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Archive: 2012 (48 Posts)

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A Grimm Beginning

Posted by: Peter Armenti

Today marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of the first volume of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s Children’s and Household Tales (Kinder-und Hausmärchen), popularly known as Grimms’ Fairy Tales. The collection’s bicentennial has already been marked by the publication of a new retelling of fifty of the tales by His Dark Materials author Philip Pullman …

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Happy Hanukkah from the Poetry and Literature Center

Posted by: Caitlin Rizzo

This past Sunday marked the first night of Hanukkah, and Washington, D.C. celebrated in true style with the lighting of the world’s largest menorah on the Ellipse, just across from the White House. Here at the Poetry and Literature Center the decorations are a little more austere (a blue and white snowflake left over from …

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A Tale of Two Laureates

Posted by: Robert Casper

While most of the Poetry and Literature Center’s public programs happen here in Washington, DC, a small but growing number take place throughout the country. Last week I had the chance to fly out to Los Angeles, for a reading with the current Poet Laureate at the lovely LA Central Library. The event could not …

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Discoveries I’ve Made

Posted by: Caitlin Rizzo

 The following is a guest post by Elizabeth Acevedo, a 2012-2013 intern at the Library of Congress Poetry and Literature Center. I have a confession to make: I have not always been an avid reader of poetry. This tends to be a problem when you’re an intern at the Library of Congress Poetry and Literature …

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Epistle for Thanksgiving

Posted by: Robert Casper

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 …

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Coming to the End of His Triumph

Posted by: Peter Armenti

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 …

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Poetry at Work

Posted by: Caitlin Rizzo

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 …

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The Mission

Posted by: Robert Casper

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 …

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Turning to Poetry

Posted by: Peter Armenti

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 …