Beyond Baroque

Join us for an evening celebrating new books by Robert Hass and Brenda Hillman in The Wanda Coleman Theater at Beyond Baroque 🪴

Robert Hass’s A Third Commonness: Essays on Poetry, Poetics, and the Natural World, published by Copper Canyon Press, traces a literary and ecological lineage through poets, writers, landscapes, and traditions. In A Third Commonness, U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass follows a literary river through time and topography—from Zen Buddhism to California ecopoetics, from Barry Lopez to Walt Whitman, and even through an unlikely fellowship between Kentucky poet-priests. Told through essays and lectures, A Third Commonness is as much a love letter to landscape as it is a sprawling exploration of poetic heritage.

Brenda Hillman’s Still House in the Desert: An Eco-Contemplation, published in the Wesleyan Poetry Series, brings together meditations on time, domestic spaces, childhood, family, and non-human life. Each of Brenda Hillman’s books has been transformative for her readers, and her twelfth collection is no exception. Building on previous volumes about seasons, days and minutes, Hillman concludes her masterful quartet about time with an ecological journey into a family home of the mid-twentieth century 📚

Doors open at 7pm, we hope to see you there!

Join us for a celebration of the book-length poem, Padre Tierra (Artepoetica Press), by Mariano Zaro, translated from Spanish by Blas Falconer 🪶

This bilingual edition moves between the rooms of a childhood home in rural Northern Spain and the body of a father becoming, by degrees, the land itself. The poets will be reading excerpts from the book in The Wanda Coleman Theater followed by a reception and book signings 🍷

Mariano and Blas are long time members of the Beyond Baroque community. We are excited to have them in our space, and we hope to see you there 🙂‍↕️

Join us in an afternoon of readings with Paul Vangelisti and Vincent Katz at Beyond Baroque!

Katz will be reading from his books Daffodil and Accounts—a collaborative book with painter Richard Bosman, while Vangelisti will be reading from his recent book Traveling. Both poets are prolific writers and translators whose work has been influential in contemporary poetry and the arts. 📚🪻

For more information and tickets, click the link in our bio.

Join us at Beyond Baroque for the screening of the documentary “The Figures” and a Q&A with director Nadia Szold and poet Geoffrey Young. 🎬🎥

A lively portrait of poet, publisher and artist Geoffrey Young, The Figures traverses the studios of artists & writers in his orbit as they dive into a freewheeling volley on the art making practice, lineages and the essence of time & language itself. The Figures began as a small literary press but it continually charted new territory, championing one of the most influential movements in latter 20th century literature—“language poetry.” And The Geoffrey Young Gallery always shined a light on young artists just breaking onto the scene. ✒️🎞️

Tickets are available through the link in our bio. 🎟️

What makes a story feel haunted long before a ghost appears? Why do familiar places, forgotten objects, and half-remembered stories linger in our minds long after we’ve left them behind? 💫

In this three-hour generative workshop, we’ll examine how contemporary writers evoke the eerie and create emotional tension through absence, memory, and longing. Drawing on the work of Carmen Maria Machado, Angela Carter, Helen Oyeyemi, and their reimaginings of familiar folktales, we’ll translate literary theory into practical craft techniques through close reading, discussion, and a sequence of interconnected writing exercises. ✨

Designed for writers of all genres and experience levels, each prompt builds upon the last, allowing participants to leave with the beginnings of a new story or a deeper understanding of an existing project while discovering new craft tools for creating atmosphere, emotional resonance, and narrative tension. 🌌

This workshop supports writers of all stages. 👩🏽‍💻

Atina Hartunian is a writer, independent scholar, educator, and first-generation Armenian American based in Los Angeles. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Pacific University in 2023. Her honors include a Teaching Fellowship from Anaphora Arts (2024), the Pacific University MFA Merit Scholarship (2021), and residencies with the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop, Rockvale Writers’ Colony (2025), and the Carolyn Moore Writing Residency (2026).

Hartunian’s work explores horror, perception, memory, diasporic identity, and the unseen through fiction, flash nonfiction, and craft scholarship. Her chapbook Love at First Sipwas shortlisted for the C&R Press Summer Tide Pool Chapbook Awards (2025), and her flash piece I’d Rather Lose My T**s Than My Hair received an Honorable Mention in the 2026 Plentitudes Flash Fiction Prize 🩸

Beyond Baroque presents a poetry night highlighting resilience and mental health journeys within the Black community with contributors of 88 Unashamed Black Mental Health Stories.

Published by Inlandia Institute’s Blacklandia Inlandia Institute the evening features readings by anthology editor Romaine Washington (IamRomaine Washington), and contributors: Brandon Allen (Brandon Christopher Allen), Akilah Brown (Akilah), James Coats (James Coats), Nicole J. Evans (Nicole Evans , and Justin C. Key (Justin C. Key).

Join us for another Skulls & Stairs poetry reading in the staircase at Beyond Baroque!

Featuring poets writing with grit, punk, and goth attitudes, among other experiments. This September installment features L.A. based poets: Osmani Ochoa, Poeta del Río, Rosa Christina, and Pam Concepcion.

The LatinXorcists and Beyond Baroque present a special evening of horror cinema featuring nine short films by Latinx filmmakers based in Los Angeles! 🧟‍♂️🙀🎞️

Bringing together emerging and independent voices in horror, the program explores the genre through urban folklore in Latinx communities, true-crime-inspired stories, and encounters with creatures and spirts of the afterlife. The evening includes screenings, a special performance, followed by conversations with the cast, directors, and writers moderated by LatinXorcists founder Jose Vicente Chavez (Jose V. Chavez) and Beyond Baroque Programs Manager, Iván Salinas (Iván Salinas).

Block 1:
Mariposa directed by Austin Saya
Horned directed by Jerrod D. Brito
The Ravine directed by Federico Gonzales

Block 2:
The Dropoff directed by Ricardo Martinez
Bestias de la muerte direceted by Sandra Powers
Milo directed by Ryan Ross

Block 3:
Vivir directed by Gerardo Maravilla
Emily #7 directed by Robert Flowers
The Tongue directed by Jose Vicente Chavez

Check out our website for tickets 🎟️ and more info through the link in our bio!

George Drury Smith (March 19, 1927–August 28, 2026)

In 1968, George Drury Smith created a print journal in Venice, California, and gave it the provocative title, Beyond Baroque. The activity around the journal quickly produced a vital hub of literary and artistic activity that continues to this day in the form of the Beyond Baroque Foundation, the longest existing venue for readings, workshops, performances, exhibits and related arts in Los Angeles. For well more than half a century, Smith’s original vision has flourished. The ongoing activity of Beyond Baroque is a living testimony to the impact of his work and the power of an idea. The history of Beyond Baroque remains to be written, and when it is, what will be clear is that his vision contributed to making Los Angeles a significant node in late 20th and early 21st century literary life and networks at the national and even international level.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you George Drury Smith, for your legacy, and may you rest peacefully.