April 2, 1998 Poets Mark Strand & Rosanna Warren to Read at Library of Congress

Contact: Yvonne French (202) 707-9191

Poets Mark Strand and Rosanna Warren will read their poems at 6:45 p.m. April 23 in the Montpelier Room on the sixth floor of the James Madison Memorial Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E. Tickets are not required.

Mark Strand, 1990 Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, is the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship for study in Italy, National Endowment for the Arts grants, the Academy of American Poets' Edgar Allan Poe Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and the 1993 Bollingen Prize.

Until recently on the writing faculty of Johns Hopkins University, Mr. Strand will be teaching at the University of Chicago in the fall. His collections of poetry include Sleeping with One Eye Open (1964); The Late Hour (1978); The Planet of Lost Things (1982); The Continuous Life (1990), for which he won the 1992 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt Memorial Prize for Poetry; and Blizzard of One (1998).

Rosanna Warren is the author of Each Leaf Shines Separate: Poems (1984) and Stained Glass (1993). Her other books include The Art of Translation: Voices from the Field (1989) and translations of Eugenio Montale, Satura: 1962- 1970 (1998) and Euripides' Suppliant Women (1995). She is the recipient of several fellowships and honors, including a Yaddo Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Lavan Younger Poets Prize of the Academy of American Poets and the Witter Bynner Prize in Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

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 98-052
1998-04-03
ISSN 0731-3527