The Deerfield Public Library Podcast

Day 15: Jayson P. Smith reads their poem, “I Arrive in a Place with a High Level of Psychic Distress.” Queer Poem-a-Day is honored to be the first publication of this poem.  Jayson P. Smith is a poet, dancer, educator, & curator from the Bronx. J is the recipient of fellowships from Hawthornden Foundation, NYFA, The Poetry Project, and Callaloo. They curate NOMAD Readings in Brooklyn (& elsewhere).  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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is founded and co-directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Library and host of the Deerfield Public Library Podcast. Music for this fifth year of our series is “L'Ange Verrier” from Le Rossignol Éperdu by Reynaldo Hahn, 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.  

Day 14:  Jessica Jacobs reads her poem, "Saturday Services at the Provincetown Shore" from her book unalone (Four Way Books, 2024). Recorded with permission of Four Way Books. All rights reserved. Jessica Jacobs, a 2025 Guggenheim Fellow, is the author of unalone, poems in conversation with the Book of Genesis (Four Way Books, March 2024); Take Me with You, Wherever You're Going (Four Way Books, 2019), one of Library Journal's Best Poetry Books of the Year, winner of the Devil's Kitchen and Goldie Awards, and a finalist for the Brockman-Campbell, American Fiction, and Julie Suk Book Awards; Pelvis with Distance (White Pine Press, 2015), a biography-in-poems of Georgia O'Keeffe, winner of the New Mexico Book Award in Poetry and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award; and co-author of Write It! 100 Poetry Prompts to Inspire (Spruce Books/Penguin RandomHouse). She is the founder and executive director of Yetzirah: A Hearth for Jewish Poetry. 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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is founded and co-directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Library and host of the Deerfield Public Library Podcast. Music for this fifth year of our series is “L'Ange Verrier” from Le Rossignol Éperdu by Reynaldo Hahn, 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.  

Day 13: Francisco Márquez reads his poem, “The Bulge,” first published in The Adroit Journal (April 2025).  Francisco Márquez is a poet from Maracaibo, Venezuela, born in Miami, Florida. His work has been featured in the Yale Review, the Brooklyn Rail, the Slowdown podcast, and the Best American Poetry anthology. He has received support from the Tin House Writer's Workshop, The Poetry Project, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, where he was a 2019-2020 Poetry Fellow. He works and lives in Brooklyn, New York. 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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is founded and co-directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Library and host of the Deerfield Public Library Podcast. Music for this fifth year of our series is “L'Ange Verrier” from Le Rossignol Éperdu by Reynaldo Hahn, 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.  

Day 12: Jaz Sufi reads her poem, “Ode to My Lover's Sequined Dress.” Queer Poem-a-Day is honored to be the first publication of this poem.  Jaz Sufi (she/hers) is a queer Iranian-American poet and arts educator. Her work has been published or is upcoming in Best New Poets, Best of the Net, AGNI, Black Warrior Review, Muzzle, and elsewhere. She is a National Poetry Slam finalist and has received fellowships from Kundiman, the Watering Hole, and New York University, where she received her MFA. She is the current Poet Laureate of San Ramon, CA, where she lives with her dog, Apollo. 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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is founded and co-directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Library and host of the Deerfield Public Library Podcast. Music for this fifth year of our series is “L'Ange Verrier” from Le Rossignol Éperdu by Reynaldo Hahn, 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.  

Day 11: Gabrielle Calvocoressi reads their poem, “Miss you. Would like to take a walk with you” originally published in Poetry (October 2021).  Gabrielle Calvocoressi is the author of The Last Time I Saw Amelia Earhart, Apocalyptic Swing (a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize), and Rocket Fantastic, winner of the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry. Calvocoressi is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including a Stegner Fellowship and Jones Lectureship from Stanford University; a Rona Jaffe Woman Writer's Award; a Lannan Foundation residency in  Marfa, TX; the Bernard F. Conners Prize from The Paris Review; and a residency from the Civitella di Ranieri Foundation, among others. Calvocoressi's poems have been published or are forthcoming in numerous magazines and journals including The Baffler, The New York Times, POETRY, Boston Review, Kenyon Review, Tin House, and The New Yorker. Calvocoressi is an Editor at Large at Los Angeles Review of Books, and Poetry Editor at Southern Cultures. Works in progress include a non-fiction book entitled, The Year I Didn't Kill Myself and a novel, The Alderman of the Graveyard. Calvocoressi was the Beatrice Shepherd Blane Fellow at the Harvard-Radcliffe Institute for 2022 - 2023. Calvocoressi teaches at UNC Chapel Hill and lives in Old East Durham, NC, where joy, compassion, and social justice are at the center of their personal and poetic practice. Their new collection of poetry, The New Economy, will be released from Copper Canyon in 2025.   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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is founded and co-directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Library and host of the Deerfield Public Library Podcast. Music for this fifth year of our series is “L'Ange Verrier” from Le Rossignol Éperdu by Reynaldo Hahn, 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.

Day 10: Jan-Henry Gray reads his poem “On Therapy,” first published in the anthology Permanent Record: Poetics Towards the Archive (Nightboat Books, 2025), edited by Naima Yael Tokunow. Jan-Henry Gray is the author of Documents, selected by D.A. Powell as the winner of BOA Editions' Poulin Poetry Prize, and the chapbook Selected Emails. His poems have been included in various anthologies, including Here to Stay: Poetry and Prose from the Undocumented Diaspora (HarperCollins, 2024), Permanent Record: Poetics Towards the Archive (Nightboat, 2024), as well as Essential Queer Voices of U.S. Poetry, Queer Nature, and Nepantla: An Anthology for Queer Poets of Color. He's received fellowships from Undocupoets, the Cooke Foundation Award, and Kundiman. He was born in the Philippines, raised in California, and worked as a chef for over 12 years. He is an assistant professor at Adelphi University and teaches in their low-residency MFA program. 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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is founded and co-directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Library and host of the Deerfield Public Library Podcast. Music for this fifth year of our series is “L'Ange Verrier” from Le Rossignol Éperdu by Reynaldo Hahn, 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.  

Day 9: Timothy Liu reads his poem “The Price of Kissing is Your Life,” originally published in the Georgia Review (Spring 2025). Timothy Liu's most recent books of poems are Down Low and Lowdown and Luminous Debris, both out from Barrow Street. A reader of occult esoterica, he teaches at SUNY New Paltz and Vassar College. 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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.   Queer Poem-a-Day is founded and co-directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Library and host of the Deerfield Public Library Podcast. Music for this fifth year of our series is “L'Ange Verrier” from Le Rossignol Éperdu by Reynaldo Hahn, 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.

