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The Deerfield Public Library Podcast

Thoughtful, in-depth conversations with authors of all genres and other notable people from Chicagoland and around the world. A monthly program from the Deerfield Public Library in Deerfield, IL, hosted by Dylan Zavagno. Our archives include episodes from the Library's John Cotton Dana Award-winning series, The Fight to Integrate Deerfield: 60 Year Reflection; our Pride Month series, Queer Poem-a-Day; and our local history audio tours.
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Now displaying: 2022
Jun 7, 2022

Jacques J. Rancourt is the author of two poetry collections, Brocken Spectre (Alice James Books, 2021) and Novena (Pleiades Press, 2017), as well as a chapbook, In the Time of PrEP (Beloit Poetry Journal, 2018). Raised in Maine, he lives in San Francisco. www.jacquesrancourt.com

Twitter @jj_rancourt  Instagram: @jj_rancourt

“Love in the Time of PrEP” originally appeared in Brocken Spectre (Alice James Books) 2021. 

Text of today’s poem and more details about our program can be found at: deerfieldlibrary.org/queerpoemaday/

Find books from participating poets in our library's catalog

Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and teacher Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this second year of our series is the first movement, Schéhérazade, from Masques, Op. 34, by Karol Szymanowski, performed by pianist Daniel Baer. Queer Poem-a-Day is supported by generous donations from the Friends of the Deerfield Public Library and the Deerfield Fine Arts Commission. Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.

Jun 6, 2022

Stefania Gomez is a queer writer, teacher, and audio artist from Chicago's South Side who received her MFA in poetry at Washington University in St. Louis in 2022. Currently teaching at the Poetry Foundation in Chicago, she has received fellowships from the Dirt Palace, Sewanee Writers Workshop, and the International Quilt Museum. Her work has appeared in the Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day series, The Missouri Review, The Offing, and Cosmonauts Avenue. Instagram: @stefaniagomez_nopeanuts Twitter: @stefaniahgomez

“At the New York City AIDS Memorial” originally was published in the American Academy of Poets Poem-a-Day, 2022.

Text of today’s poem and more details about our program can be found at: deerfieldlibrary.org/queerpoemaday/

Find books from participating poets in our library's catalog

Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and teacher Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this second year of our series is the first movement, Schéhérazade, from Masques, Op. 34, by Karol Szymanowski, performed by pianist Daniel Baer. Queer Poem-a-Day is supported by generous donations from the Friends of the Deerfield Public Library and the Deerfield Fine Arts Commission. Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.

Jun 5, 2022

CM Burroughs is Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago and author of The Vital System (Tupelo, 2012) and Master Suffering (Tupelo, 2021,) which was longlisted for the National Book Award, Lambda Book Award, and the LA Times Book Award. Burroughs’ poetry has appeared in journals and anthologies including Poetry, Ploughshares, Cave Canem’s Gathering Ground, and Best American Experimental Writing.

“To Be Saved” was published in her book Master Suffering (Tupelo, 2021). 

Text of today’s poem and more details about our program can be found at: deerfieldlibrary.org/queerpoemaday/

Find books from participating poets in our library's catalog

Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and teacher Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this second year of our series is the first movement, Schéhérazade, from Masques, Op. 34, by Karol Szymanowski, performed by pianist Daniel Baer. Queer Poem-a-Day is supported by generous donations from the Friends of the Deerfield Public Library and the Deerfield Fine Arts Commission. Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.

Jun 4, 2022

Poet and anthropologist Nomi Stone is the author of three books, most recently the poetry collection Kill Class (Tupelo, 2019), finalist for the Julie Suk Award, and the ethnography Pinelandia: An Anthropology and Field Poetics of War and Empire, finalist for the Atelier award (University of California Press, 2022). Her poems recently appear in The Atlantic, POETRY Magazine, American Poetry Review, Best American Poetry, The Nation, The New Republic, and elsewhere. A section from her third collection of poetry in progress, You Could Build a World This Way, was recently a finalist for the Bull City Press’s Chapbook Prize, and a semi-finalist for the Tomaz Salamun Prize and the Chad Walsh Chapbook Prize. She has a PhD in Anthropology from Columbia, an MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson, and is currently an Assistant Professor of Poetry at the University of Texas, Dallas. Instagram: @nomistone; Twitter: @Nomi_Stone

