The Golden Mean: A USC & Beyond Baroque Reading Series

Join us for the second installment 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 Bryan Byrdlong, James Ciano, Blas Falconer, James Fujinami Moore, and Austen Leah Rose. Hosted and curated by L.A. Johnson.

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

Bryan Byrdlong is a Black poet from Chicago, Illinois. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from the Helen Zell Writers Program. He has been published in Guernica Magazine, The Kenyon Review, and Poetry Magazine, among others. Bryan received a 2021 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. His debut collection Strange Flowers was published with YesYes Books. He is currently a PhD student in Creative Writing at USC in Los Angeles.

James Ciano’s debut collection of poetry, The Committee of Men, is forthcoming from BOA Editions in May of 2026. He holds an MFA from New York University and a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Southern California. He has received scholarships from the Vermont Studio Center and the Community of Writers, and his recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Blackbird, The Southern Review, The Yale Review, Bennington Review, Copper Nickel, and The Missouri Review. He is the 2025-2027 Creative Writing Fellow in Poetry at Emory University.

Blas Falconer is the author of four poetry collections, including Rara Avis (Four Way Books, 2024). Falconer is the recipient of a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award from Poets & Writers. He teaches in the MFA program at San Diego State University and is the editor-in-chief at Poetry International Online.

James Fujinami Moore's debut poetry collection is indecent hours (Four Way Books, 2022), winner of the 2023 GLCA New Writers Award in Poetry and the 2024 AAAS Outstanding Achievement Book Award in Poetry, and finalist for the Golden Poppy's Martin Cruz Smith Award & the Lambda Literary Award in Bisexual Poetry. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day, Asimov's Science Fiction, Barrow Street's 4x2, Boston Review, The Brooklyn Rail, Guesthouse, Jet Fuel Review, The Margins, the Pacifica Literary Review, and Prelude. He has received fellowships from Poets House, Bread Loaf, and the Frost Place, and received his MFA from Hunter College in 2016.

Austen Leah Rose is the author of Once, This Forest Belonged to a Storm, winner of the Juniper Prize for Poetry. She has a PhD from the University of Southern California and received an MFA in poetry from Columbia University. Her poems have appeared in The Sewanee Review, The Iowa Review, Narrative, AGNI, and elsewhere. She is currently a Dornsife Fellow at the University of Southern California where she teaches poetry.

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

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

Also check out other Arts events in Los Angeles, Literary Art events in Los Angeles, Virtual events in Los Angeles.