Day 8: Lloyd Schwartz reads his poem “Who's On First?” This poem was originally published in Ploughshares (1981) and reprinted in Who's On First: New and Selected Poems (University of Chicago Press, 2021). Lloyd Schwartz is poet laureate of Somerville, the Frederick S. Troy Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Boston, and a longtime arts critic for NPR's Fresh Air. He's published five books of poetry, a collection of his music reviews, and has edited three volumes devoted to the works of Elizabeth Bishop. Among his honors are the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, NEA, and Academy of American Poets for his poetry. His poems have been selected for the Pushcart Prize, The Best American Poetry, and The Best of the Best American Poetry. His next collection, “Artur Schnabel and Joseph Szigeti Play Mozart at the Frick Collection (April 4, 1948)” and Other Poems, will appear next year from Arrowsmith Press. 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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is founded and co-directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Library and host of the Deerfield Public Library Podcast. Music for this fifth year of our series is “L'Ange Verrier” from Le Rossignol Éperdu by Reynaldo Hahn, 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.  

Day 7: Keetje Kuipers reads her poem “Cremello Horse,” which first appeared in the magazine 32 Poems and was then published in Lonely Women Make Good Lovers (BOA Editions, 2025). Keetje Kuipers' fourth collection of poetry, Lonely Women Make Good Lovers, was the recipient of the Isabella Gardner Award. Her poetry and prose have appeared in American Poetry Review, New York Times Magazine, and Poetry, and have been honored by publication in the Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry anthologies. Keetje has been a Stegner Fellow, NEA Literature Fellow in Creative Writing, and the Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Resident. She lives with her wife and children in Montana, where she is Editor of Poetry Northwest. 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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.   Queer Poem-a-Day is founded and co-directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Library and host of the Deerfield Public Library Podcast. Music for this fifth year of our series is “L'Ange Verrier” from Le Rossignol Éperdu by Reynaldo Hahn, 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.  

Day 6: Gaia Rajan reads his poem “Essay on Class,” which originally appeared in Frontier Poetry (2023).  Gaia Rajan is the author of the chapbooks Moth Funerals (Glass Poetry Press 2020) and Killing It (Black Lawrence Press 2022). His work is published in the Academy of American Poets' Poem-A-Day, Best New Poets, the Best of the Net anthology, The Kenyon Review, THRUSH, Split Lip Magazine, diode, Palette Poetry, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn and online at @gaiarajan on Twitter or Instagram. 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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is founded and co-directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Library and host of the Deerfield Public Library Podcast. Music for this fifth year of our series is “L'Ange Verrier” from Le Rossignol Éperdu by Reynaldo Hahn, 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.

Day 5: Rick Barot reads his poem “Pleasure,” which appears in his recent book, Moving the Bones. Rick Barot's most recent book of poems is Moving the Bones, published by Milkweed Editions in 2024. His previous book, The Galleons, was longlisted for the National Book Award. He lives in Tacoma, Washington, and directs the Rainier Writing Workshop, the low-residency MFA program at Pacific Lutheran University. 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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is founded and co-directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Library and host of the Deerfield Public Library Podcast. Music for this fifth year of our series is “L'Ange Verrier” from Le Rossignol Éperdu by Reynaldo Hahn, 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.  

Day 4: S. Brook Corfman reads her poem “Before & After.” The poem first appeared in Pigeon Pages (2020), in a slightly different form.  S. Brook Corfman is the author of My Daily Actions, or The Meteorites, one of The New York Times Best Poetry Books of 2020, finalist for the Leslie Feinberg Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature, and winner of the Fordham University Press POL Prize, chosen by Cathy Park Hong. She is also the author of the poetry collection Luxury, Blue Lace, chosen by Richard Siken for the Autumn House Rising Writer Prize, and several chapbooks. In 2024 she received the Lyric Poetry Award from the Poetry Society of America. 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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is founded and co-directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Library and host of the Deerfield Public Library Podcast. Music for this fifth year of our series is “L'Ange Verrier” from Le Rossignol Éperdu by Reynaldo Hahn, 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.  

Day 3: Marcelo Hernandez Castillo reads his poem “Eclogue: A Field Guide and Cure.” The poem was published in the recent anthology Like A Hammer: Poets on Mass Incarceration (Haymarket Books, 2025). Marcelo Hernandez Castillo is the author of Children of the Land: a Memoir (Harper Collins); Cenzontle (BOA Editions), winner of the A. Poulin, Jr. prize; Dulce (Northwestern University Press), winner of the Drinking Gourd Prize; and, most recently, he is the co-editor of the anthology Here to Stay: Poetry and Prose from the Undocumented Diaspora (Harper Perennial). He is the 2025 guest editor of the Michigan Quarterly Review and has also curated the Academy of American Poet's Poem-A-Day Series. His work has been long listed for the California Book Award, the Foreword Indies Prize, and the Lambda Literary Award, among other recognitions. He was the first undocumented student to graduate from the Helen Zell Writers Program at the University of Michigan and co-founded the Undocupoets, which eliminated citizenship requirements from all major poetry book prizes in the U.S., and for which he was recognized with the Barnes and Noble Writers for Writers award. 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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is founded and co-directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Library and host of the Deerfield Public Library Podcast. Music for this fifth year of our series is “L'Ange Verrier” from Le Rossignol Éperdu by Reynaldo Hahn, 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.

Day 2: Faylita Hicks reads their poem “A Gxrl's Trip Home.” This poem was originally published in A Map of My Want (Haymarket Books, 2024). Faylita Hicks (she/they) is a writer, interdisciplinary artist, Hoodoo practitioner, and cultural strategist exploring the intersections of social justice and spirituality. They are the author of A Map of My Want (Haymarket, 2024), HoodWitch (Acre, 2019), and the forthcoming memoir A Body of Wild Light (Haymarket, 2027). A 2025 Haymarket Writing Freedom Fellow and Definition Theatre Amplify finalist, Hicks contributed to a Grammy-nominated album and has earned awards and honors from Art for Justice Fund, Lambda Literary, and the Right of Return Fellowship. They hold an MFA from the University of Nevada, Reno, and have received fellowships from Black Mountain Institute, Tin House, and others. Hicks serves as Chair of the Board for The Guild Literary Complex, Core Poetry Faculty at StoryStudio, adjunct faculty for the University of Nevada's MFA program, and is a voting member of the Recording Academy. 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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is founded and co-directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Library and host of the Deerfield Public Library Podcast. Music for this fifth year of our series is “L'Ange Verrier” from Le Rossignol Éperdu by Reynaldo Hahn, 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.