“The Baby Inside My Baby” originally was published on The Rumpus, 2022

Text of today’s poem and more details about our program can be found at: deerfieldlibrary.org/queerpoemaday/

Find books from participating poets in our library's catalog

Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and teacher Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this second year of our series is the first movement, Schéhérazade, from Masques, Op. 34, by Karol Szymanowski, performed by pianist Daniel Baer. Queer Poem-a-Day is supported by generous donations from the Friends of the Deerfield Public Library and the Deerfield Fine Arts Commission. Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.

Jun 3, 2022

Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué is a poet and writer living in Chicago. He is most recently the author of Madness (Nightboat Books, 2022) and Losing Miami (The Accomplices, 2019), which was nominated for the Lambda Literary Award in Gay Poetry. He is also co-editor of An Excess of Quiet: Selected Sketches by Gustavo Ojeda, 1979-1989. He is currently a PhD student in English at the University of Chicago where he works in the study of sexuality. ojedasague.com Twitter: @hadeejasouffle Instagram: @hadeejasouffle

“Obsessions” is from Madness (Nightboat Books, 2022). 

Text of today’s poem and more details about our program can be found at: deerfieldlibrary.org/queerpoemaday/

Find books from participating poets in our library's catalog

Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and teacher Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this second year of our series is the first movement, Schéhérazade, from Masques, Op. 34, by Karol Szymanowski, performed by pianist Daniel Baer. Queer Poem-a-Day is supported by generous donations from the Friends of the Deerfield Public Library and the Deerfield Fine Arts Commission. Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language. 

Jun 2, 2022

Joshua Jennifer Espinoza is a trans woman poet. Her work has been featured in Poetry Magazine, the American Poetry Review, Southeast Review, The Rumpus, Poem-a-day at poets.org, and elsewhere. She is the author of I'm Alive / It Hurts / I Love It (Big Lucks 2019) and THERE SHOULD BE FLOWERS (The Accomplices 2016). She holds an MFA in poetry from UC Riverside and currently teaches creative writing. Jennifer lives in California with her wife, poet/essayist Eileen Elizabeth, and their dog and cat. Her third full-length collection I Don't Want to Be Understood is forthcoming from Alice James Books in 2024. Joshuajenniferespinoza.com Twitter: @sadqueer4life Instagram: @sadqueer4life

“Birthday Suits” was originally published in Poetry Magazine, April 2019. 

Text of today’s poem and more details about our program can be found at: deerfieldlibrary.org/queerpoemaday/

Find books from participating poets in our library's catalog

Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and teacher Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this second year of our series is the first movement, Schéhérazade, from Masques, Op. 34, by Karol Szymanowski, performed by pianist Daniel Baer. Queer Poem-a-Day is supported by generous donations from the Friends of the Deerfield Public Library and the Deerfield Fine Arts Commission. Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.

Jun 1, 2022
Donika Kelly is the author of The Renunciations (Graywolf), winner of the Anisfield-Wolf book award in poetry, and Bestiary (Graywolf), the winner of the 2015 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Poetry and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. Kelly’s poetry has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Publishing Triangle Awards, the Lambda Literary Awards, and longlisted for the National Book Award.  A Cave Canem graduate fellow and member of the collective Poets at the End of the World, she has also received a Lannan Residency Fellowship, and a summer workshop fellowship from the Fine Arts Work Center. She earned an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin and a PhD in English from Vanderbilt University. Her poems have been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. Donika lives in Iowa City with her wife, the nonfiction writer Melissa Febos, and is an assistant professor in the English Department at the University of Iowa, where she teaches creative writing. donikakelly.com Twitter: @officialdonika

“Self Portrait as a Body, a Sea” was originally published in the Sewanee Review, 2017. 

Text of today’s poem and more details about our program can be found at: deerfieldlibrary.org/queerpoemaday/

Find books from participating poets in our library's catalog

Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and teacher Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this second year of our series is the first movement, Schéhérazade, from Masques, Op. 34, by Karol Szymanowski, performed by pianist Daniel Baer. Queer Poem-a-Day is supported by generous donations from the Friends of the Deerfield Public Library and the Deerfield Fine Arts Commission. Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.

