January 25, 1994

Contact: Craig D'Ooge (202) 707-9189

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Three Young Poets to Read at the Library of Congress

On Thursday evening, February 10, Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry Rita Dove will introduce three young poets, Elizabeth Alexander, Allison Joseph, and Karen Mitchell, who will read from their work in the Mumford Room at 6:45 p.m. The program is presented under the auspices of the Gertrude Clarke Whittall Poetry and Literature Fund; tickets are not required.

Elizabeth Alexander's first book of poems, The Venus Hottentot, appeared in 1990 as part of the University Press of Virginia's Callaloo Poetry Series. Among her awards and honors are a 1986 Larry Neal Award from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities and four Pushcart Prize nominations. She has appeared on the Black Entertainment Television program "Our Voices" and on many Chicago radio programs. Narrative: Ali, her chapbook of poems on Muhammad Ali, will be published this spring by Fisted Pik Press.

Allison Joseph is the author of What Keeps Us Here, a collection of poetry that won the 1992 Ampersand Press Woman Poets' Series Competition. The collection also won the 1992 John C. Zacharis Prize from Emerson College and Ploughshares magazine. Her poems have appeared in The Kenyon Review, Parnassus, Ploughshares, and Agni, among other literary journals. Ms. Joseph has given readings at Indiana University, Kenyon College, Old Dominion University, and Oklahoma State University and is on the faculty of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Karen Mitchell was born in Columbus, Mississippi, and began writing poetry at the age of 13. She has read her work at several universities and colleges. Eighth Mountain Press awarded her its Eighth Mountain Poetry Prize and published her collection, The Eating Hill. Her work has also appeared in several literary journals, and she has been a MacDowell Colony fellow. She has been a judge for the Poetry Society of America's Elias Lieberman Student Poetry Award and the Mississippi Literary Competition Award.

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PR 94-015
1/25/94
ISSN 0731-3527