Day 1: Jericho Brown reads his poem “Duplex.” This poem was originally published in The Progressive Magazine (2019). Jericho Brown is the author of The Tradition, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. He is also a recipient of the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship. 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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language. Queer Poem-a-Day is founded and co-directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Library and host of the Deerfield Public Library Podcast. Music for this fifth year of our series is “L'Ange Verrier” from Le Rossignol Éperdu by Reynaldo Hahn, 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.

We're back for year five of Queer Poem-a-Day! Queer Poem-a-Day is a unique podcast series for Pride Month, presenting a public archive of original poems written and read by contemporary LGBTQIA+ poets. For this fifth year, we'll be sharing a poem each weekday in June. Get exciting with this audio collage "cento" trailer, featuring some of the voices from year five (see if you can recognize the voice of a favorite poet!). Then tune in Monday, June 2, for our first episode on our Queer Poem-a-Day page, and on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts.  Queer Poem-a-Day is founded and co-directed by Deerfield-raised poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Library and host of the Deerfield Public Library Podcast. Music for this fifth year of our series is “L'Ange Verrier” from Le Rossignol Éperdu by Reynaldo Hahn, 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. We also invite you to check out our archives from year one, year two, year three's “Lineage Edition,” and year four.  Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language. Once again, we have several related programs this year. Register to join in at the links below!  Related Programs (All programs in Central Time)  5 Years of Queer Poem-a-Day: An Anniversary Poetry Reading  Saturday, June 7: 1:00 pm - 2:15 pm (Virtual) Participating poets from the past five years of our Queer Poem-a-Day podcast will read and discuss their poetry! Classics Book Discussion: Nikki Giovanni Thursday, June 12: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm (Hybrid) Our Classics Book Discussion pays tribute to the recently passed U.S. poet Nikki Giovanni and the Black Arts Movement. Co-led by our Queer Poem-a-Day co-director Lisa Hiton. Join us either in person or on Zoom. Register to get a pdf packet of poems sent to you, or pick one up at the Adult Services Desk.  Queer Poem-a-Day Capstone Lecture Thursday, June 26: 7:00pm - 8:00pm (Virtual) The co-directors of Queer Poem-a-Day give their annual lecture on the unique themes of this year's collection of poems. Register for the Zoom link.     

A conversation with Dr. Jo Freer, a leading scholar on the work of American novelist Thomas Pynchon. I'm currently leading our Library's Classics Book Discussion Seminar series on Pynchon's 1973 masterpiece Gravity's Rainbow and Dr. Freer's work has been incredibly helpful for me in understanding this challenging novel and Pynchon's work as a whole. We're thrilled to get Dr. Freer's perspective on this important writer.  Dr. Jo Freer is Senior Lecturer in American and Postcolonial Literature in the Department of English and Creative Writing at the University of Exeter. She is the author of Thomas Pynchon and American Counterculture (Cambridge University Press, 2014), which considers Thomas Pynchon as a political philosopher. While Gravity's Rainbow centers around the saga of American Lt. Tyrone Slothrop, stationed in England at the end of WWII, Freer shows how the novel often responds directly to debates within the 1960s counterculture; the different approaches of the New Left, Yippies, The Black Panther Party, the Women's Movement, and the proto-countercultural Beat writers who influenced Pynchon are all game for comparison, revealing Pynchon to be a subtle and profound political thinker. Dr. Freer is also editor of the excellent essay collections The New Pynchon Studies (Cambridge UP, 2019) and co-editor of Thomas Pynchon, Sex and Gender, (Georgia UP, 2018). Our conversation also considers the various ways Pynchon's depictions of gender and sexuality have been interpreted by Freer and others. Famously, the judges of the Pulitzer Prize selected Gravity's Rainbow, but the Pulitzer Advisory Board said the book was “unreadable,” “turgid,” and “obscene” and chose to not award a prize that year. This is a fascinating conversation about form and content and the value of this difficult, challenging, anti-authoritarian reading experience for us today. Like the graffiti that appears in Gravity's Rainbow, Dr. Freer tells us that Pynchon creates texts that are “revealed in order to be thought about, expanded on, translated into action by the people.”  You can check out books by Dr. Freer, and work by all of our previous podcast guests, here at the library in our Podcast Collection. You can also find Dr. Freer on her University of Exeter page.  We hope you enjoy our 66th interview episode! Each month (or so) we release an episode featuring a conversation with an author, artist, or other notable guests from Chicagoland or around the world. Learn more about the podcast on our podcast page. You can listen to all of our episodes in the player below or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere else you listen to podcasts. We welcome your comments and feedback—please send to podcast@deerfieldlibrary.org.  

Richard Powers talks about his new novel Playground (W. W. Norton & Co., 2024). Playground gives us a masterful braided narrative of lives devoted to oceanography, computer programming, art, and literature, taking us from French Polynesia to right here in Illinois.  Powers is the author of fourteen acclaimed novels, including Orfeo (2014), The Overstory (2018), and Bewilderment (2021). He is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, the Pulitzer Prize (for The Overstory), and the National Book Award.  Though he lives in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, Powers' has a unique connection to Chicagoland and our community. Not only did Powers grow up in nearby Evanston, but listeners will also hear of the mutual friendship we share with my former English teacher at Deerfield High School, Jeff Berger-White. Powers praises Jeff as having “raised generations of Deerfield High students to not just love literature, but to take it seriously as a tool with which to navigate life.” We explore this theme in Playground, which centers around the competitive intellectual high school friendship of two boys in Chicago. This is a profound conversation about the huge sea changes we face, from the climate crisis, to artificial intelligence, to how we attend to one another, and the role art can play. You can check out Playground and other books by Richard Powers here at the library, or check out his website.  In celebration of this special podcast conversation with Richard Powers, we'll be hosting a book discussion on Playground on Thursday December 5, at 7pm Central. Register to join us—the discussion will be held in a hybrid format, both in person at the Library and on Zoom. (Copies will be available to check out one month before the discussion.) We hope you enjoy our 65th interview episode! Each month (or so), we release an episode featuring a conversation with an author, artist, or other notable guests from Chicagoland or around the world. Learn more about the podcast on our podcast page. You can listen to all of our episodes in the player below or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere else you listen to podcasts. We welcome your comments and feedback—please send to podcast@deerfieldlibrary.org. Follow us: Facebook Instagram YouTube TikTok The Deerfield Public Library Podcast is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include Adult Language.   

