January 28, 2009 Love Poems to be Read at Library of Congress, Feb. 10
First Reading in Poetry-at-Noon Series for Spring Season
Press Contact: Donna Urschel (202) 707-1639
Public Contact: Patricia Gray (202) 707-5394
Love poems, anyone? In anticipation of Valentine’s Day, poems about true love will be read at the Library of Congress by guest poets from California, Florida and Washington, D.C. Judith Offer of Oakland, Calif.; Kristin Berkey-Abbott of Hollywood, Fla.; and Edwin M. Zimmerman of Washington, D.C., will read their poems and poems by other poets from noon to 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 10, in the Whittall Pavilion of the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St. S.E., Washington, D.C. “Love Poems” is the first reading of the Poetry-at-Noon series for the spring season. Sponsored by the Library’s Poetry and Literature Center in the Office of Scholarly Programs, the event is free and open to the public; no tickets or reservations are needed. Offer is a poet, playwright and author of the illustrated poetry collection “Gardening Out Loud.” She is the author of three other books of poetry and two play-based educational workbooks. Berkey-Abbott, who earned a Ph.D. in British literature from the University of South Carolina, has been published in many journals and was a top-ten finalist in the National Looking Glass Poetry Chapbook Competition for “Whistling Past the Graveyard” (2004). Currently, she teaches English and creative writing at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale and serves as assistant chair of the General Education Department. Zimmerman is a senior counsel in the Washington office of Covington and Burling. His poems have been published in “The Other Side of the Hill II,” an anthology of work by members of the Capitol Hill Poets’ Group, and in the former quarterly Partisan Review. Zimmerman’s legal practice over the years has encompassed most areas of antitrust law. He has participated in numerous appellate matters at the firm, and argued for the United States before the Supreme Court in United States vs. Container Corp., a leading case on the antitrust implications of information exchanges. The series continues on Tuesday, March 10, with poems relating to Abraham Lincoln, presented by poet and Lincoln scholar Daniel Mark Epstein in the Whittall Pavilion. The event dovetails with the Library's “With Malice Toward None: The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition.” The exhibition – which opens on Feb. 12 and runs through May 9, 2009 – and its national tour are made possible by the generous support of Union Pacific Corporation. On Tuesday, April 7, the 15th anniversary of the Poetry-at-Noon series will be celebrated as former guest poets return to read their “signature poems” in a grand parade of poetic talent in the Whittall Pavilion. On Tuesday, April 21, the final Poetry-at-Noon program of the season will be the “Shakespeare's Birthday” reading in the Whittall Pavilion, an annual event that features classical Shakespearean actors reading sonnets or excerpts from the plays followed by members of the audience who may volunteer to read from the works of the Bard.
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PR 09-019
2009-01-29
ISSN 0731-3527