Beat Poetry & Poetry in Translation: Michael Amitin & Doreen Stock

Beyond Baroque welcome Michael Amitin and Doreen Stock reading new and selected work in The Wanda Coleman Theater in celebration of their most recent books.

International Beat Poet Laureate (2020-2021) Michael Amitin reads from his new collection Rainy Night Paris; described as a noir-soaked chronicle of Amitin's travels; anti-authoritarian to the bone, the poems burn with jazzy riffs and folk undercurrents for misfits and night owls. Author and translator, Doreen Stock, presents La Cuenta Mundo a bilingual collection of poems originally written in Spanish by Nobel-Prize winning Chilean author Gabriela Mistral with English translations by Stock.

Following the readings in The Wanda Coleman Theater, join us for a reception and book signing.

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

Praise for La Cuenta Mundo and Rainy Night

"Doreen Stock delivers the brilliance of Gabriela Mistral in the ways only a great translator can, one intimately connected not only at the level of the word, but the syllable, the very clay from which Mistral draws her breath to form this litany of fire, of loam, this 'trembling halfway between the body and the soul.' In these early poems, written long before her Nobel recognition, animals, fruits, wounded pines, and mountains bow to the tenderness and awe few poets have managed to capture in language as well as Mistral does. Stock has descended into the petrichor of Mistral’s imagination in these sparse poems that belie their complexity, and has emerged with a rare gift, one that will compel you to “abandon yourself, dizzy to the swaying.”

–Marcelo Castillo Hernandez, Cenzontle and Children of the Land

"An ancient master of poetics wanders from Montparnasse to North Beach, and everywhere in between and beyond, weaving music into poems. birthing emotionally dark, lyrical, intimately raw tension filled beat down songs of longing, of melancholy, of sorrow, of ecstatic joy, with a hit of psychedelic surrealist logic of hallucination, stitched together with the symphinic harmony of the speheres. Michael D. Amitin's new Rainy Night Paris is a musical masterpiece."

–Ron Whitehead, U.S. National Lifetime Beat Poet Laureate

About the authors

Poet and musician Michael D. Amitin travelled the roads of the American West from California-east through the smoky burgs and train depot diners of Western Colorado, before moving to Paris, France in 2009 where he currently lives. Named International Beat Poet Laureate 2020-2021, Amitin's poems have been published in California Quarterly, Poetry Pacific, North of Oxford, PoetryontheLake, Love Love Magazine, Litterateurrw, The Dreaming Machine and many others. His first poetry chapbook Shadow Morph*ne Dress was released with Anxiety Press in spring 2025, and his follow-up full-length book of poems Rainy Night Paris was recently released with Anxiety Press May1, 2026. A collaboration with Parisian photographer Julie Peiffer on the"Riverlights" project can be found on Fb and instagram @riverlights. Amitin's poetry can also be discovered on FB and Instagram sites bearing his name.

Fairfax, California poet, memoir practitioner and literary translator Doreen Stock, recently launched A Noise in the Garden, Kelsay Books, Feb. 2022 along with Your Excellency Free Will, translations from the Argentine Spanish of Amparo Casabellas Alconada, Prosa Amerian Editores, 2021. Other works include: Bye Bye Blackbird, poems of her mother’s last year, The Poetry Box, May, 2021; Tango Man, a collection of love poems, Finishing Line Press, in August, 2020. My Name is Y, an anti-nuclear memoir, February, 2019, Norfolk Press; Three Tales from the Archives of Love, Norfolk Press, 2018, a work of historical fiction; Talking with Marcelo, Mine Gallery Editions in 2017, a book-length interview of Argentine Journalist Marcelo Holot; In Place of Me, Poems edited and introduced by Jack Hirschman, Mine Gallery Editions, 2015; The Politics of Splendor, Alcatraz Editions, Santa Cruz, 1984, poems and translations from the Russian. An interview and reading of Doreen’s poetry can be viewed online at Marin Poet’s Live! She is a founding member of The Marin Poetry Center. For more information please visit doreenstock.com

About Beyond Baroque

Beyond Baroque is one of the United States' leading independent Literary | Arts Centers and public spaces dedicated to expanding the public's knowledge of poetry, literature and art through cultural events and community interaction. Founded in 1968 as an experimental literary magazine, 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 and workshops. The building also houses a bookstore with a large collection of new poetry books for sale.

Livestream: If you can’t join us in person the event will be livestreamed on at the scheduled time of the event. If you are tuning in this way, no ticket purchase is necessary.

If you are attending in person, 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.