Lois Baer Barr—a poet and fiction writer living just next door to us in Riverwoods, IL—on her new novel The Tailor's Daughter (Water's Edge Press, 2023). The Tailor's Daughter uses Barr's familial memories and prodigious research to explore the life of a Jewish immigrant family making their lives in Louisville, KY in the interwar years. Encompassing such dramatic history as the Great Depression, the Great Flood of the Ohio River in 1937, and the volunteer effort in WWII, the novel also brings us close to the quiet worries and hopes of children, parents, and grandparents. Listen to hear how a novelist turns fact into, “the truth of fiction.”  Barr is also the author of the poetry chapbook, Tracks: Poems on the “L” (Finishing Line Press, 2022), which uses observations and overheard conversations from her trips on Chicago's “L” trains to make poems. Her unique project was covered by the Chicago Tribune in 2019. We hear a few poems from Tracks as well, as we get to know this fascinating writer, who just might be listening and staring   Look for The Tailor's Daughter and Tracks: Poems on the “L” here at the library in our Podcast Collection. You can find out more about Lois Baer Barr on her website.  Barr was a finalist for the 2019 Rita Dove Poetry Award, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize for her fiction and poetry. She is also the author of the chapbook Biopoesis, which won Poetica's 2013 chapbook award. Her chapbook of fiction, Lope de Vega's Daughter, was published in 2019 by Red Bird Press. Barr is professor emerita of Spanish at Lake Forest College. A note that Lois Baer Barr has no relation to our 2023 podcast guest Lisa Barr (episode 59), author of The Woman on Fire and The Goddess of Warsaw, however, Lois does have connections to (and thanks in her acknowledgements!) the Deerfield Poets group; we featured members of that group in a podcast episode (#18) back in 2018! We hope you enjoy our 64th interview episode! Each month (or so), we release an episode featuring a conversation with an author, artist, or other notable guests from Chicagoland or around the world. Learn more about the podcast on our podcast page. You can listen to all of our episodes in the player below or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere else you listen to podcasts. We welcome your comments and feedback—please send to podcast@deerfieldlibrary.org. Follow us: Facebook Instagram YouTube TikTok The Deerfield Public Library Podcast is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include Adult Language. 

Day 20: Mary Jo Bang reads her poem “Mary Jo in the Time of Sappho.” We are honored to be the original publication of this poem. Mary Jo Bang is the author of nine books of poems—including A Film in Which I Play Everyone, which was nominated for a Lammy Award, A Doll for Throwing, and Elegy, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award. She has published translations of Dante's Inferno, illustrated by Henrik Drescher, and Purgatorio. Her translation of Paradiso is forthcoming from Graywolf Press in 2025. She is also the translator of Colonies of Paradise: Poems by Matthias Göritz and co-translator, with Yuki Tanaka, of A Kiss for the Absolute: Selected Poems of Shuzo Takiguchi, forthcoming in 2024 from the Princeton University Press Lockert Poetry in Translation Series. She teaches at Washington University in St. Louis. 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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this fourth year of our series is from the second movement of the “Geistinger Sonata,” Piano Sonata No. 2 in C sharp minor, by Ethel Smyth, 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.  

Day 19: Armen Davoudian reads his poem “Saffron,” from his new collection The Palace of Forty Pillars, also published in The Atlantic (2024).  Armen Davoudian is the author of the poetry collection THE PALACE OF FORTY PILLARS (Tin House) and the translator, from Persian, of HOPSCOTCH by Fatemeh Shams (Ugly Duckling Presse). He grew up in Isfahan, Iran, and is a PhD candidate in English at Stanford University. 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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this fourth year of our series is from the second movement of the “Geistinger Sonata,” Piano Sonata No. 2 in C sharp minor, by Ethel Smyth, 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.  

Day 18: Esther Lin reads her poem "Praise the Scaffold in Rouen Cathedral.” We are honored to be the first publication of this poem.  Esther Lin was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and lived in the United States as an undocumented immigrant for 21 years. Her forthcoming book _Cold Thief Place_ is the winner of the 2023 Alice James Award. She has been a Writing Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown and a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. She co-organizes the Undocupoets, which promotes the work of undocumented poets and raises consciousness about the structural barriers that they face in the literary community.  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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this fourth year of our series is from the second movement of the “Geistinger Sonata,” Piano Sonata No. 2 in C sharp minor, by Ethel Smyth, 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.  

Day 17:  Sebastian Merrill reads his poem “To My Ghost :: Float” from his book GHOST :: SEEDS (Texas Review Press, 2022).  Sebastian Merrill's debut collection GHOST :: SEEDS was selected by Kimiko Hahn as the winner of the 2022 X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize, published by Texas Review Press in November 2023. A winner of the 2024 Stonewall Honor Book - Barbara Gittings Literature Award from the American Library Association, GHOST :: SEEDS was also selected by Ellen Doré Watson as the winner of the 2022 Levis Prize for Poetry from Friends of Writers. Sebastian's poetry has appeared in The Common, Four Way Review, Diode Poetry Journal, wildness, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson College and a BA from Wellesley College.  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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this fourth year of our series is from the second movement of the “Geistinger Sonata,” Piano Sonata No. 2 in C sharp minor, by Ethel Smyth, 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.  

Day 16: Matthew Gellman reads his poem “Beforelight,” originally published in Passages North, 2018.  Matthew Gellman is the author of a chapbook, Night Logic, which was selected by Denise Duhamel as the winner of Tupelo Press' 2021 Snowbound Chapbook Award. His first book, Beforelight, was selected by Tina Chang as the winner of the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize and is forthcoming from BOA Editions. Matthew has received awards and honors from the National Endowment for the Arts, Brooklyn Poets, the Adroit Journal's Djanikian Scholars Program, the Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, the New York State Summer Writers Institute and the Academy of American Poets. His poems have appeared in Poetry Northwest, Gulf Coast, Narrative, The Common, the Missouri Review, Indiana Review, Ninth Letter, Lambda Literary's Poetry Spotlight, and other publications. He lives in New York, where he teaches at Hunter College and Fordham University. 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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language. Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this fourth year of our series is from the second movement of the “Geistinger Sonata,” Piano Sonata No. 2 in C sharp minor, by Ethel Smyth, 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.

