"Antidote for night" Won the 2015 Isabella Gardner Poetry Aw
Set in present-day Southern California, Antidote for Night is a heartbreak lyric, a corrido, a love song to California’s city lights and far-flung outskirts—the San Diego backcountry, the Central Valley, the Inland Empire, and the Mojave Desert. A book of remedies for dire circumstances, rock-bottom realities, and the unrelenting weight of mortality, specifically among young men of color, this collection shows what it takes to see in darkness. Marsha de la O’s voice is a kind of free jazz, musically rich with L.A. noir and the vastness of metropolitan Southern California.
https://www.boaeditions.org/collections/marsha-de-la-o/products/antidote-for-night
David Wojahn
“The poetry of Marsha de la O continually alternates between two frequencies—the quotidian and the strange. And, like Transtromer or Bishop, she is a fearless investigator of those liminal states where everyday reality turns to terror—or to transcendence. It takes a craftsperson of extraordinary gifts to undertake such sojourns, yet Marsha de la O has all the skills and all the character to complete the tasks she has set for herself. Her poems are bracing, frightening, and—I would go as far as to say—prophetic. Antidote for Night is, quite simply, a remarkable accomplishment.”
Amy Uyematsu
“If I didn't know Marsha de la O was a former schoolteacher, I'd swear she was equal parts deep sea diver, alchemist, and sage. In her newest book, Antidote for Night, she dives fearlessly into the darkest waters and brings back the extraordinary, both delightful and painful, where we enounter 'unhinged saints' and 'trumpet players,' 'ragpickers' and 'neighbor girls' in a territory as familiar as de la O's beloved Southern California, and as unexplored as 'a river tumbling like raw silk through a gorge' or the 'slippery pottage of my heart.' A pregnant possum, the unforgettable ride down a highway, another woman vacuuming—take on dimensions you couldn't imagine before but know so true. Trust de la O's voice, as she welcomes the darkness that breathes and riffs through this luminous life.”
Suzanne Lummis
“For the power, mystery, intelligence, and ravishing beauty of her language, Marsha de la O has long been one of my favorite poets of the region. And with Antidote for Night, she is fully deserving of a national reputation and a readership as wide and broad as poets might be allowed in our particular age.”
David St. John
“I've loved the poems of Marsha de la O for many years, yet, Antidote for Night, arrives like a revelation. These psalms of California past and present reflect a profound wisdom, one earned quietly and slowly, in the midst of the somber tides of those lives she celebrates. Don't miss these powerful and visceral meditations for the dark.”