April 17, 2017

Maria Gillan Wins Beyond Baroque Poetry Contest


Poet Diane Wakoski selected Maria Gillan's poem "In Georgia, a Lake" as the first place winner for Beyond Baroque's poetry contest.

In selecting the poem Diane said, "I selected this poem for the use of the Lake as a trope, a drying-up lake that evolves through the poem to be revealed that the speaker has a lake inside herself, a large one, but because it is drying up due global warming, is just a big hole, and that hole is transformed into the place were her love for her son, who disagrees with her on important things like global warming and thus her love is not enough to close the difference between them. Beautiful poem about both the personal and the public."

Maria's poem "In Our House Nobody Ever Said" was also selected as a runner up in he contest.

A ceremony and reading will be held in Los Angeles.

Beyond Baroque is one of the United States' leading independent Literary and  Arts Centers and public spaces dedicated to expanding the public's knowledge of poetry, literature and art through cultural events and community interaction. It will have a year-long celebration of its 50th anniversary in 2018. Founded in 1968, Beyond Baroque is based out of the original City Hall building in Venice, California.

The Center offers a diverse variety of literary and arts programming including readings, workshops, new music and education. Through the years, Beyond Baroque has played muse to the Venice Beats, the burgeoning Punk movement and had on stage visiting poets and scholars, including Wanda Coleman, Tom Waits, Patti Smith, Michael McClure, Dana Gioia, and Viggo Mortensen. Beyond Baroque is a member of the Poetry Coalition.




Maria Mazziotti Gillan is the author of twenty-one books. Her latest publications are the poetry collection, What Blooms in Winter and the poetry and art collection, The Girls in the Chartreuse Jackets . Maria's official website is at MariaGillan.com.

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