L.A. Book Launch: I Woke a Lake by Susan McCabe

Join poet Susan McCabe for a reading from I Woke a Lake, a lyrical and layered exploration that traverses deep time and personal history—moving from the Ice Age to ancient, pre-human Los Angeles, from Sweden’s 377-million-year-old Siljan lake to the eerie hush of a melting ice hotel. The poems ripple across haunted terrains: abandoned mines, blasted orchards, a Veterans’ Cemetery, a cryopreservation site, and Elizabeth Bishop’s childhood home. With dreamlike reverie and sharp elegy, I Woke a Lake tunes into what remains, what is vanishing, and what can still be overheard. She will be joined in The Wanda Coleman Theater by scholars and authors, David St. John, and Anna Journey.

Following the readings, join us for book signings & reception with light refreshments.

Doors Open: 5:30 PM I Readings: 6:00 PM

Susan McCabe is a professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, teaching poetics, modernism, ecology, and creative writing. She is the author of two books of poetry, Swirl, a Lambda Literary finalist, and Descartes’ Nightmare; two critical books, Elizabeth Bishop: Her Poetics of Loss, and Cinematic Modernism; and a dual bi-biography, H.D & Bryher: An Untold Love Story of Modernism. Her poetry reviews have appeared in Los Angeles Review of Books, Kenyon Review, and Denver Quarterly, and elsewhere.

David St. John is the author of twelve collections of poetry as well as a prose volume, Where the Angels Come Toward Us. He is University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at The University of Southern California.

Anna Journey is the author of the poetry collections The Judas Ear (2022), The Atheist Wore Goat Silk (2017), and Vulgar Remedies (2013), all from LSU Press, and If Birds Gather Your Hair for Nesting (University of Georgia Press, 2009), which was selected by Thomas Lux for the National Poetry Series. She’s also published the essay collection An Arrangement of Skin (Counterpoint, 2017). Her poems appear in American Poetry Review, The Best American Poetry, FIELD, The Georgia Review, The Kenyon Review, The New Yorker, Poetry, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. Her essays have been published in AGNI, The Believer, The Southern Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and Utne Reader. Journey teaches creative writing and literature as an associate professor of English at the University of Southern California.

Ticket purchase is required. Tickets will be available at the Beyond Baroque bookstore on the day of the event, but we recommend registering in advance through Eventbrite. Masks are encouraged while inside our center. Please arrive early.

Event attendees are expected to behave in a respectful and considerate manner while in our space. Beyond Baroque reserves the right to remove individuals from our events, virtual or otherwise, if they are not respecting the space, staff, fellow attendees, or performers.

Livestream: If you can’t join us in-person the event will be livestreamed on at the scheduled time of the event.

Also check out other Arts events in Los Angeles, Literary Art events in Los Angeles, Performances in Los Angeles.