Beyond Baroque Books is proud to announce the release of Poetry Goes to the Movies, a landmark anthology from the Pacific Coast Poetry Series, edited by acclaimed poet Suzanne Lummis.

The collection brings together 100 poets responding to film—its myths, influence, and deep entanglement with personal and collective memory. Featuring work from Rita Dove, Sesshu Foster, Michael Ondaatje, Danez Smith, Kim Addonizio, Martín Espada, Amy Gerstler, Sally Wen Mao, Diane Seuss, Amber Tamblyn, William Archila, Robert Pinsky, Paisley Rekdal, Brendan Constantine, David Hernandez, and many others, the book presents an expansive and dazzling exploration of cinema’s impact on literature and life.

Lummis said about the book: “Why another anthology of poetry that responds to movies, individual movies, movies in general, artistic or tech elements, actors or their characters, scripts and their themes, movies and memory, or just going-to-the-movies? It’s been done. But never like this. Poetry Goes to the Movies is the first such collection to rise from L.A.”

Los Angeles is synonymous with film, but it’s also a city of poets. In Poetry Goes to the Movies, Lummis and LA’s oldest literary institution, Beyond Baroque bring together these voices to reflect on the art form and global industry that dominates the region. Some poets write from inside the industry, others from the margins, all engaging with film in unexpected ways.

Many contributors have worked in film, while others have experienced the industry as outsiders, moviegoers, and critics. The result is a range of perspectives—nostalgic, humorous, sharply critical, and deeply intimate. Readers will find reflections on classic and cult films, meditations on actors and characters, dissections of Hollywood myths, explorations of cinema’s role in shaping history and culture, and poetic counternarratives to the representations found in the movies.

To celebrate the release of Poetry Goes to the Movies, Beyond Baroque will host a launch event on Friday, March 28, 2025, at 7 PM in its historic Wanda Coleman Theater, coinciding with AWP Los Angeles 2025. The event will feature readings from select contributors, followed by a reception and party in the Poets’ Garden.

About Beyond Baroque Books

The Beyond Baroque Foundation had its origins in 1968 as an avant-garde poetry magazine called Beyond Baroque. In order to support emerging and established poets in Los Angeles and beyond, the Foundation began publishing books and chapbooks in 1971.

Titles include Building Some Changes, the first book from Los Angeles’ first Poet Laureate, Eloise Klein Healy, Maxine Chernoff's first collection, Vegetable Emergency as well as K. Curtis Lyle's 15 Predestination Weather Reports. The Foundation, through its various publications, also produced works by Dennis Cooper, Amy Gerstler, Bill Mohr, Harry Northup, Holly Prado, and Wanda Coleman, to name a few.

The Foundation’s current press, Beyond Baroque Books, was launched in 1998 by Fred Dewey. It has published numerous books and several magazines featuring works by Jean-Luc Godard, Jack Hirschman, Diane di Prima, David Meltzer, Puma Perl and more. Its most recent publications are The Writing Life: 55 Years at Beyond Baroque and Peter J. Harris’ collection, SongAgain.

In 2013, Beyond Baroque Books launched a new imprint, The Pacific Coast Poetry Series, which has published the anthology Wide Awake: The Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond, as well as individual titles by Nance Van Wickel, Carine Topal, Carol Ellis, and Carol Potter.