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Posted by: Anne Holmes
Looking forward to the 2020 National Book Festival? In the meantime, you can watch past festival presentations by exploring our full National Book Festival video collection—which includes this video of poet Kevin Young reading and discussing his poems on the Poetry & Prose stage at the 2015 festival.
Posted in: Collections, Digital Resources
Posted by: Anne Holmes
The Library of Congress, through its Center for the Book, has affiliates in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Now, you can learn about your local Center for the Book’s public programs in one place: Our newly launched Calendar of Events tells you what your state or territory is doing as well as the activities of other Affiliate Centers. And, through the beauty of the internet, you can be a part of programs from just about any state, as the current pandemic has forced almost all programs to go online.
Posted in: Digital Resources, Guest Posts, News and Events
Posted by: Peter Armenti
This "Teacher's Corner" blog post by former Library of Congress Teacher in Residence Rebecca Newland explores ideas for engaging students with poetry at the end of the school year.
Posted in: Guest Posts, Teacher's Corner
Posted by: Anne Holmes
For Jewish American Heritage Month, Manuscript Division curator Barbara Bair explores Philip Roth’s novel "The Plot Against America" (and its recent television adaptation). Set between 1940 and 1942, when Roth himself was a child, the novel examines the status of being Jewish and being American in a particularly perilous time period in American and world history.
Posted in: Collections, Digital Resources, Guest Posts, Jewish American History
Posted by: Anne Holmes
May is the month of Walt Whitman’s birth and also of Memorial Day, when the nation is asked to pause and delve mindfully into remembrance of past wars and service and sacrifices rendered. Library of Congress Manuscript Division curator Barbara Bair explores Whitman's experiences and remembrances of war, isolation, suffering, and a turn to art in times of crisis—and how these themes connect to the current COVID-19 pandemic.
Posted in: Collections, Digital Resources, Guest Posts, Walt Whitman
Posted by: Peter Armenti
For Jewish American Heritage Month, a guest post by research specialist Susan Garfinkel explores the legacy of author Sholem Aleichem, sometimes called "the Yiddish Mark Twain," whose stories of Tevye the dairyman inspired Fiddler on the Roof. Drawing on items from the Library's collections, including newspapers, playscripts, poems, and recordings, she looks at Aleichem's time in America, and delves into the question of whether the two famous humorists ever met.
Posted in: Guest Posts, Jewish American History
Posted by: Anne Holmes
Kaleena Black, educational resources specialist in the Library’s Learning and Innovation Office, offers teachers and students suggestions for identifying and exploring sources of inspiration and creativity by watching Poet Laureate Joy Harjo's inaugural event.
Posted in: Collections, Digital Resources, Guest Posts, Poets Laureate
Posted by: Anne Holmes
Intern Brooke Biastock explores a recording of Audre Lorde and Marge Piercy reading their poetry in the Coolidge Auditorium in 1982. This recording was just added as part of our annual release, during National Poetry Month, of 50 newly streaming recordings to the online Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature.
Posted in: Collections, Digital Resources, Guest Posts, Literary Treasures
Posted by: Peter Armenti
Birding has a long history as a subject for books—scientific and literary, prose and poetry—and other media, reflected in the Library's collections and, like many hobbies and other social distance-friendly activities, it is seeing a surge in interest during this time of pandemic.
Posted in: Digital Resources, Guest Posts