TITLE: Poetry Readings from Maxine Kumin and Wesley McNair
SPEAKER: Maxine Kumin, Wesley McNair
EVENT DATE: 11/09/2006
RUNNING TIME: 74 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript (link will open in a new window)
DESCRIPTION:
The Library of Congress 2006 Literary Season continued with poetry readings from poets Maxine Kumin and Wesley McNair, two New England poets, who through the magic of poems, style takes the listener on a joyful ride through non-urban America.
Speaker Biography: Maxine Kumin served as 1982-84 Consultant in Poetry, now titled Poet Laureate, to the Library of Congress. This year she won the Poetry Society of America Frost Medal for "Final Poem" in her 15th collection of poetry, "Jack and Other New Poems" (W.W. Norton, 2005). Last year she won the Harvard Arts Medal. Her poetry themes include family relationships, rural life in New England and the inner life of women. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973 for "Up Country: Poems of New England" (Harper & Row, 1972). Kumin has taught at many universities, including Princeton, Columbia and Brandeis, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is now distinguished poet in residence at the Master in Fine Arts Poetry Program at New England College. She and her husband live with their dogs on a horse farm in New Hampshire.
Speaker Biography: Wesley McNair is the author of several volumes of poetry, including "The Ghosts of You and Me" (Godine, 2006). He recently received his second Rockefeller fellowship and has held grants from the Fulbright and Guggenheim foundations, a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship in literature, and two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. Other honors include the Devins Award for Poetry, the Jane Kenyon Award, the Robert Frost Award, the Theodore Roethke Prize, the Eunice Tietjens Prize from Poetry Magazine, an Emmy Award and two honorary degrees for literary distinction. He has twice served on the nominating jury for the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. His work has appeared in the Pushcart Prize annual; two editions of The Best American Poetry; over 50 anthologies; and more than a dozen books, including poetry, essays and anthologies.
