The Golden Mean: A USC & Beyond Baroque Reading Series

Join us for the third installment of The Golden Mean, a quarterly reading series that brings together poets from the University of Southern California's PhD in Creative Writing & Literature program with other notable poets from Los Angeles and beyond.

Featuring readings by T Bambrick, Douglas Manuel, Katheleen Maris Paltrineri, Eduardo Martínez-Leyva, and Nathan Xavier Osorio. This installment was curated by Liz Johsnon and we are welcoming a new host for the series! Matthew Gellman, author of Beforelight, and a PhD candidate in literature and creative writing at USC, will be presenting the poets in The Wanda Coleman Theater.

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

This program is sponsored by the USC Ph.D. Program in Creative Writing & Literature.

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

About the Authors

T Bambrick is the author of Intimacies, Received (Copper Canyon Press 2022), and Vantage (American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Award 2019). Their work can be found in the New Yorker, The Nation, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. A 2020 Wallace Stegner Fellow, they have received fellowships from the Sewanee Writer’s Conference, Community of Writers, Vermont Studio Center, and the Key West Literary Seminar, as well as scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference and the Bread Loaf Environmental Writer’s Conference. She lives in Los Angeles and is a Dornsife Fellow in the creative writing PhD program at the University of Southern California.

Douglas Manuel was born in Anderson, Indiana and now resides in Long Beach, California. He received a BA in Creative Writing from Arizona State University, an MFA in poetry from Butler University, and a PhD in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California. He is the author of two collections of poetry, Testify (2017) and Trouble Funk (2023). His poems and essays can be found in numerous literary journals, magazines, and websites, most recently Ploughshares and the Los Angeles Review of Books. He has traveled to Egypt and Eritrea with The University of Iowa's International Writing Program to teach poetry. A recipient of the Dana Gioia Poetry Award and a fellowship from the Borchard Foundation Center on Literary Arts, he is an assistant professor of English at Whittier College and teaches at Spalding University’s low-res MFA program.

Kathleen Maris Paltrineri is a poet-translator from Iowa and the recipient of a Fulbright fellowship to Norway. Her translation of Norwegian poet Kristin Berget’s and when the light comes it will be so fantastic (Northwestern University Press, 2025) is supported by a Stanley Award for International Research and by NORLA, Norwegian Literature Abroad. For her own poetry, Paltrineri has received support from the Arctic Circle Residency, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and Jentel Artist Residency. Her poems have recently appeared in Spoon River Poetry Review, Bone Bouquet, and Bennington Review.

Eduardo Martínez-Leyva, born in El Paso, TX, to Mexican immigrants, is the author of Cowboy Park, winner of the 2024 Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry from the University of Wisconsin Press. His work appears in Poetry Magazine, The Adroit Journal, Narrative Magazine, The Slowdown, The Hopkins Review, Best New Poets, and elsewhere. He has received fellowships from CantoMundo, The Frost Place, Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Lambda Literary, and Columbia University, where he earned his MFA. He was a 2024 Get the Word Out publicity incubator participant with Poets & Writers and has served as writer-in-residence at St. Albans School for Boys in Washington, D.C.

Nathan Xavier Osorio’s debut collection of poetry, Querida (University of Pittsburgh Press), won the 2024 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize selected by Shara McCallum. He is the author of The Last Town Before the Mojave, selected by Oliver De la Paz as a recipient for the Poetry Society of America’s 2021 Chapbook Fellowship. He received his PhD in Literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz in Literature and holds an MFA in Poetry and Literary Translation from Columbia University’s School of the Arts. He was selected as a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Irvine and his work has appeared in BOMB, Gulf Coast, The Rumpus, Boston Review, The Notre Dame Review, U.S. LatinX Art Forum, The Slowdown, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, and elsewhere. He is the 2025 Dartmouth Poet-in-Residence and an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Texas Tech University.

Matthew Gellman's first book, Beforelight, was selected by Tina Chang as the winner of BOA Editions, Ltd.'s A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. His second book, The Understudy, is forthcoming from Four Way Books in 2027. Matthew has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Brooklyn Poets, Adroit's Djanikian Scholars Program, the Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Bread Loaf Writers Conference, and elsewhere. His poems have appeared in Bennington Review, Gulf Coast, Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, Indiana Review, The Common, Lambda Literary's Poetry Spotlight, and other publications. He is currently a PhD candidate in literature and creative writing at the University of Southern California.

L. A. Johnson is the author of the chapbook Little Climates (Bull City Press, 2017). She holds an MFA from Columbia University and a PhD from University of Southern California, where she is currently a Mellon Humanities and University of the Future postdoctoral fellow. The winner of the 2022 Mississippi Review Poetry Prize, the 2022 Greensboro Review Poetry Prize, the 2021 Arts & Letters Rumi Poetry Prize, her poems appear in The Atlantic, Poetry Magazine, and The Slowdown. She's received support for her writing from Vermont Studio Center, Community of Writers, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Sewanee Writers' Conference, and elsewhere. Find more about her at http://www.la-johnson.com.

is one of the United States' leading independent Literary | Arts Centers and public spaces dedicated to expanding the public's knowledge of poetry, literature and art through cultural events and community interaction. Founded in 1968 as an experimental literary magazine, Beyond Baroque is based out of the original City Hall building in Venice, California. The Center offers a diverse variety of literary and arts programming including readings and workshops. The building also houses a bookstore with a large collection of new poetry books for sale.

Livestream: If you can’t join us in person the event will be livestreamed on at the scheduled time of the event. If you are tuning in this way, no ticket purchase is necessary.

This is a free event, but please note seating is limited. We recommend registering in advance through Eventbrite. Masks are encouraged while inside our center. Please arrive early.

Event attendees are expected to behave in a respectful and considerate manner while in our space. Beyond Baroque reserves the right to remove individuals from our events, virtual or otherwise, if they are not respecting the space, staff, fellow attendees, or performers.

Host or Publisher Beyond Baroque Literary | Arts Center