May 26, 2022
We are so excited to launch the second year of our special Pride Month podcast series Queer Poem-a-Day. Exclusive to the Deerfield Public Library Podcast, Queer Poem-a-Day is the first daily poetry podcast to focus exclusively on the LGBTQIA+ community. Once again we are thrilled to feature many award-winning, leading, and emerging poets—as well as several poets with Chicagoland connections—and provide this unique snapshot of LGBTQIA+ poetry today. An archive of our first year (June 2021) is available on our website.

Every day of June 2022, you can read and hear a poem on our website, deerfieldlibrary.org/queerpoemaday, or subscribe to the Deerfield Public Library Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts. You can also follow along on social media with the hashtag #queerpoemaday and find books and ebooks by our participating poets in our Library’s catalog. Additionally, we’re hosting several related programs, listed below. 

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. This year we received generous support from both the Friends of the Deerfield Public Library and the Deerfield Fine Arts Commission

To kickoff season two of our series, Lisa and I had a short conversation reflecting on the success and excitement of our 2021 run, which attracted many new listeners and was featured on Chicago Public Radio WBEZ and PEN America and in curriculums at Stanford University, Boston University, and Illinois public schools. We also discuss our series as a public library program against a climate of newly introduced, specifically anti-trans, and broadly anti-LGBTQIA+ laws and book bans throughout the country. To reflect a different year, our music has changed as well: our Chicago-based pianist, Daniel Baer, aptly chose the first movement, Schéhérazade, from Masques, Op. 34 by composer Karol Szymanowski.

Listen to our short kickoff podcast intro below and subscribe now to get the poems on the podcast feed starting June 1. 

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

Related Programs:

Adult Programs

Classics Book Discussion: Selected Poems by Federico García Lorca, Thursday, June 16, 7:00pm R Hybrid: In Person & Virtual

The Book and the Body: Queer Poetry in Public Spaces, Thursday, June 30, 7:00pm R Virtual

Teen Program

Workshop: Poetry is Who I Am, Wednesday, June 15, 5:00-6:15pm R Virtual

Queer Poem-a-Day is presented with generous support from the Friends of the Deerfield Public Library and the Deerfield Fine Arts Commission.

Apr 28, 2022
beautiful small things features songs from the LYNX Project, a Chicago-based non-profit, and their Amplify Series, which takes texts written by primarily non-speaking neurodiverse young writers and commissions composers to set these words to music for piano and voice. 

To discuss beautiful small things, we have a panel of guests involved in the project:

Caitleen Kahn, Executive Director of the LYNX Project

Olivia Doig, soprano and Educational Coordinator at the LYNX Project

Emily Cooley, composer who wrote the title track “beautiful small things”

Daniel Baer, pianist (also the Library’s pianist for our Queer Poem-a-Day series!)

We also feature additional words prepared by text writers Kenta Mignot and Luke Burke, who writes on the Facebook page Different not less - Luke B.. Our episode covers many areas, including key concepts in thinking about neurodiversity, like “presumed competence,” and offers a unique opportunity to hear contemporary classical musicians reflect deeply on their art.  

Throughout the conversation, we feature three fantastic tracks from the album, which we discuss in depth: 

beautiful small things (2017), Text by Ryan Harris, Music by Emily Cooley; Megan Moore, mezzo-soprano & Nathaniel LaNasa, pianist

March 2017: Lucky (2019), Text by Luke Burke, Music by Joel Balzun; Olivia Doig, soprano & Christina Giuca, pianist

The Sixth Extinction (2019), Text by Kenta Mignot, Music by Tariq Al-Sabir; Nicholas Ward, baritone & Daniel Baer, pianist

You can check out the CD beautiful small things here at the library. The LYNX Project is performing at the Poetry Foundation next month, May 21, 2022 at 2pm, and tickets can be reserved for free.