Day 15: Cindy Juyoung Ok reads her poem “Claim.” They originally published the poem in Conjunctions Issue 75 (Fall 2020).  Cindy Juyoung Ok is the author of Ward Toward from the Yale Series of Younger Poets and an assistant English professor at the University of California Davis.  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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language. Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this fourth year of our series is from the second movement of the “Geistinger Sonata,” Piano Sonata No. 2 in C sharp minor, by Ethel Smyth, 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.

Day 14: Yinlin Zhao reads its poem “The Mpreg Poem.” We are honored to be the poem's first publication. Yinlin Zhao (he/it/go for it, truly) is a writer/student out on the East Coast and on the world wide web. All the stuff it makes is probably about robots, bugs, or a secret third thing. His work has been published in warning lines literary, Hominum Journal, The Dawn Review, and antinarrative, and has been recognized by Scholastic. Its website, which has a bunch of his creations, is https://braveyoungcowboys.neocities.org/ 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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this fourth year of our series is from the second movement of the “Geistinger Sonata,” Piano Sonata No. 2 in C sharp minor, by Ethel Smyth, 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.  

Day 13: Séamus Isaac Fey reads his poem “Edwin says I deserve to be loved with precision” which appears in their new collection decompose (Not a Cult Media, 2024).  Séamus Isaac Fey (he/they) is a Trans writer living in LA. Currently, he is the poetry editor at Hooligan Magazine, and co creative director at Rock Pocket Productions. His debut poetry collection, decompose, is out with Not a Cult Media. His work has appeared in American Poetry Review, Poet Lore, The Offing, Sonora Review, and others. He loves to beat his friends at Mario Party. Find him online @sfeycreates. 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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language. Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this fourth year of our series is from the second movement of the “Geistinger Sonata,” Piano Sonata No. 2 in C sharp minor, by Ethel Smyth, 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.

Day 12: Fatimah Asghar reads their poem “The Ocean is Trynna Fuck,” originally published in the American Poetry Review, 2023.  Fatimah Asghar is an artist who spans across different genres and themes. They have been featured in various outlets such as TIME, NPR, Teen Vogue and the Forbes 30 Under 30 List. They are the author of If They Come For Us  and When We Were Sister, which was longlisted for the National Book Award and won the Carol Shield's Prize. Along with Safia Elhillo they co-edited an anthology for Muslim people who are also women, trans, gender non-conforming, and/ or queer, Halal If You Hear Me. They are the writer and co-creator of the Emmy-nominated Brown Girls, and wrote and directed the short films Got Game and Retrieval. They are also a writer and co-producer on Ms. Marvel on Disney +, and wrote Episode 5, Time and Again, which was listed as one of the best TV episodes of 2022 in the New York Times and Hollywood Reporter.   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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this fourth year of our series is from the second movement of the “Geistinger Sonata,” Piano Sonata No. 2 in C sharp minor, by Ethel Smyth, 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.  

Day 11: Joshua Garcia reads “Epistle (Deluge)” which first appeared in New South and appears in his new collection Pentimento. Joshua Garcia is the author of Pentimento (Black Lawrence Press 2024). His poetry has appeared in Ecotone, The Georgia Review, Passages North, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA from the College of Charleston and has received a Stadler Fellowship from Bucknell University and an Emerge—Surface—Be Fellowship from The Poetry Project. He lives and writes in Brooklyn, New York. 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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language. Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this fourth year of our series is from the second movement of the “Geistinger Sonata,” Piano Sonata No. 2 in C sharp minor, by Ethel Smyth, 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.

Day 10: p. hodges adams reads their poem “pêche d'enfer,” originally published in the New Orleans Review, 2022.  p. hodges adams is a michigander poet who received their MFA in creative writing from the university of virginia, where they currently teach as a lecturer. their work can be found in cutbank, fourteen poems, december magazine, and elsewhere. hopefully they will turn into a beam of sunlight someday soon. 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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this fourth year of our series is from the second movement of the “Geistinger Sonata,” Piano Sonata No. 2 in C sharp minor, by Ethel Smyth, 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.  

Day 9: Jimin Seo reads his poem “Richard Wakes Up in The Middle of The Night” forthcoming from his book OSSIA (Changes, 2024).  Jimin Seo was born in Seoul, and immigrated to the US to join his family at the age of eight. He is the author of OSSIA, a winner of The Changes Book Prize. His poems can be found in Action Fokus, The Canary, annulet, Pleiades, mercury firs, and The Bronx Museum. His most recent projects were Poems of Consumption with H. Sinno at the Barbican Centre in London, and a site activation for salazarsequeromedina's Open Pavilion at the 4th Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism. 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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this fourth year of our series is from the second movement of the “Geistinger Sonata,” Piano Sonata No. 2 in C sharp minor, by Ethel Smyth, 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.

Day 8: Amelia Ada reads an excerpt from her collection Hard and Glad, forthcoming from DOPAMINE/Semiotext(e) May 2026.  Amelia Ada is a trans poet and essayist, and she is currently a doctoral candidate in literature and creative writing at the University of Southern California. Her writing has appeared widely in journals, and she is the co-creator and co-host of the podcast You Shouldn't Let Poets Lie To You. She lives in Los Angeles. 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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language. Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this fourth year of our series is from the second movement of the “Geistinger Sonata,” Piano Sonata No. 2 in C sharp minor, by Ethel Smyth, 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.

Day 7: Mark Wunderlich reads his poem “No Horse.” We are honored to be the first publisher of this poem.  Mark Wunderlich is the author of four collections of poems, the most recent of which is God of Nothingness published by Graywolf Press.  His other collections include The Earth Avails, winner of the Rilke Prize, Voluntary Servitude, and The Anchorage, which received the Lambda Literary Award.  He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Amy Lowell Trust, Civitella Ranieri Foundation, and the Wallace Stegner program at Stanford University.  He serves as Executive Director of the Bennington Writing Seminars graduate writing program, and chairs the Writing Committee at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.  He lives near Catskill, New York.   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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this fourth year of our series is from the second movement of the “Geistinger Sonata,” Piano Sonata No. 2 in C sharp minor, by Ethel Smyth, 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.   

