February 9, 1994

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

---

Authors Diane Ackerman and Maxine Kumin To Read

On Thursday evening, March 24, Diane Ackerman and Maxine Kumin will read from their work in the Library's Mumford Room. The program, presented under the auspices of the Gertrude Clarke Whittall Poetry and Literature Fund, will begin at 6:45 p.m. Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry Rita Dove will introduce them. Tickets are not required.

Diane Ackerman received her B.A. degree from Pennsylvania State University, and her M.A., M.F.A., and Ph.D. degrees from Cornell University. Her collections of poetry include The Planets: A Cosmic Pastoral, Wife of Light, Lady Faustus, Reverse Thunder: A Dramatic Poem, and Jaguar of Sweet Laughter: New and Selected Poems. Ms. Ackerman's works of nonfiction include, most recently, The Moon By Whale Light, and Other Adventures among Bats, Crocodilians, Penguins, and Whales; On Extended Wings, her memoir of flying; and A Natural History of the Senses, which has engendered a five-hour PBS television series to air in fall 1994, with Ms. Ackerman as host. In June 1994, Random House will publish her A Natural History of Love; she is completing work on a second collection of nature essays, The Rarest of the Rare. Among her awards and honors are the Academy of American Poets' Lavan Award and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller Foundation. Ms. Ackerman has taught at many universities, and she is a staff writer for The New Yorker.

Maxine Kumin served as 1981-82 Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, and the Library is fortunate to have had her help, as an advisor and as a speaker and reader, in many Library events subsequently. She has taught at many universities, and is the recipient of many prizes, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (1973), an American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award (1980), an Academy of American Poets fellowship (1985), Poetry Magazine's Levinson Prize (1986), and The Poets' Prize (1994); in 1989 she served as Poet Laureate of New Hampshire. Ms. Kumin is the author of ten collections of poetry, including The Nightmare Factory, Up Country, The Retrieval System, Our Ground Time Here Will Be Brief: New and Selected Poems, Nurture, and Looking for Luck. She has written a collection of short stories, Why Can't We Live Together Like Civilized Human Beings?, several children's books, and the novels Through Dooms of Love, The Passions of Uxport, The Abduction, and The Designated Heir. Her collections of essays are To Make a Prairie: Essays on Poets, Poetry and Country Living and In Deep: Country Essays. A new collection, Women, Animals, and Vegetables: Essays and Stories, will be published by W. W. Norton in August 1994.

# # #

PR 94-033
2/9/94
ISSN 0731-3527