For this third season of the program, we are shaking things up with a new format: Queer Poem-a-Day Lineage Edition. In each podcast episode, we asked a contemporary queer poet to read a work of influence by an LGBTQIA+ writer of the past followed by an original poem of their own. Our participating poets also discuss the poem they chose and how their own work responds, offering an educational opportunity to consider how today’s vibrant living voices are in conversation with the voices of the past that live on library shelves. Our new semi-daily format (shared Monday, Wednesday, and Friday), combined with additional educational programs, adds a new, enriching dimension to the Queer Poem-a-Day project.

Queer Poem-a-Day is founded and co-directed by poet and teacher Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Library and host of the Deerfield Public Library Podcast.  Music for this third year of our series is AIDS Ward Scherzo by Robert Savage, performed by pianist Daniel Baer. We are once again grateful to have received generous support from both the Friends of the Deerfield Public Library and the Deerfield Fine Arts Commission.

To kick off season three of our series, Lisa and I had a short conversation reflecting on lineage, the threats to public libraries surrounding LGBTQIA+ programming and collections and the backdrop of new specifically anti-trans, and broadly anti-LGBTQIA+ laws, including book and curriculum bans. Our music has changed again as well: our Chicago-based pianist, Daniel Baer, chose the rarely performed AIDS Ward Scherzo by Robert Savage. He joins us for this introductory episode to think through our re-imagined series in the context of classical piano.

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher Radio.

Read our intro blog and see related programs at deerfieldlibrary.org/queerpoemaday

Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.