Join us for a dynamic evening at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division as we celebrate the debut poetry collection, Cowboy Park, by Eduardo Martínez-Leyva. Immerse yourself in poems that explore self-acceptance and self-discovery along the U.S.-Mexico border. The event will also feature readings by LGBTQ poets River 瑩瑩 Dandelion, Seth Leeper, and Francisco Márquez. Don’t miss this opportunity to connect with the world of Latinx literature and support the LGBTQ community.

To reserve a copy of Cowboy Park (Wisconsin University Press, November 2024, paperback, $17.95), please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve a copy of Cowboy Park for Jan. 30th event” in the subject line.

Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.

All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD

Eduardo Martínez-Leyva was born in El Paso, TX to Mexican immigrants. His work has appeared in Poetry Magazine, The Boston Review, The Adroit Journal, Frontier Poetry, The Hopkins Review, Best New Poets, and elsewhere. He’s received fellowships from CantoMundo, The Frost Place, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Lambda Literary Foundation, a teaching fellowship from Columbia University, where he earned his MFA, and was the writer-in-residence at St. Albans School for Boys in Washington D.C. His debut poetry collection, Cowboy Park, was selected by Amaud Jamaul Johnson for the 2024 Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry and is part of The Wisconsin Poetry Series published by the University of Wisconsin Press.

River 瑩瑩 Dandelion (he, him, keoi 佢) walks with his ancestors. He is a practitioner of ancestral medicine through writing, teaching, energy healing, and creating ceremony. As a poet, he writes to connect with the unseen and unspoken so we can feel and heal. River is the winner of the 2024 Lambda Literary Award for Exceptional New LGBTQ Writers. He is the author of remembering (y)our light, a debut chapbook on honoring matriarchs and ancestors across generations.

Seth Leeper is a queer poet. His work has appeared, or is forthcoming in Foglifter, Waxing, Poet Lore, Prairie Schooner, OnlyPoems, Salamander, and Sycamore Review . He holds an M.S. in Special Education from Pace University and B.A. in Creative Writing and Fashion Journalism from San Francisco State University. He is a candidate in the Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing Program at Randolph College. His work has been nominated for Best New Poets, Best of the Net, and Pushcart awards. He teaches drop in and virtual workshops for Brooklyn Poets.

Francisco Márquez is a poet from Maracaibo, Venezuela, born in Miami, Florida. His work has been featured in the Y ale 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 lives in Brooklyn, New York.