Two days before its lease was due to expire, Beyond Baroque, a literary nonprofit organization in Los Angeles, scored a grass-roots victory when the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously last Friday to approve a twenty-five-year extension at a dollar per year.

In last Sunday's edition of the Washington Post Book World, Robert Pinsky signed off as writer of the nationally syndicated Poet's Choice column after a three-year run. According to Book World editor Marie Arana, poet and memoirist Mary Karr, whose most recent poetry collection is Sinners Welcome (HarperCollins, 2006), will take over the column this Sunday.