The Deerfield Public Library Podcast is hosted by Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the library. We welcome your comments and feedback--please send to: podcast@deerfieldlibrary.org. More info at: http://deerfieldlibrary.org/podcast

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Mar 29, 2022

We are honored to welcome Dr. Debbie Reese, a tribally enrolled Nambé Pueblo author and scholar. Dr. Reese is best known for her popular blog American Indians in Children’s Literature which “provides critical analysis of Indigenous peoples in children's and young adult books.” Dr. Reese is also the co-adapter (with Dr. Jean Mendoza) of An Indigenous People’s History of the United States for Young People by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (Beacon Press, 2019). We spend some time discussing the ways in which Drs. Reese and Mendoza adapted the often disturbing and violent history of the United States from a Native perspective, a perspective that is often left out of U.S. history books and classrooms. An Indigenous People’s History of the United States for Young People has recently appeared on several lists of books that some want banned or removed from school and public libraries. We hear Dr. Reese’s perspective on why books like hers are being challenged. 

Our conversation offers an introduction to Dr. Reese and her work, which many librarians, teachers, parents, authors, and others consult to evaluate books by and about Native people, who are often underrepresented and misrepresented in literature. As Dr. Reese tells us, these types of misrepresentations in children’s literature—including stereotypes, omissions, and inaccuracies—come at a great cost to both Native and non-Native readers. 

Listen to the end of our conversation for some great recommendations of recent books for a wide range of readers, also listed below. 

You can check out An Indigenous People’s History of the United States for Young People here at the library and find out more about Dr. Reese at her blog American Indians in Children’s Literature

You can also find some of the books we discussed in our conversation in our collection: 

Picture Books

SkySisters by Jan Bourdeau Waboose, illustrated by Brian Deines

On the Trapline by David Robertson, illustrated by Julie Flett

Jingle Dancer by Cynthia Leitich Smith, illustrated by Cornelius Van Wright and Ying-Hwa Hu

Ni, Elisi! Look, Grandma! by Art Coulson, illustrated by Madelyn Goodnight

Sharice’s Big Voice: A Native Kid Becomes a Congresswoman by Sharice Davids with Nancy K. Mays, illustrated by Joshua Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley

We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom, illustrated by Michaela Goade

Early Chapter Books

The Used-to-be Best Friend (Jo Jo Makoons, book 1) by Dawn Quigley, illustrated by Tara Audibert

Classified: The Secret Career of Mary Golda Ross, Cherokee Aerospace Engineer by Traci Sorell

Teen

#NotYourPrincess: Voices of Native American Women edited by Mary Beth Leatherdale and Lisa Charleyboy

Apple: Skin to the Core: A Memoir in Words and Pictures by Eric Gansworth 

The Deerfield Public Library Podcast is hosted by Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the library. We welcome your comments and feedback--please send to: podcast@deerfieldlibrary.org. More info at: http://deerfieldlibrary.org/podcast

Follow us: Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube 

Feb 24, 2022

A Hundred Lovers (Knopf, 2022) is the second collection by poet Richie Hofmann. Hofmann is also the author of Second Empire (Alice James Books, 2015). He teaches at Stanford University and lives in Chicago and San Francisco. 

The poems in A Hundred Lovers describe fleeting moments—memorable smells, erotic encounters, travels through Europe, a wedding—all with intimate, diaristic directness. Our conversation illuminates how the shift from the more ornamented style of Hofmann’s first collection to the unadorned voice of this new volume follows a shift in the author's relationships to love and history. Hofmann reveals his interest in a deep ambivalence towards the past and his desire to write a speaker that recounts both sensuous details and its own flaws. 

You can check out books by Richie Hofmann here at the library. Or find out more on his website: richiehofmann.com

Richie Hofmann has been mentioned on our podcast several times before! He was part of our special series last year, Queer Poem-a-Day, sharing his poem “Male Beauty,” which appears in this new collection. Richie and his work were also discussed on two past podcast episodes: with the poet Rachel Mennies, and with poet Lisa Hiton, co-director of Queer Poem-a-Day. 

The Deerfield Public Library Podcast is hosted by Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the library. We welcome your comments and feedback--please send to: podcast@deerfieldlibrary.org. More info at: http://deerfieldlibrary.org/podcast

Follow us: Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube 

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