The following is a guest post by Mary Lou Reker, program specialist at the Library of Congress Office of Scholarly Programs. Over the last three or four years I’ve been researching American writers popular during the 1920s through 1950s. One of these was Archibald MacLeish, the former Librarian of Congress. So when my colleague Rob …
Poet Jack Gilbert, who touched the lives of countless readers through lucid, lyrical poems that explored classic themes such as love, death, and the good life, passed away Tuesday at age 87. Though Gilbert eschewed the literary limelight and would never have considered serving as U.S. Poet Laureate, he came to the Library at least …
PLC intern Elizabeth Acevedo reads Lucille Clifton’s “won’t you celebrate with me” to Caitlin Rizzo. Since coming to the Poetry and Literature Center as a Junior Fellow, I’ve welcomed many new office traditions: morning coffee, baked goods at least once every two weeks, and watching Rob dance. Though, by far my favorite office tradition is …
The following is a guest post by Sheila McMullin, a 2012-2013 intern at the Library of Congress Poetry and Literature Center. In 2009, I had just moved back from college in Arizona to my parents home in Orange County, California. One day my mother, an associate professor of Anthropology at the University of California-Riverside, came …
The following is a guest post by Rob Casper, head of the Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress, from his home in Brooklyn, NY. I write this on Oct. 31st, from Brooklyn. My wife and I live in Park Slope—I commute to DC every week. We got through the storm unscathed, unlike the …
The following is a guest post by Blane Dessy, executive director of the Library of Congress Federal Library & Information Network (FEDLINK). I’ve been a librarian for a long time, and for much of my career I guess you could say I have been a paper pusher. Most of my days are spent sitting …
The following is a guest post by Caitlin Rizzo, staffer for the Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress. Today the Poetry and Literature Center’s friends from the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society debuted a remastered video of former director of the Library of Congress American Folklife Center Alan Jabbour and Howard …
Every once in awhile, my job offers me an opportunity to do something magical. For instance, last May I received an e-mail from Ken Bolinsky, the Mississippi state coordinator for the Poetry Out Loud Program—2012 winner Kristen Dupard had won the national poetry recitation contest by reciting, among other poems, Philip Levine’s “What Work Is.” …
The following is a guest post by Caitlin Rizzo, staffer for the Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress. This past weekend marked the celebration of the Library of Congress’s 12th annual National Book Festival and the second year in a row that the Festival sprawled over two days, both Saturday and Sunday, …
In a February blog post on State Poets Laureate I mentioned that From the Catbird Seat would periodically update readers when new State Poets are appointed. During the past five weeks there have been a flurry of changes to State Poet positions, making this an opportune time to give a brief roundup of recent activity. …