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Rita Dove and “On the Bus with Rosa Parks”

Posted by: Anne Holmes

Because of her enduring impact and legacy, one doesn't need to look far to find Rosa Parks memorialized in poetry. In 1999, Rita Dove—U.S. Poet Laureate from 1993-1995—published her poetry collection "On the Bus with Rosa Parks." In celebration of the Library's new exhibition, "Rosa Parks: In Her Own Words," we're reprinting two poems from Dove's "On the Bus with Rosa Parks" in this post.

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Celebrate Native American Heritage Month with the Annual Young Readers Center Puppet Show (the Day After Thanksgiving!)

Posted by: Anne Holmes

The Young Readers Center is excited to invite you to see the annual Puppet Show on the day after Thanksgiving on November 29, 2019. This year we are sharing Native American Folktales, with stories and poems from nations such as Cree, Seneca, Winnebago, and Navajo adapted from books by Abenaki authors and storytellers—the father-son duo Joseph and James Bruchac.

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Veterans Art Showcase: Occupational Poetry

Posted by: Anne Holmes

On Wednesday, November 6, in honor of Veterans Day and the 20th anniversary of the Veterans History Project, the Veterans History Project, the American Folklife Center, and the Poetry and Literature Center will host a discussion on occupational poetry. In anticipation, we've asked three of the event's participating poets to share a poem, answer a few questions about their work, and respond to another occupational poet's poem. 

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Work and Play … with Language: Occupational Poetry

Posted by: Anne Holmes

Occupational poetry is a category of verbal art anchored in communities of work. As a form of folk poetry, it often manifests in the everyday settings of jobs and employment. Folklore scholarship and fieldwork has focused on the poetic traditions within a narrow range of occupational roles, including miners, commercial fishers, loggers, and, perhaps most visibly, cowboys.

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Quaint and Curious Forgotten (Copyright) Lore

Posted by: Anne Holmes

The following cross-post was written by Alison Hall, a writer-editor for the Office of Public Information and Education in the U.S. Copyright Office; it originally appeared on the Copyright: Creativity at Work blog. Learn more about the connection between Edgar Allan Poe and copyright at the Copyright Matters event “Quoth the Raven: Edgar Allan Poe …

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Hispanic Heritage Month Highlight: 50 New Literary Recordings Available to Stream Online

Posted by: Anne Holmes

The following is a guest post by Catalina Gomez, curator for the Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape, Hispanic Division. The post originally appeared on the 4 Corners of the World: International Collections blog. Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15th – October 15th) is a wonderful moment to showcase the many fascinating collections and archives within the …

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Edwidge Danticat: The Making of a Novelist

Posted by: Anne Holmes

The following post is by Neely Tucker, a writer-editor in the Library’s Office of Communications. It originally appeared on the Library of Congress blog. Edwidge Danticat, the Haitian-born novelist who has become one of America’s most honored authors, told a crowd at the Coolidge Auditorium this week that she first felt the magic of storytelling as a …