Judith Pacht, David St. John, & Holaday Mason

Beyond Baroque welcomes Judith Pacht, David St. John, & Holaday Mason for an afternoon of poetry in The Wanda Coleman Theater. The authors will be reading new and selected works in celebration of Pacht's PRECARIOUS, a poetry collection published by Giant Claw.

Praise for PRECARIOUS

“In PRECARIOUS, Pacht excavates consciousness and conscience— the intricacies of the self, its early imprints and consequences, the way an older version holds her younger forms. The poet inhabits the multiples. She describes the ‘scent of resin and damp earth, musk and bark in the air,’ sensations in the mind of a ten-year-old girl, sharp and tender, taking the world in. And that’s exactlywhat the poems in PRECARIOUS do: perceive life as it is: complicated, fragile, lavish with beauty.”
— Marsha de la O

Doors Open: 4:30 PM I Readings: 5:00 PM

About the authors

Judith Pacht's Summer Hunger won the 2011 PEN Southwest Book Award for Poetry. Recent poetry books are Infirmary for a Private Soul and A Cumulus Fiction. A three-time Pushcart nominee, Pacht was first-place winner in the Georgia Poetry Society’s Edgar Bowers competition. Her poem “KIN” was published recently on Verse Daily, and her work appears in numerous anthologies and journals such as Ploughshares, Runes, Nimrod and Phoebe. Her poetry has been translated into Russian and published in Foreign Literature, Moscow, Russia. Pacht reads at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, at Charleston’s Piccolo Spoleto Festival, and she has read and taught Political Poetry at Denver’s annual LitFest at the Lighthouse, at UCLA Extension, and at Beyond Baroque in Los Angeles.

David St. John is the author of twelve collections of poetry as well as a prose volume, Where the Angels Come Toward Us. He is University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at The University of Southern California.

Holaday Mason is author of six collections—Towards the Forest, Dissolve, (New Rivers Press) The Red Bowl: A Fable in Poems,(Red Hen Press) The “ She” Series: A Venice Correspondence (What Books Press, with Sarah Maclay), The Weaver’s Body (Tebot Bach Press), As If Scattered ( Giant Claw Press) & two chapbooks—Interlude & Light Spilling From its Own Cup. Nominated for several Pushcarts, widely published, she served as co-editor for Beyond Baroque’s anthology Echo 681 where she sometimes leads writing workshops. Currently, she is poetry editor for online art & poetry magazine, Furious Pure. www.holadaymason.com holadaymasonphotography.com & Instagram @ holadaymasonphotography.

About Beyond Baroque

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.

If you are attending in person, ticket purchase is required. 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. 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.

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