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Posted by: Robert Casper
Every year or two, I have a day like this: when the new Poet Laureate is announced. There’s a lot of build-up–from the many months that go into the selection process, and the weeks of publicity-related work after the Librarian of Congress has made his decision. We even do a “Laureate Orientation,” with the Laureate-to-be, …
Posted in: News and Events, Poets Laureate
Posted by: Robert Casper
Tonight is one of the biggest nights of the year for us. Back in September, a standing-room-only crowd filled the Library’s Coolidge Auditorium to mark the beginning of Charles Wright’s term as the 20th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry; tonight we will gather in the same room to mark the end of Wright’s term. He …
Posted in: News and Events, Poets Laureate
Posted by: Robert Casper
Yesterday we posted a blog about the launch of the Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature. We are also excited about press publicity for the archive in Hyperallergic, The New York Times, and Open Culture. For this post we want to give you a behind-the-scenes sense of how the archive came to be. Below are …
Posted in: Collections, Digital Resources, From the Archive, Guest Posts, News and Events
Posted by: Robert Casper
Every season, the Poetry and Literature Center’s calendar includes one or more programs we’ve never tried before. The first such program of the spring will take place next Tuesday, with a symposium on poetry and literacy. It is the latest effort by the Library’s Literacy Awards Program, which for the two years has given three …
Posted in: News and Events, Poets Laureate
Posted by: Robert Casper
In mid-January, I got a call from Charles Wright to let me know that Philip Levine had cancer. I was shocked–less than a month before, my wife and I had our annual end-of-year get-together with the Levines. We went over to their Brooklyn Heights apartment–Phil’s wife Franny made dinner, and we brought over our usual …
Posted in: News and Events, Poets Laureate
Posted by: Robert Casper
The following is a cross-post from the Insights: Scholarly Work at the John W. Kluge Center, from Program Specialist Jason Steinhauer. Poet and biographer Muriel Rukeyser documented and commented on the seismic events of the 20th century. In her five decades of writing, she captured her experiences as witness to racial inequality in America, the …
Posted in: Uncategorized
Posted by: Robert Casper
Last week, to mark the end of 2014, I wrote about the passing of two Poets Laureate. This week I’d like to look ahead to the year-to-come–specifically, to our growing community of friends. To do this, I have to turn to the past. The Poetry and Literature Center, and the Poet Laureate position, would not …
Posted in: News and Events, Poets Laureate