Day 6: Angel Nafis reads her poem “Why R&B First Thing in the Morning, Why R&B Above All,” originally published on The Rumpus in 2015.  Born in Chicago, Illinois and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Angel Nafis is a writer and the author of BlackGirl Mansion (Red Beard Press/ New School Poetics, 2012). She earned her BA at Hunter College and her MFA in poetry at Warren Wilson College. Her work has appeared in The Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-day, BLACK FUTURES, The Rumpus, Poetry Magazine, Buzzfeed Reader and elsewhere. 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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this fourth year of our series is from the second movement of the “Geistinger Sonata,” Piano Sonata No. 2 in C sharp minor, by Ethel Smyth, 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.   

Day 5: Gabrielle Bates reads her poem “Intro to Theater,” which appears in her collection Judas Goat (Tin House, 2023) [and an an earlier version of it appeared in Ploughshares].  Gabrielle Bates is the author of Judas Goat (Tin House, 2023), named Electric Lit's top poetry book of the year and an NPR Best Book of 2023. Originally from Birmingham, Alabama, she currently lives in Seattle, where she works for Open Books: A Poem Emporium and co-hosts the podcast The Poet Salon. Website: www.gabriellebat.es  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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this fourth year of our series is from the second movement of the “Geistinger Sonata,” Piano Sonata No. 2 in C sharp minor, by Ethel Smyth, 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.   

Day 4: Richard Siken reads his new poem Cover Story, originally published in Pithead Chapel, which will appear in his forthcoming book I Do Know Some Things (Copper Canyon Press, 2025).  Richard Siken is a poet, painter, and filmmaker. His book Crush won the 2004 Yale Series of Younger Poets prize, selected by Louise Glück, a Lambda Literary Award, a Thom Gunn Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His other books are War of the Foxes (Copper Canyon Press, 2015) and I Do Know Some Things (forthcoming, Copper Canyon Press, 2025). Siken is a recipient of a Pushcart Prize, two Lannan Fellowships, two Arizona Commission on the Arts grants, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in Tucson, Arizona. 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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this fourth year of our series is from the second movement of the “Geistinger Sonata,” Piano Sonata No. 2 in C sharp minor, by Ethel Smyth, 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. 

Day 3: Leslie Sainz reads her poem “At the Center of the Story & Utterly Left Out”, originally published in The Common (2023).  Leslie Sainz is the author of Have You Been Long Enough at Table (Tin House, 2023), a finalist for the 2024 Audre Lorde Award. The daughter of Cuban exiles, her work has appeared in the Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day, the Yale Review, Kenyon Review, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. A three-time National Poetry Series finalist, she's received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, CantoMundo, and the Stadler Center for Poetry & Literary Arts at Bucknell University. Originally from Miami, she lives in Vermont and works as the managing editor of New England Review. 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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language. Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this fourth year of our series is from the second movement of the “Geistinger Sonata,” Piano Sonata No. 2 in C sharp minor, by Ethel Smyth, 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.

Day 2: Eduardo C. Corral read the title poem of his 2020 collection Guillotine (Graywolf Press).  Eduardo C. Corral is the son of Mexican immigrants. He's the author of Guillotine, published by Graywolf Press, and Slow Lightning, which won the 2011 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition. He's the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lannan Foundation Literary Fellowship, a Whiting Writers' Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University. He teaches in the MFA program at North Carolina State University. 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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this fourth year of our series is from the second movement of the “Geistinger Sonata,” Piano Sonata No. 2 in C sharp minor, by Ethel Smyth, 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.   

Day 1: jason b. crawford reads their poem “Untitled 1975-86.” We are honored to be the first publication of this poem. jason b. crawford is a writer born in Washington DC, raised in Lansing, MI. Their debut Full-Length Year of the Unicorn Kidz is out from Sundress Publications. They are a 2023 Lambda Literary Emerging LGBTQ Voices fellow. Their second collection, YEET! is forthcoming from Omnidawn Publishing in 2025.  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 a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this fourth year of our series is from the second movement of the “Geistinger Sonata,” Piano Sonata No. 2 in C sharp minor, by Ethel Smyth, 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 unique podcast series for Pride Month, presenting a public archive of poems written and read by contemporary LGBTQIA+ poets. For this fourth year, we are sharing a poem each weekday in June on our podcast and on our website. Enjoy this audio trailer featuring a collage of some of our voices for 2024. Get episodes of poets reading their poems each weekday starting Monday, June 3, 2024 on the Deerfield Public Library Podcast feed—where we also host interviews with authors of all genres and other notable people from Chicagoland and around the world. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. We invite you to check out our archives from year one, year two, and year three's “Lineage Edition” (or scroll down in the feed!) Queer Poem-a-Day is founded and co-directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Library and host of the Deerfield Public Library Podcast. Music for this fourth year of our series is from the second movement of the “Geistinger Sonata,” Piano Sonata No. 2 in C Sharp Minor by Ethel Smyth, 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. Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  

Marina Shifrin, writer of Pickled Herring, and Bryan Simpson and Taylor Simpson, creators of Creating Things. This conversation was recorded as part of a special live podcast and film screening event we held last month at the Library. The filmmakers—who grew up here in Deerfield—all traveled home to share their films and an illuminating panel discussion with an audience of community members, friends, and family. You'll hear how Marina, Bryan, and Taylor all reconnected on the film festival circuit, as well as entertaining and deeply felt reflections on the surprising thematic connections between the films, which both center on fathers and the power of translating life into art.   The documentary Creating Things (2022) was created by brothers Bryan Simpson and Taylor Simpson and uses clips from an interview with their late father, Roger Simpson, in which he shares his personal philosophy of creativity as an artist, creative director, and person. Set to Taylor's beautiful score, and featuring pieces of art and family mementos, it is a moving exploration of art-making and legacy.  Creating Things won Best Documentary at the 2023 Pittsburgh Shorts film festival. We are honored to announce that Bryan and Taylor have made Creating Things available to stream for free on their website as of our podcast release, in celebration of their father's birthday.  Pickled Herring (2023), written by our guest Marina Shifrin, and directed by and starring Milana Vayntrub, tells the autobiographical story of a woman who has a major accident requiring assistance for her basic needs. Enter her Russian immigrant father, who has ideas of his own on how to help, from finding the best Russian foods or fixing her garage to cultural clashes over family, lifestyle, and art.  Pickled Herring won Best Narrative Short at the Santa Clara International Film Festival. You can watch the trailer of Pickled Herring on Marina's website. Marina has written about her father before, including in her book of essays 30 Before 30: How I Made a Mess of My 20s and You Can Too. Listen to our 2019 podcast conversation with Marina on 30 Before 30, or check it out here at the Library.  Blog post: https://www.deerfieldlibrary.org/deerfield-filmmakers/ We hope you enjoy our 63rd interview episode! Each month (or so), we release an episode featuring a conversation with an author, artist, or other notable guests from Chicagoland or around the world. Learn more about the podcast on our podcast page. You can listen to all of our episodes in the player below or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere else you listen to podcasts. We welcome your comments and feedback—please send to podcast@deerfieldlibrary.org.

