, including Where Bodies Again Recline.  Harry was an original member of the Wednesday night poetry workshop that began in early 1969 at Beyond Baroque.  Northup received his B.A. in English, at CSUN, where he studied verse with Ann Stanford.  He is a founding member of Cahuenga Press and is married to the poet Holly Prado.

Holly Prado's eleventh book, Oh, Salt/Oh, Desiring Hand, was published in Fall, 2013 by Cahuenga Press. She's been an active part of the Los Angeles poetry community since the early 1970s. Poet Holly Prado was born in 1938 in Lincoln, Nebraska. She received a B.A. from Albion College in 1960. After graduating, she moved to Los Angeles, where she remained to become an active, influential member of the Southern California literary community as a poet, educator, and regular participant in live poetry readings and literary events. She married actor and poet Harry Northup in 1990.