L.A. Book Launch: In the Thaw Of Day by Cynthia Good

In The Thaw of Day, a new collection of poems by Cynthia Good, chronicles the speaker’s recovery and life after leaving an abusive marriage, and coming to terms with trauma experienced over the course of a lifetime, and her journey to heal while finding humor, as well as deep meaning and joy in the smallest things. Good’s poems are “beautifully and roughly navigate all of life’s travails—grief, love, the body, motherhood, daughterhood. All the while, the speaker in these poems remains steadfast to life and survival. These poems are imagistic, lyrically plain spoken, and wise,” says Victoria Chang, author of The Trees Witness Everything.

The author will be reading in the Wanda Coleman Theater alongside poets Kim Addonizio, Dorianne Laux, and Michelle Bitting. Enjoy a reception before and after the readings. Book signings will follow after the readings.

Doors Open: 7:30 PM I Readings: 8:00 PM

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

Cynthia Good is an award-winning poet, journalist and former TV anchor, for years recognizable on Atlanta’s evening news. Also, a known women’s advocate, Cynthia launched two women’s business magazines, Atlanta Woman and the nationally distributed PINK magazine to advance women at work. Both have won awards for editorial and design. Cynthia is the author of eight books, including two collections of poems, What We Do with Our Hands, and In The Thaw of Day published by Finishing Line Press. With a Poetry MFA from NYU, Cynthia’s poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in numerous acclaimed journals including Book of Matches, Chiron Review, Free State Review, Green Hills Literary Lantern, La Presa, Main Street Rag, Open: Journal of Arts & Letters, Silver Birch Press, Terminus Magazine, Tupelo Quarterly and Waxing & Waning among others. Cynthia lives in Santa Monica and Mexico with her Havanese dog Zuni.

Dorianne Laux’s sixth collection, Only As the Day is Long: New and Selected Poems was named a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Her fifth collection, The Book of Men, was awarded The Paterson Prize. Her fourth book of poems, Facts About the Moon, won The Oregon Book Award and was short-listed for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. Laux is also the author of Awake; What We Carry, a finalist for the National Book Critic’s Circle Award; Smoke; as well as a fine small press edition, The Book of Women. She is the co-author of the celebrated text The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry. Her latest collection is Life On Earth.

A fourth generation Angeleno, Michelle Bitting grew up in Los Angeles near the ocean. She studied theatre, wrote poems, danced, played music as an undergraduate at UC Berkeley and went on to study Meisner acting and perform as a modern dancer, including a two year workshop and filming stint with Twyla Tharp for the James L. Brooks movie, I'll Do Anything. Michelle Bitting was short-listed for the 2023 CRAFT Character Sketch Challenge, the 2020 Montreal International Poetry Prize, and a finalist for the 2021 Coniston Prize and 2020 Reed Magazine Edwin Markham Prize. She is the author of five poetry collections, including Nightmares & Miracles (Two Sylvias Press, 2022), winner of the Wilder Prize and recently named one of Kirkus Reviews 2022 Best of Indie. Her most recently published chapbook is Dummy Ventriloquist. Bitting holds an MFA in Creative Writing and a PhD in Mythological Studies, emphasis Poetry and Psychology. She is writing a novel that centers around Los Angeles and her great grandmother, stage and screen actor Beryl Mercer, and is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing and Literature at Loyola Marymount University.

Kim Addonizio is the author of over a dozen books of prose and poetry. Her latest poetry collection is Exit Opera (W.W. Norton). . Her memoir-in-essays, Bukowski in a Sundress, was published by Penguin. She is co-author, with Dorianne Laux, of The Poet’s Companion. Addonizio’s work has been translated into several languages and honored with fellowships from the NEA and Guggenheim Foundation, and her collection Tell Me was a finalist for the National Book Award. She lives in Oakland, CA and teaches poetry workshops on Zoom. https://www.kimaddonizio.com

This event is free & in-person.

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, fellow attendees, or performers.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, 681 Venice Blvd, Los Angeles, United States