The Best That You Can Do (Soft Skull Press, 2024) by our guest Amina Gautier, one of the most prolific and acclaimed short story writers working today. She lives in Chicago. The Best That You Can Do is a beautiful and wide-ranging collection, made up of what Gautier calls “very short fiction”—most of the 58 stories span only a few pages. This distilled form gives us lyrical explorations of Afro-Puerto Rican identity, the ups and fearful downs of romantic relationships, and political satires and counterfactuals in response to violence against Black bodies, among other concerns. In this captivating conversation, Gautier also reflects movingly on how cultural forms from classic literature to Gen-X nostalgia both ironically comment on and inspire her characters to action. Explaining the title, she tells us: “I'm always asking myself with fiction, “how do we get in our own way?” or “when we find ourselves trapped or in an inescapable space, what things can we do to try to claim agency or to try to free ourselves or try to find our way?” which evolved into the [new] collection: what is the best that we can do in any given situation?” Listen to hear more from a master storyteller responding to her time.  You can check out books by Amina Gautier through our library, or find out more on her website. Amina Gautier is the author of the story collections At-Risk (2011), Now We Will Be Happy (2014), and The Loss of All Lost Things (2016). She is the recipient of the Blackwell Prize, the Chicago Public Library Foundation's 21st Century Award, the International Latino Book Award, the Flannery O'Connor Award, and the Phillis Wheatley Award in Fiction. For her body of work, she received the prestigious PEN/MALAMUD Award for Excellence in the Short Story. The Best That You Can Do was published as the winner of the inaugural Soft Skull-Kimbilio Publishing Prize. Kimbilio for Black Fiction is a community of writers and scholars committed to developing, empowering, and sustaining fiction writers from the African diaspora and their stories.  We hope you enjoy our 62nd interview episode! Each month (or so), we release an episode featuring a conversation with an author, artist, or other notable guests from Chicagoland or around the world. Learn more about the podcast on our podcast page. You can listen to all of our episodes in the player below or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere else you listen to podcasts. We welcome your comments and feedback—please send to podcast@deerfieldlibrary.org. Follow us: Facebook X Instagram YouTube TikTok The Deerfield Public Library Podcast is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include Adult Language.   

A conversation with Dr. Jennifer MacLure, Assistant Professor of English at Kent State University, on the occasion of the publication of her book, The Feeling of Letting Die: Necroeconomics and Victorian Fiction (Ohio State University Press, 2023). (Our conversation is also occasioned by our Library's Classics Book Discussion current tackling of Bleak House, Charles Dickens' massive 1853 masterpiece!)  The Feeling of Letting Die looks at how the Victorian novel addresses a knotty problem at the heart of England's rapidly industrializing society—how does a system that creates so much wealth also intentionally let certain people die in the service of the free market? Dr. MacLure explores the underpinnings of this “necroeconomic” system by looking at how fiction by Harriet Martineau, Elizabeth Gaskell, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and William Morris can be seen as a “literary laboratory,” as experiments in how the feelings that support and thwart this economic system circulate.   It's both a delightful conversation and about the origins of some of our most pressing issues today—epidemics, workers rights, gender, racism, poverty, charity—and it all builds to an affirmation of the study of literature as an “epistemological tool” for understanding our world today. As Dr. MacLure puts it, the histories of political economy and literature are more intertwined—and weirder—than normally assumed. Whether you are already a fan or not of Victorian literature, this podcast offers an opportunity for thinking anew.  You can check out The Feeling of Letting Die: Necroeconomics and Victorian Fiction here at the library in our podcast collection.  We hope you enjoy our 61st interview episode! Each month (or so), we release an episode featuring a conversation with an author, artist, or other notable guests from Chicagoland or around the world. Learn more about the podcast (and our seven years of archives) on our podcast page. You can listen to all of our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere else you listen to podcasts. We welcome your comments and feedback—please send to podcast@deerfieldlibrary.org. You can listen to all of our episodes in the player below.

For our final day of Queer Poem-a-Day Lineage Edition, we reveal the unknown lineage story of the composer Robert Savage (whose "AIDS Ward Scherzo" is our excerpted music this year) and and his connection to poet John Ashbery. While preparing the music for this year, our pianist Daniel Baer discovered a 1982 piece by Savage "Chaconne," dedicated to John Ashbery. For the last month, while we've been presenting lineage poems, we've also been tracking down the mystery of their connection.   We want to extend our enormous gratitude to David Kermani, John Ashbery's husband, for his time and sharing his insights. And to Jeffrey Lependorf, Executive Director of The Flow Chart Foundation, to Karin Roffman, Ashbery's biographer, to academic Andrew Epstein, author of the Locus Solus Blog about the New York School Poets. We also want to point listeners to the work of pianist Marcus Ostermiller, whose performances of and dissertation on Robert Savage have been pioneering in increasing the visibility of this remarkable composer.  Quotations from texts and interviews by John Ashbery are Copyright © 2019, 2020. All rights reserved. Used by arrangement with Georges Borchardt, Inc. for the John Ashbery Estate. deerfieldlibrary.org/queerpoemaday/  Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  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 third year of our series is AIDS Ward Scherzo by Robert Savage, 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. 

Amanda Gunn reads a poem by Judy Grahn and the poem "Like This" from Amanda's new book Things I Didn't Do With This Body (Copper Canyon Press, 2023).  Quick Note: for today's episode, Amanda Gunn chose a long poem by the living poet Judy Grahn as her lineage work—while Judy Grahn is not a “poet of the past” Amanda's passion about this poem and this great figure of our current age was irresistible, so we end our Lineage series by reopening the present.  Queer Poem-a-Day Lineage Edition is our new format for year three! Featuring contemporary LGBTQIA+ poets reading a poem by an LGBTQIA+ writer of the past, followed by an original poem of their own. Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Amanda Gunn is a poet, teacher, and doctoral candidate in English at Harvard where she studies poetry, ephemerality, and Black pleasure. Raised in Connecticut, she worked as a medical copyeditor for thirteen years before earning a master of fine arts degree in poetry from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins. She is a 2021-23 Wallace Stegner Fellow in poetry at Stanford, the inaugural winner of the Auburn Witness Poetry Prize honoring Jack Adam York, the recipient of a writing fellowship from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, and the recipient of a Pushcart Prize. "Like This" was first published in Things I Didn't Do With This Body (Copper Canyon Press, 2023).  Text of today's original poem and more details about our program can be found at: deerfieldlibrary.org/queerpoemaday/ Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  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 third year of our series is AIDS Ward Scherzo by Robert Savage, 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. 

