February 25, 1998

Press Contact: Yvonne French (202) 707-9191

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Poets Jorie Graham and James McMichael to Read at the Library of Congress

Poets Jorie Graham and James McMichael will read their poems at 6:45 p.m. March 12 at the Library of Congress. The reading will take place in the Mumford Room on the sixth floor of the James Madison Memorial Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E. Tickets are not required.

Jorie Graham won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for her collection The Dream of a Unified Field: Selected Poems, 1974-1994 (1995). Her other collections of poetry include The End of Beauty (1987), Region of Unlikeness (1992) and The Errancy (1997). Among her other awards are a 1990 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, the Whiting Foundation Writer's Award and the Academy of American Poets Prize. Ms. Graham is on the faculty of the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop.

James McMichael is the author of The Lover's Familiar (1978), Four Good Things (1980), Each in a Place Apart (1994) and The World at Large: New and Selected Poems, 1971- 1996 (1996). Mr. McMichael is the recipient of a Eunice Tietjens Memorial Prize, a Guggenheim fellowship and a Whiting Foundation Writer's Award. He is professor of English and comparative literature at the University of California at Irvine.

The Poetry and Literature Center, which administers the poetry series, is also the home of the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, a position that has existed since 1936, when the late philanthropist Archer M. Huntington endowed the Chair of Poetry at the Library of Congress. Archibald MacLeish, who was Librarian from 1939 to 1944, determined the Consultant in Poetry should be an annual appointment. Since then, many of the nation's most eminent poets have served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress and, after the passage of Public Law 99-194 in 1985, as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry. Current Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, award-winning translator of The Inferno of Dante and a creative writing professor at Boston University, suggests authors to read in the literary series, plans other special events during the literary season, and usually introduces the programs.

Interpreting services (American Sign Language, Contact Signing, Oral and/or Tactile) will be provided if requested five business days in advance of the event. Call (202) 707- 6362 TTY and voice to make a specific request. For other ADA accommodations, contact the Disability Employment office at (202) 707-9948 TTY and (202) 707-7544 voice.

 

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PR 98-031
2/25/98
ISSN 0731-3527