DCAC's Poetry Series
Category: Event Calendar
Date and Time
- Sunday, Mar 8, 2026 3pm - 5pm
Location
DC Arts Center
2438 18th St NW
Details
Program: 3:00–4:00 PM
Reception: 4:00–5:00 PM
Join us for a poetic event exploring the work of two award-winning poets, Kiki Petrosino and Kyle Dargan, introduced by an analytical presentation by Mario Melo. After the readings, stay for an informal reception with drinks, conversation, and book signings, and enjoy the chance to meet the poets.
The Boston Review has placed Kiki Petrosino "at the forefront of a deeply heterogeneous, expansive poetic movement, one that is transforming traditional lyric subjectivity into a more inclusive, complex space—not only of voices, but also of indeterminacies, bodies, and linguistic transgressions," while the Southern Review called her book Bright " a stunning examination of love, family, and human nature."
The poems of Kyle Dargan, who has been long-listed for the Pulitzer Prize, have been called by The Rumpus "poems of the critic, the perpetual outsider, the haunted man, the insomniac" that reflect "a lover of all that’s human and flawed." The Los Angeles Review of Books has observed that Dargan is "a poet whose work navigates between the political and philosophical, and his poems are fueled frequently by a fearlessness in expressing curiosity, wonder, and critique."
Mario Melo, a young poet coming up in D.C.'s open mic circuit and recent graduate in literary studies from the University of Denver, will provide an analytical lecture examining the work of these renowned poets. Melo's presentation will focus on the formal workings, particularly line, syntax, and rhythm, of some chosen poems as a small part of a larger conversation surrounding free verse poetry.
