August 25, 1994

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

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Poet Laureate Rita Dove Opens Fall 1994 Literary Season

Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry Rita Dove will open the 1994-95 literary season at the Library of Congress with a lecture on Thursday, October 6. Her lecture, "A Handful of Inwardness: The World in the Poet," will be at 6:45 p.m. in the Montpelier Room on the sixth floor of the James Madison Memorial Building. Tickets are not required.

The second woman in the post since the title "Poet Laureate" was added in 1985 to the title "Consultant in Poetry," Ms. Dove also begins her second term with this lecture. Last May, her lecture to close the 1993-94 literary season, "Stepping Out: The Poet in the World," was well received by a large and enthusiastic audience. This second lecture will be a companion to her first closing lecture and both will be published by the Library in one volume; an announcement will be made regarding publication.

Rita Dove received the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for her third collection of poems, Thomas and Beulah; her other books of poetry are The Yellow House on the Corner, Museum, and Grace Notes; her Selected Poems was published in the fall of 1993. A collection of her short stories, Fifth Sunday, appeared in 1985; her novel, Through the Ivory Gate, in 1992. Last spring, Ms. Dove's first verse drama, The Darker Face of the Earth, was published by Story Line Press. A recipient of Fulbright and Guggenheim fellowships, two National Endowment for the Arts grants, and the Academy of American Poets' Lavan Award, Ms. Dove is Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

Other programs in the 1994-95 season will include "'The Whole Wide World Pours Down': Remembering William Stafford," a program of readings and reminiscences honoring the late poet, who was Consultant in Poetry to the Library in 1970-71, on October 13; a reading by the winner of the 1994 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry on October 27; an evening of Civil War Poetry on November 10; a program featuring winners of the annual Syndicated Fiction Awards Nov. 17; and readings by poets Stephen Dunn and Marilyn Nelson Waniek on December 1 and by Marilyn Chin and Andrew Hudgins on December 15. The spring schedule features Sandra Cisneros and Jamaica Kincaid; actor Anthony Zerbe in a tribute to e.e. cummings; two conferences, "Oil on the Waters: The Black Disapora" and "Poets and the Environment"; and Ms. Dove's reading to close the season, on May 4, 1995.

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PR 94-146b
8/25/94
ISSN 0731-3527