Megan Fernandes reads a poem by Federico García Lorca and "Paris Poem Without Clichés" from Megan's just-released book, I Do Everything I'm Told (Tin House, 2023) Queer Poem-a-Day Lineage Edition is our new format for year three! Featuring contemporary LGBTQIA+ poets reading a poem by an LGBTQIA+ writer of the past, followed by an original poem of their own.  Megan Fernandes is a poet living in NYC. She has been published in The New Yorker, The American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, among many others. Text of today's original poem and more details about our program can be found at: deerfieldlibrary.org/queerpoemaday/ Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  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 third year of our series is AIDS Ward Scherzo by Robert Savage, 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. 

Randall Mann reads a poem by Karl Tierney and ""Wi-Fi" from Randall Mann's new book Deal: New and Selected Poems (2023, Copper Canyon Press). Queer Poem-a-Day Lineage Edition is our new format for year three! Featuring contemporary LGBTQIA+ poets reading a poem by an LGBTQIA+ writer of the past, followed by an original poem of their own. A queer poet, critic, and medical writer, Randall Mann is the author of five poetry collections: Deal: New and Selected Poems (2023, Copper Canyon Press), Complaint in the Garden, Breakfast with Thom Gunn, Straight Razor, Proprietary, and A Better Life. He is also the author of a book of criticism, essays, and interviews, The Illusion of Intimacy: On Poetry. His writing has appeared in The Adroit Journal, Lit Hub, Kenyon Review, Paris Review, Poetry Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, and elsewhere. He is the recipient of the Kenyon Review Prize in Poetry and the J. Howard and Barbara M.J. Wood Prize from Poetry, and his books have been shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award, California Book Award, and Northern California Book Award. Mann lives in San Francisco. Text of today's original poem and more details about our program can be found at: deerfieldlibrary.org/queerpoemaday/ Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  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 third year of our series is AIDS Ward Scherzo by Robert Savage, 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. 

Jameson Fitzpatrick reads a text by Gertrude Stein and a poem "The Genius of Wives I Have Sat With" from Jameson's chapbook Mr. & (Indolent Books, 2018). Queer Poem-a-Day Lineage Edition is our new format for year three! Featuring contemporary LGBTQIA+ poets reading a poem by an LGBTQIA+ writer of the past, followed by an original poem of their own.  Jameson Fitzpatrick is the author of the poetry collection Pricks in the Tapestry (Birds, LLC, 2020) and the chapbooks Mr. & (Indolent Books, 2018) and Morrisroe: Erasures (89plus/LUMA Publications, 2014). She is a 2023 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow in Creative Writing and teaches first-year writing at New York University. Text of today's original poem and more details about our program can be found at: deerfieldlibrary.org/queerpoemaday/ Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  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 third year of our series is AIDS Ward Scherzo by Robert Savage, 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. 

Alicia Mountain reads a poem by Pat Parker and "Rewinding the Lesbian Sex Scene on a Flight to Denver" originally published in American Poetry Review. Queer Poem-a-Day Lineage Edition is our new format for year three! Featuring contemporary LGBTQIA+ poets reading a poem by an LGBTQIA+ writer of the past, followed by an original poem of their own.  Alicia Mountain is the author of Four in Hand (BOA 2023). Her debut collection, High Ground Coward (Iowa 2018), won of the Iowa Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in The Nation, Guernica, Pleiades, Poetry Northwest, and American Poetry Review. Mountain was a Clemens Doctoral Fellow at the University of Denver and the 2020-2021 Artist in Residence at the University of Central Oklahoma. She serves on the board of Foglifter, a LGBTQIA+ journal based in the Bay Area. Mountain lives in New York City, where she is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Writer's Foundry MFA program at St. Joseph's University in Brooklyn.  Text of today's original poem and more details about our program can be found at: deerfieldlibrary.org/queerpoemaday/ Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  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 third year of our series is AIDS Ward Scherzo by Robert Savage, 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. 

Chen Chen reads a poem by Justin Chin and "The World's Italianest Resturant" from Chen's new book, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency (BOA Editions, 2022); the poem first appeared in bath magg (bathmagg.com/chenchen2/). In this special longer episode, Chen Chen shares (in conversation with Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno) his reflections on the importance of libraries being for everybody and standing against censorship. Queer Poem-a-Day Lineage Edition is our new format for year three! Featuring contemporary LGBTQIA+ poets reading a poem by an LGBTQIA+ writer of the past, followed by an original poem of their own. Chen Chen's second book, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency, has been selected as a best book of 2022 by the Boston Globe, Electric Lit, NPR, and others. It has also been named a 2023 Notable Book by the American Library Association. His debut, When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities, was long-listed for the National Book Award and won the Thom Gunn Award, among other honors. A 2022 United States Artists Fellow, his work appears in many publications, including The New York Times and three editions of The Best American Poetry.  Text of today's original poem and more details about our program can be found at: deerfieldlibrary.org/queerpoemaday/ Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  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 third year of our series is AIDS Ward Scherzo by Robert Savage, 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. 

K. Iver reads a peice by David Wojnarowicz and their poem "Central Park" originally published in Bat City Review, Spring 2023. Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day Lineage Edition is our new format for year three! Featuring contemporary LGBTQIA+ poets reading a poem by an LGBTQIA+ writer of the past, followed by an original poem of their own.  K. Iver (they/them) is a nonbinary trans poet born in Mississippi. Their book Short Film Starring My Beloved's Red Bronco won the 2022 Ballard Spahr Prize for Poetry from Milkweed Editions. Their poems have appeared in Boston Review, Kenyon Review, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere. Iver has received fellowships from The Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, the Sewanee Writer's Conference, and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. They have a Ph.D. in Poetry from Florida State University. For more, visit kleeiver.com. Text of today's original poem and more details about our program can be found at: deerfieldlibrary.org/queerpoemaday/ Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  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 third year of our series is AIDS Ward Scherzo by Robert Savage, 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.