What She Wants: Valentine's Poetry

Join us at Village Well Books & Coffee for an exciting and romantic poetry reading!

West Hollywood poet laureate Kim Dower combines the ecstasy and heartbreak of desire in What She Wants, her newest collection of poetry. She will be joined by Lory Bedikian for a reading and conversation perfect for anyone looking to celebrate Valentine's Day -- or anyone who hates Valentine's Day.

About the authors:

Kim (Freilich) Dower, author of What She Wants: Poems on Obsession, Desire, Despair,

Euphoria, has published five highly acclaimed collections of poetry, and was City Poet

Laureate of West Hollywood from October 2016 – October 2018. Her bestselling, I Wore

This Dress Today for You, Mom, an Eric Hoffer Book Award Finalist, was called a

“fantastic collection” by The Washington Post, “impressively insightful, thought-

provoking, and truly memorable” by The Midwest Book Review, and Shelf-Awareness

said, “These gorgeous gems are energized by the sheer power of her wit and irreverent

style.” Air Kissing on Mars, Kim’s first collection, was described by the Los Angeles

Times as, “sensual and evocative . . . seamlessly combining humor and heartache.” Slice

of Moon was called “unexpected and sublime,” by “O” magazine, Last Train to the

Missing Planet, “poems that speak about the grey space between tragedy and tenderness,

memory and loss, fragility and perseverance,” said Richard Blanco, and Sunbathing on

Tyrone Power’s Grave won the 2020 Independent Publishers Book Award Gold Medal

for Poetry.

Lory Bedikian’s second book Jagadakeer: Apology to the Body won the 2023 Prairie

Schooner/Raz-Shumaker Book Prize in Poetry published by the University of Nebraska

Press — September 2024 — and her first collection The Book of Lamenting won the Philip

Levine Prize for Poetry. She was recently chosen for the Poets & Writers “Get the Word

Out” Poetry Cohort 2024. Several of Bedikian’s poems received the First Prize Award in

the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry as part of the 2022 Nimrod Literary Awards.  Her work

is published in Tin House, Gulf Coast, The Los Angeles Review, BOULEVARD, The Adroit

Journal, Orion, wildness, and was featured on Pádraig Ó Tuama’s Poetry Unbound podcast.

Her poem “The Mechanic,” is included in the anthology Border Lines: Poems of Migration,

KNOPF, 2020.  Bedikian’s manuscript-in-progress received a 2021 grant from the Money

for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. Her work also appears in Massachusetts

Review’s “Revisiting WOMAN: An Issue, 50 Years Later.” Bedikian earned an MFA from

the University of Oregon. She teaches poetry workshops in Los Angeles and elsewhere.

Host or Publisher Village Well Books & Coffee