Poets Corner will hold an online reading, Sunday, April 14, from 4 - 5:30 p.m., via Zoom. 

Essential Queer Voices of U.S. Poetry, edited by Christopher Nelson and published by Green Linden Press, has at its heart the idea that poetry can reveal our shared humanity, according to Poets Corner, in a news release. The anthology features over 100 poets who illuminate the queer experience in the U.S.

For the Zoom reading on The Poets Corner, listeners will hear from five major voices in American poetry today: Rick Barot, Ellen Bass, Richard Blanco, Lee Ann Roripaugh, Charif Shanahan, along with the editor and publisher, Chris Nelson.

Celebrate National Poetry Month on Sunday, April 14, with The Poets Corner and this group of distinguished poets.

“Their poems will make you laugh, cry, examine, and exclaim over the ordinary and extraordinary moments that make up our lives,” said Poets Corner.

Register at www.ThePoetsCorner.org/events.

About the poets:

Rick Barot was born in the Philippines, grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has published four books of poetry, most recently, The Galleons, which was listed on the top ten poetry books for 2020 by the New York Public Library, was a finalist for the Pacific Northwest Book Awards, and was on the longlist for the National Book Award. Among his honors are fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and others. Barot lives in Tacoma, Washington, and teaches at Pacific Lutheran University, where he directs The Rainier Writing Workshop, the low-residency MFA in creative writing.

Ellen Bass’s most recent collection is Indigo. Her other poetry books include Like a Beggar, The Human Line, and Mules of Love. Among her awards are fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, The California Arts Council, The Lambda Literary Award, and four Pushcart Prizes. A Chancellor Emerita of the Academy of American Poets, Bass founded poetry workshops at Salinas Valley State Prison and the Santa Cruz, California, jails, and teaches in the MFA writing program at Pacific University.

Selected by President Obama as the fifth Presidential Inaugural Poet in U.S. history, Richard Blanco was the youngest, the first Latinx, immigrant, and gay person to serve in that role. In 2023, Blanco was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Biden from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Born in Madrid to Cuban exile parents and raised in Miami in a working-class family, Blanco’s personal negotiation of cultural identity and the universal themes of place and belonging characterize his many collections of poetry, including the most recent, Homeland of My Body, which reassess traditional notions of home as strictly a geographical, tangible place that merely exist outside us, but rather, within us. Blanco has received numerous awards, including the Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize, the PEN American Beyond Margins Award, the Patterson Prize, and a Lambda Prize for memoir.

Lee Ann Roripaugh is a biracial Nisei and the author of five volumes of poetry, mostly recently tsunami vs. the fukushima 50, which was named a “Best Book of 2019” by the New York Public Library, selected as a poetry Finalist in the Lambda Literary Awards, cited as a Society of Midland Authors Honoree in Poetry, and was named one of the “50 Must-Read Poetry Collections in 2019” by Book Riot. She was named winner of the Association of Asian American Studies Book Award in Poetry/Prose for 2004, and a 1998 winner of the National Poetry Series. The South Dakota State Poet Laureate from 2015–2019, Roripaugh is a Professor of English at the University of South Dakota, where she serves as Editor-in-Chief of South Dakota Review.

Charif Shanahan is the author of two collections of poetry, Trace Evidence: poems and Into Each Room We Enter Without Knowing, a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry and the Publishing Triangle’s Thom Gunn Award. He is an Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Northwestern University. 

Christopher Nelson will be the host for Essential Queer Voices on The Poets Corner. Green Linden Press is the publisher of this important anthology. A poet himself, Nelson is the author of Blood Aria (University of Wisconsin Press, 2021) and four chapbooks, including Blue House, winner of a Poetry Society of America Fellowship. He is the founding editor Green Linden Press, a nonprofit publisher dedicated to poetic excellence and reforestation.

About The Poets Corner:

The Poets Corner is a virtual platform dedicated to creating a community for writers and readers of poetry and short prose. Co-Founded by Meg Weston of Camden, Maine, former president of Maine Media, and Kathrin Seitz, writing coach, in June of 2020, today it has over 4,500 members from around the world. The Poets Corner hosts virtual readings, discussions, craft talks, competitions, and more offerings that connect poetry lovers, writers, and scholars, creating a vibrant space for the appreciation and creation of poetic expression. Visit www.thepoetscorner.org for more information.

Upcoming Events on The Poets Corner include:

May 17 – 2-4 PM. You, You, You: The Address of Poetry – a virtual Craft Talk with Pádraig Ó Tuama. Register at www.thepoetscorner.org/craft-talks; 7-9 PM Festival Open Mic – Live at the First Congregational
Church.

May 18 – Camden Festival of Poetry Live! At the First Congregational Church

May 29 – Leaning Toward Light: poems for gardens & the hands that tend them – on Zoom with Tess Taylor and other poets.

June 9 – Reading on Zoom with the 2024 Chapbook Award Winner hosted by the judge, poet Marie Howe.