This week on This Way Out: in the second installment of our special Pride Month collaboration with Los Angeles' Get Lit – Words Ignite, young poets respond to the voices of James Baldwin and Urvashi Vaid with original spoken-word performances that bridge generations of LGBTQ history, literature, and activism.

In a special Pride Month feature produced by Brian DeShazor, young poets from Los Angeles-based Get Lit – Words Ignite respond to the words of LGBTQ trailblazers across generations. After listening to archival recordings by James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, and Quentin Crisp, the poets James Mondares, Candi aka Vonne, and Samantha Rios created original spoken-word pieces inspired by those voices and their enduring messages.

Our Pride Season series starts with samples from our upcoming month of specials, with Los Angeles Poet Laureate Brian Sonia-Wallace and series producers Emma Shulman and Abigail DeRoberts.

National Poetry Month revisits the 1979 March on Washington with poetry from the rally stage recited by Allen Ginsberg, Paula Gunn Allen, and Audre Lorde. Audre Lorde also reads a poem to close the program from 1980 recorded at a feminist event in New York City.

Portland, Oregon’s twice monthly live open mic performance event, Slamlandia, yields the work of three queer poets: Joshua Merritt, Evey Rothwell and Ret (produced by Brian DeShazor). Plus December birthdays including anthropologist Margaret Mead and historic queer moments from the declassification of homosexuality as a disease to the dawn of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” on the Rainbow Rewind (written and produced by Sheri Lunn and Brian DeShazor).

Classic appearances by two giants in the world of poetry regardless of gender or orientation, reading from their work and responding to their audience, brought together by the magic of recording tape (!) and the courtesy of the Pacifica Radio Archives (produced by Brian DeShazor).

A unique program for LGBTQ seniors led by West Hollywood, California’s first Poet Laureate Steven Reigns uses poetry as a tool to capture...