November 20, 1997

Contact:
Yvonne French (202) 707-9191

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Poets Carl Phillips and C.D. Wright To Read at the Library of Congress

Poets Carl Phillips and C.D. Wright will read their poems at 6:45 p.m. Dec. 11 in the Montpelier Room on the sixth floor of the James Madison Memorial Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E. Tickets are not required.

Carl Phillips, whose new collection of poetry, From the Devotions, is forthcoming in January, is the author of In the Blood, winner of the 1992 Morse Poetry Prize, and Cortege, which was nominated for the 1995 National Book Critics Circle Award and the Lambda Gay Men¹s Poetry Award. The recipient of fellowships and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Massachusetts Artists Foundation, the Academy of American Poets, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, Mr. Phillips is associate professor of English and of African and Afro-American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, where he also directs the Creative Writing Program.

C.D. Wright, who is on the faculty of Brown University, was born and raised in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. She is the author of eight books, most recently Tremble (1996). String Light (1991) won the 1992 Poetry Center Book Award. In 1981 she received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, which prompted a move to Mexico. She was awarded the Witter Bynner Prize for Poetry from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1986, and 1987 fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Bunting Institute. A second NEA fellowship was awarded in 1988. In 1994 she was named State Poet of Rhode Island, a five-year post. With her husband Forrest Gander, she runs Lost Roads Publishers.

The Poetry and Literature Center, which administers the poetry series, is also the home of the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, a position that has existed since 1936, when the late philanthropist Archer M. Huntington endowed the Chair of Poetry at the Library of Congress. Archibald MacLeish, who was Librarian from 1939 to 1944, determined the Consultant in Poetry should be an annual appointment. Since then, many of the nation's most eminent poets have served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress and, after the passage of Public Law 99-194 in 1985, as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry.

Current Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, award-winning translator of The Inferno of Dante and a creative writing professor at Boston University, suggests authors to read in the literary series, plans other special events during the literary season, and usually introduces the programs.

Interpreting services (American Sign Language, Contact Signing, Oral and/or Tactile) will be provided if requested five business days in advance of the event. Call (202) 707-6362 TTY and voice to make a specific request. For other ADA accommodations, contact the Disability Employment office at (202) 707-9948 TTY and (202) 707-7544 voice.

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PR 97-203
11/20/97
ISSN 0731-3527