The Golden Mean: A Reading Series

Join us for the first intallment of The Golden Mean, a quarterly reading series that brings together poets from USC's PhD in Creative Writing & Literature program with other notable poets from Los Angeles and beyond. Featuring readings by Alexandria Hall, Elizabeth Metzger, Nicholas Molbert, Chris Santiago, and Jorrell Watkins. Hosted and curated by L.A. Johnson.

Following the readings, be sure to join us for a reception & book signings.

Doors Open: 7:30 PM I Readings: 8:00 PM

Alexandria Hall is the author of Field Music (Ecco, 2020), a winner of the National Poetry Series. She holds an MFA from NYU and is currently a PhD candidate in Creative Writing and Literature at USC. She was a founding editor of Tele- and now co-hosts the podcast You Shouldn't Let Poets Lie to You. Her work has appeared in The Bennington Review, LARB Quarterly Journal, The Yale Review, and other publications. She lives in Los Angeles.

Elizabeth Metzger is the author of The Going Is Forever (forthcoming from Milkweed) and Lying In, as well as The Spirit Papers, winner of the Juniper Prize for Poetry. Her poems have been published in the New Yorker, Paris Review, Poetry, American Poetry Review, The Nation, and Poem-A-Day. Her essays have been published in Boston Review, Guernica, Conjunctions, PN Review, and Literary Hub, among others. She is a poetry editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Nicholas Molbert is a poet from South Louisiana. His first book, Altars of Spine and Fraction, came out last year from Northwestern University Press. His work appears in The Cincinnati Review, The Greensboro Review, Mississippi Review, and Missouri Review among others. He holds a PhD from the University of Cincinnati and an MFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He's working on a second book-length manuscript about the coastal communities and landscapes where he grew up.

Chris Santiago is the author of Tula, winner of the Lindquist & Vennum Prize and a Finalist for the Minnesota Book Award, and Small Wars Manual, to be published by Milkweed Editions next year. Recent poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, Poetry Northwest, Beloit Poetry Journal, and American Public Media's The Slowdown. A Poetry Mentor at the Loft and Fellow of the McKnight Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and Kundiman, he received his PhD from the USC Literature & Creative Writing Program and joined the Faculty of the CalArts Creative Writing Program in September 2023.

Jorrell Watkins is from Richmond, VA. He received fellowships from the Smithsonian Institution, Fulbright Japan and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. His chapbook, If Only the Sharks Would Bite, won the inaugural Desert Pavilion Chapbook Series in Poetry. His debut full-length collection, PlayHouse: poems was recently published by Northwestern University Press.

Ticket purchase is required. No one will be turned away for lack of funds! 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.

Livestream: If you can’t join us in-person the event will be livestreamed on at the scheduled time of the event.

Host or Publisher Beyond Baroque Literary | Arts Center