Special Event
The Beyond Gala
Saturday, November 2
6 PM
In Person at Playa Studios and Live on YouTube
Get tickets for The Beyond Gala, Beyond Baroque’s 56th anniversary benefit and awards, on Saturday, November 2, 2024, at Playa Studios in Culver City! Join us in honoring poets Sesshu Foster, Ashaki M. Jackson, Douglas Messerli, and Exene Cervenka & John Doe, cofounders of the band X, who will be giving a special performance. Just added: UnCabaret's Beth Lapides will be joining us as MC. The evening will also feature cocktails; dinner; and a silent auction, featuring contemporary art, exclusive experiences, and other items.
Upcoming Events
CA Night of Ghazals: Tony Barnstone, Bilal Shaw, and friends
Friday, October 18
8:00 PM PT
In Person at Beyond Baroque & Live on YouTube
Walton Well Beyond Baroque welcomes you to celebrate the Urdu to English translation of two new books at A Night of Ghazals! Translators Bilal Shaw and Tony Barnstone have devoted time, energy, and passion to ensuring that the poems of Mir Taqi Mir (1723-1810) and Mirza Asadullah Beg Khan (1797-1869), will be enjoyed by a wider array of readers across the world. Several L.A. based poets will also be sharing their own original ghazals, including Anthony Lee, Scott Noon Creley, Terry Wolverton, Sarah Maclay, Yvonne Estrada, and Douglas Manuel.
Table Reading: What Is Freedom?
Saturday, October 19
11:00 AM PT
In Person at Beyond Baroque & Live on YouTube
Please join us for a session of careful, attentive live reading and interpretation of “What Is Freedom?” from Between Past and Future by Hannah Arendt.
Just in Time: Poetry and Jazz, Paul Vangelisti & Robyn's Nest Quintet
Saturday, October 19
2:00 PM PT
In Person at Beyond Baroque & Live on YouTube
Join us for an afternoon of poetry and jazz with Paul Vangelisti and Robyn's Nest Quintet!
California Dreaming? Writing the Golden State: The New Literary Terrain
Saturday, October 19
7:00 PM PT
In Person at Beyond Baroque & Live on YouTube
Writing the Golden State: The New Literary Terrain of California explores California through essays that look beyond the clichés of the “California Dream, " portraying a state that is deviant and recalcitrant, proud and humble, joyful and communal. It is a California that reclaims the beauty of the unwanted, the quotidian, and the out-of-place. Contributors, Ramón Garcia, Cassandra Lane, David Helps, Kenji Liu, Carribean Fragoza, will read excerpts from their essays, and copies of the book will be available for purchase.
Skulls & Stairs: Adam Stutz, Genesis Perez, Nicholas Wilder Forman, Celestial Cyclops
Thursday, October 24
7:30 PM PT
In Person at Beyond Baroque & Live on YouTube
Beyond Baroque presents Skulls & Stairs a reading series showcasing poets beyond text dwelling on the goth and the illuminating void. This Halloween special features performances in the staircase by poets Adam Stutz, celebrating two new books out from Whit Stag Press, Sham Tapestry & COMPUNCTIONS + THEFTS; Beyond Baroque bookstore-favorite and former Ventura County Youth Poet Laureate, Genesis Perez, and wicked BB intern, USC-undergrad, Nicholas Wilder Forman. The evening will feature a synthful set of archestral anarchy by The Martian Sunset keyboardist Ryan Madariaga, aka Celestial Cyclops. Dress up as your favorite spooky ghoul or dead author. All customes encouraged!
House of the Highest and Most Pious
Saturday, October 26
2:00 PM PT
In Person at Beyond Baroque & Live on YouTube
Based on anthologized material and using tongue twisting rhyming verse in the DADA tradition, Christian Georgescu's multimedia production House of The Highest and Most Pious (HOTHAMP) depicts a prosperity preacher's search for meaning as he contends with modern life amid late stage Capitalism. Featuring LA's premier spoken word artists S.A. Griffin, Rich Ferguson, Kathleen Florence, and Christine Jordan, HOTHAMP meets at the intersection of literature, circus, stadium event and church service.
Motherlands: Weijia Pan, Dare Williams & Sara Ellen Fowler
Saturday, October 26
7:00 PM PT
In Person at Beyond Baroque & Live on YouTube
Chosen by Louise Glück for the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize, Motherlands, by Weijia Pan, is an engrossing debut that interrogates history, identity, and the power of poetry to elucidate both. In celebration of his debut poetry collection Weija Pan will read alongside Dare Williams and Sara Ellen Fowler in the Wanda Coleman Theater. Book Signings before & after the readings.
More Upcoming Events
Upcoming Workshops
Learning How to Write a Ghazal from the American Blues
Saturday, October 19
11:00 AM - 2:00 PM PT
In this workshop, we will learn about the ghazal, the premier short form of poetry in the Middle East and South Asia. We will use a familiar American musical genre as a doorway to open into this great form of poetry: the blues. As it turns out, the American blues and the ghazal share a number of key thematic and structural elements that will help you to write a successful ghazal in English. We will take a look at some terrific American ghazals by Aga Shahid Ali, Roger Sederat, and Patricia Smith. We will also listen to and discuss several blues songs.
Critique Workshop with Dorianne Laux and Kim Addonizio
Saturday, November 23
11:00 AM - 2:00 PM PT
Bring a draft of a poem-in-progress (under 2 pages), with copies for all (14 total) for close reading from Kim and Dorianne. We’ll discuss elements like clarity, structure, line, image, and other aspects of craft, talk about what we value in poems, and give you specific ideas about revising your work.lues songs. Lastly, we’ll have a guided writing session and round of sharing our work.
Ongoing Free Workshops
Monday Night Fiction Workshop with Raquel Baker
Mondays 7:30 PM PT
Via Zoom
A community writing workshop in which participants are asked to bring 2-3 pages of fiction to read and receive feedback. Facilitated by Raquel Baker via Zoom. Registration required.
Wednesday Night Poetry Workshop with Arthur Kayzakian
Wednesdays 8:00 PM PT
Via Zoom
The West Coast’s longest-running free poetry workshop welcomes new and seasoned poets to share new work and provide feedback. Please be prepared to share one poem.
Current Exhibitions
Byron Baker & Will Alexander
Anonymous Steller Ravines vol 1.
October 12 - November 23, 2024
Anonymous Stellar Ravines is an exhibition of images from the newly published collaboration between artist Byron Baker and Beyond Baroque Poet-in-Residence Will Alexander. This collection of prints draws on their shared Surrealist tendencies, but also demonstrates the ongoing vitality of the techniques of automatism and belief in animism central to that tradition.
Proxy Gallery Presents
Sally Stein and Las Terminas,
In Dicey Times... Voting Matters Most!
October 11 - November 30, 2024
The present work, created expressly for the Proxy Gallery and titled “In dicey times… voting matters most!” combines symbolism and literalism to powerful effect: The title already prefigures a contradiction: Dice, the aleatory, stand for chance, while voting stands for the strong desire to make a difference in the outcome of the elections. Both these versions are true: the elections could go this way or that, but what is at stake is democracy itself.
We have new merch for you!
New arrivals include our new tote bags, zip bags, journals, candles, and of course, our classic Metaphors Be With You shirt. All proceeds support Beyond Baroque programming!
Visit our shop here
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