Poets and critics read from and discuss the new anthology that surveys queer poetry written after the 1969 Stonewall Riots.

In Super Gay Poems, Stephanie Burt curates a boundary-pushing anthology of 51 poems by LGBTQIA+ writers, tracing the evolution of queer poetry since the Stonewall Riots, a series of confrontations between police and LGBTQ+ protesters that unfolded over six days and became a galvanizing moment for queer liberation. From sonnets to shaped poems, elegies to joyful provocations, the collection features luminaries like Frank O’Hara and Audre Lorde alongside vital contemporary voices such as Chen Chen and The Cyborg Jillian Weise. Each poem is paired with a brief essay.

Burt will discuss the anthology and be joined by featured poets Jee Leong Koh, Marisa Crawford, Marilyn Hacker, and others for a reading and conversation. Come early for the special collections display featuring queer poets whose work is held in the Library’s Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature!

To join the event in person | Doors will open 30 minutes before the program begins. For LIVE from NYPL events, we generally overbook to ensure a full house. Please arrive early to avoid disappointment; we will do our best to accommodate everyone. Booked seats that have not been claimed will be released shortly before start time, and seats may become available then. A standby line will form 30 minutes before the program.

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ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Stephanie Burt is the author of fourteen books of poetry and literary criticism, including Super Gay Poems and Don’t Read Poetry. A past judge for the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, she serves as a board member of the National Book Critics Circle, is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and writes regularly for The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, London Review of Books, The New York Review of Books, Raritan, and other publications. She is the Donald and Katherine Loker Professor of English at Harvard University.

Jee Leong Koh is the author of Steep Tea (Carcanet), named a Best Book of the Year by UK's Financial Times and a Finalist by Lambda Literary in the USA. His hybrid work of fiction, Snow at 5 PM: Translations of an insignificant Japanese poet, won the Singapore Literature Prize in English fiction. He was also shortlisted for the prize for The Pillow Book (Math Paper Press/Awai Books), Connor and Seal (Sibling Rivalry), Sample and Loop (Bench Press), and Inspector Inspector (Carcanet). Koh's work has been translated into Japanese, Chinese, Malay, Vietnamese, Russian, and Latvian. Originally from Singapore, Koh lives in New York City, where he heads the literary non-profit Singapore Unbound.

Marisa Crawford is the author of the poetry collections Diary (Spuyten Duyvil, 2023), Reversible, and The Haunted House. She is the editor of The Weird Sister Collection (Feminist Press, 2024), and co-editor, with Megan Milks, of We Are The Baby-Sitters Club: Essays & Artwork from Grown-Up Readers. Her next project, a poetry collaboration with Morgan Parker, is forthcoming from Bloof Books in 2025. Marisa’s writing about feminism, art and pop culture has appeared in The Nation, Harper’s Bazaar, Dazed, BUST, VICE, Hyperallergic, Bitch, Ms., The Rumpus, Polyester Zine, and elsewhere. Marisa is the creator and editor-in-chief of WEIRD SISTER, a website and organization that explores the intersections of feminism, literature, and pop culture, and co-host of the 90s rock podcast All Our Pretty Songs. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Marilyn Hacker is the author of seventeen books of poems, most recently Calligraphies (Norton, 2023), two collaborative books, A Different Distance, written with Karthika Naïr (Milkweed, 2021) and Water to Water, written with Deema K. Shehabi (Interlink Press, 2026). She’s the translator of twenty-two books by French and Francophone poets, including Daybreak, by Claire Malroux (New York Review Books, 2022) and The Olive Trees’ Jazz, by Samira Negrouche (Pleiades Press, 2022). She lives in New York and Paris.

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ACCESSIBILITY

In-Person | Assistive listening devices and/or hearing loops are available at the venue. You can request a free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation or CART (Communication Access Real-Time Translation) captioning service by emailing your request at least two weeks in advance of the event: email accessibility@nypl.org or use this Gmail template. This venue is fully accessible to wheelchairs. 

Livestream | Captions and a transcript will be provided. Media used over the course of the conversation will be accompanied by alt text and/or audio description. You can request a free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation by emailing your request at least two weeks in advance of the event: email accessibility@nypl.org or use this Gmail template.

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Stephanie Burt © Steph Kloss
Jee Leong Koh © Mihyun Kang
Marisa Crawford © Lauren Desberg
Courtesy Marilyn Hacker