Plume Poetry just published a rave new review of Marsha de la O's Antidote for Night, in an installment that "celebrates National Poetry Month by examining four unsung collections from 2015."

Reveiws editor Adam Tavel calls the book a "sweeping inventory of the ecological and political complexity of Southern California," and an "adventurous, rangy collection that probes place-based poetics as well as the elemental power of family.

"Winner of the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award for 2015, Antidote for Night resists mere regionalism, however. . . . Like Gary Soto and Philip Levine, de la O has that rare gift to write poems rooted in a consistent landscape, yet the variety, nuance, and emotional maturity in her work transcend local considerations to achieve universal appeal. While a few inclusions suffer from didacticism ('Same Loom,' 'The Beautiful World'), others such as the pregnancy confessional 'Possum,' the aching threnody 'Crossing Over,' and the dazzling childhood narrative 'To Go to Riverside'—arguably the book’s best poem, and a master class in lineation, pacing, and euphony—blossom exquisitely with each reading."

The review concludes: "Antidote for Night is an ethereal, sonorous, and gripping collection that seeks, for humanity and for the earth, a reckoning with 'the actual damage/the way the body took it.'"

Click here to read the full Plume Poetry review.

Antidote for Night is available now at the BOA Bookstore.