The following is a guest post by Blane Dessy, executive director of the Library of Congress Federal Library & Information Network (FEDLINK). I’ve been a librarian for a long time, and for much of my career I guess you could say I have been a paper pusher. Most of my days are spent sitting …
The following is a guest post by Caitlin Rizzo, staffer for the Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress. Today the Poetry and Literature Center’s friends from the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society debuted a remastered video of former director of the Library of Congress American Folklife Center Alan Jabbour and Howard …
Every once in awhile, my job offers me an opportunity to do something magical. For instance, last May I received an e-mail from Ken Bolinsky, the Mississippi state coordinator for the Poetry Out Loud Program—2012 winner Kristen Dupard had won the national poetry recitation contest by reciting, among other poems, Philip Levine’s “What Work Is.” …
The following is a guest post by Caitlin Rizzo, staffer for the Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress. This past weekend marked the celebration of the Library of Congress’s 12th annual National Book Festival and the second year in a row that the Festival sprawled over two days, both Saturday and Sunday, …
In a February blog post on State Poets Laureate I mentioned that From the Catbird Seat would periodically update readers when new State Poets are appointed. During the past five weeks there have been a flurry of changes to State Poet positions, making this an opportune time to give a brief roundup of recent activity. …
This post addresses one of the most common questions received by the Library’s Poetry and Literature Center: How is the Poet Laureate selected? Since the presidential election season is upon us, I should first hasten to point out that Poet Laureate is not appointed the same way as the U.S. president: there are no Poet …
Today the capital is quiet―Congress is on recess, and many DC residents are on vacation somewhere else. Even the throngs of summer tourists have subsided a bit as the season is winding down. As we at the Poetry and Literature Center prepare for our new Poet Laureate’s opening reading and the season that lies ahead―and …
The following is a guest post by Abby Yochelson, English and American Literature Reference Specialist at the Library of Congress’s Main Reading Room, Humanities and Social Sciences Division. It is the first in a series that will feature the types of literary resources to be found throughout the Library. Many literary researchers visiting the Library …
The following is a guest post from Camila Escobar-Vredevoogd, the 2012 Junior Fellow at the Library of Congress Poetry and Literature Center. Over the past two weeks, all of the Junior Fellows at the Library have been wrapping up their projects for one final display to celebrate their time here. The display has come and …
The relationship between poetry and the Olympics reaches back at least 2,500 years, when the Greek poet Pindar (ca. 518-438 B.C.) composed victory odes, or epinicia, for victorious athletes competing in the Olympics and the three other major Panhellenic games—those at Pythia, Nemea, and the isthmus of Corinth. Of these, the Olympic games were the …