March 18, 2008 (REVISED April 7, 2008) Library of Congress To Host An Afternoon Of Spanish Poetry

The Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress will host an afternoon of Spanish poetry on April 11 featuring poets from Spain, Latin America and the Caribbean. Each poet will read a selection in Spanish, followed by an open discussion in English moderated by Dominican poet Rei Berroa of George Mason University. The program will start at 2 p.m. on Friday, April 11, in the Mary Pickford Theater on the third floor of the James Madison Building at the Library of Congress, 101 Independence Avenue, S.E., Washington, D.C. The event is free and open to the public; no reservations are needed. Featured poets are Spaniards Ana Rossetti, Juan Carlos Mestre and Vicente Cervera. From Mexico are Héctor Carreto, Dana Gelinas, Hernán Bravo Varlea and Ciprián Cabrera. Dominicans poets are Mateo Morrison and León Félix Batista. Also participating are Otoniel Guevara, El Salvador; Marcelo Pellgrini, Chile; Ivon Gordon-Vailakis, Ecuador; and Juana Goergen, Puerto Rico. Following the reading will be a tour of the Library’s Hispanic Division. The poetry reading is part of a larger project by the Hispanic Division and the Teatro de la Luna in Arlington, Va. The Hispanic Division has sponsored this yearly event for seven years with the goal of making Spanish-language poetry better known to students and the general public in Washington. The Library of Congress, the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution, is the world’s preeminent reservoir of knowledge, providing unparalleled integrated resources to Congress and the American people. Founded in 1800, the Library seeks to further human understanding and wisdom by providing access to knowledge through its magnificent collections, which bring to bear the world’s knowledge in almost all of the world’s languages. The Hispanic Division, established in 1939, furthers this mission as the Library’s center for the study of the cultures and societies of Latin America, the Caribbean, the Iberian Peninsula and other areas where Spanish and Portuguese influence have been significant. For more information, visit www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/.