Muses Fair and Sundry: Poetry

Mark your calenders for a poetry reading by Philip Clark, RJ Gibson, Imani Sims and Francisco-Luis White! Philip Clarke is an independent researcher in the Washington D.C. area, specializing in gay and lesbian history and literature (both high and low-cultural forms). He is the co-editor of the anthology Persistent Voices: Poetry by Writers Lost to AIDS and serves on the board of directors for the Rainbow History Project, D.C.'s LGBT historical organization. His current projects include editing In the Empire of the Air: The Poems of Donald Britton (Nightboat Books, forthcoming) and researching a mid-century gay social history told through the story of H. Lynn Womack, a D.C.-based publisher/pornographer. RJ Gibson holds an MFA in Poetry from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. He is the author of the chapbooks Scavenge (co-winner of the 2009 Robin Becker Prize) and You Could Learn a Lot, both from Seven Kitchens Press. A semifinalist for the 2013 Boston Review “Discovery” prize, his work has appeared in Court Green, Waxwing, Columbia Poetry Review, MiPOesias, Kenyon Review Online, the Cortland Review, OCHO, Weave, Waxwing and other journals. His work has been anthologized in My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them, Collective Brightness: LGBTIQ Poets on Faith, Religion & Spirituality, and the forthcoming Walk Til the Dogs Get Mean: Meditations on the Forbidden from Contemporary Appalachia. A former Lambda Literary Foundation Poetry Fellow, his work has recently been translated into Japanese. Imani Sims lives in Seattle, WA where she continues to share her story and collect the stories of other QWOC. Her book Twisted Oak is available on Requiem Press and her second collection Beloved:Collision is available via Amazon. Her third book (A)live Heart is forthcoming on Sibling Rivalry Press. Francisco-Luis White is an agender, AfroLatinx writer, poet and storyteller currently residing in District of Columbia. They have presented at the Carolina Conference on Queer Youth (2014 and 2015), Fire & Ink Conference for LGBTQ Writers of African Descent (2015), and the United States Conference on AIDS (2014). In 2015, they were recognized by National Black Justice Coalition as an SGL/LGBTQ Emerging Leader to Watch and one of Qnotes Faces of The Future. White is a contributor to TheBody.com and for HIV Equal.