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. Marsha de la O's voice is a kind of free jazz, musically rich with LA noir and the vastness of metropolitan Southern California.

Marsha de la O's Black Hope won the New Issues Prize from the University of Western Michigan and an Editor's Choice Award. She has taught...