May 22, 2014 Library to Host Inaugural LGBT Poetry Celebration June 3

The Poetry and Literature Center and the Rare Books and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress, in conjunction with Capital Pride, will present an inaugural reading by emerging and established gay and lesbian poets.

The lecture will start at noon on Tuesday, June 3, in room 119 on the first floor of the Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St. S.E., Washington, D.C. The event is free and open to the public. Tickets are not needed.

The poets who will read from their works include Joan Larkin, Kamilah Aisha Moon, D. A. Powell and Dan Vera.

Joan Larkin is the author of three books of poetry, including “My Body: New and Selected Poems” (2007) which received the Publishing Triangle’s 2008 Audre Lorde Award, and “Cold River” (1997), winner of the Lambda Award for poetry. Larkin co-founded the independent press Out & Out Books and has edited four anthologies, most recently “A Woman Like That: Lesbian and Bisexual Writers Tell their Coming-Out Stories” (1999). Larkin has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She lives in New York City.

Kamilah Aisha Moon is the author of the poetry collection “She Has a Name” (2013). She is a recipient of fellowships to the Cave Canem Foundation, the Prague Summer Writing Institute, the Fine Arts Work Center and the Vermont Studio Center. Her poems and prose have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the Lambda Literary Award and the Audre Lorde Award from the Publishing Triangle. Moon lives in Brooklyn.

D. A. Powell is the author of five poetry books, including “Useless Landscape, or a Guide for Boys: Poems” (2012), winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and “Chronic” (2009), which received the Kingsley Tufts Award. His poems have been featured in such anthologies as “American Hybrid” (2009) and “The New Young American Poets” (2000). Powell has received a Paul Engle Fellowship from the James Michener Center, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Lyric Poetry Award from the Poetry Society of America, among other awards. He currently teaches at the University of San Francisco.

Dan Vera is the author of “Speaking Wiri Wiri” (2013), which poet Orlando Ricardo Menes chose for the inaugural Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize, and “The Space Between Our Danger and Delight” (2008). Vera cofounded VRZHU Press. He is the publisher of Souvenir Spoon Press and serves as managing editor of the journal White Crane. With poet Kim Roberts, Vera curates the website DC Writers’ Homes. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Capital Pride, located in Washington, D.C., is the non-profit organization dedicated to serving the needs of the LGBTA community and its partners through educational events, entertainment, community outreach, and celebrations of diversity, including the annual Capital Pride Parade and the Pennsylvania Avenue Festival. Capital Pride is managed by a small staff and supported by a large cadre of volunteers

The Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress fosters and enhances the public’s appreciation of literature. The center administers the endowed position of Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry and coordinates an annual season of readings, performances, lectures, conferences and symposia. The center also sponsors high-profile prizes and fellowships for literary writers. For more information, visit www.loc.gov/poetry.

The Rare Book and Special Collections Division holds more than 800,000 books, broadsides, pamphlets, theater playbills, title pages, prints, posters, photographs, and medieval and Renaissance manuscripts. More than 100 collections are maintained, including the personal libraries of Harry Houdini and Susan B. Anthony, author collections of Walt Whitman and Hans Christian Andersen, subject collections on gastronomy and cryptography, and generic collections such as dime novels and Bibles. For more information, visit www.loc.gov/rr/rarebook.

The Library of Congress, the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution and the largest library in the world, holds more than 158 million items in various languages, disciplines and formats. The Library serves the U.S. Congress and the nation both on-site in its reading rooms on Capitol Hill and through its award-winning website at www.loc.gov.