This is the final post of this particular blog, but it is not the final word from us on the subject of poetry and literature. We will be reborn as “Bookmarked: Celebrating Contemporary Books and Writers at the Library,” a new blog launching tomorrow. “Bookmarked” will deliver news about poetry, literature and other literary content related to the Library, including upcoming book talks, news of the Poet Laureate, and more.

The new blog merges “Catbird” with our National Book Festival blog, so will provide news and information about our big annual festival in the runup to that event each year, as well.

If you already follow this blog, we will roll you over to “Bookmarked”—we hope you enjoy it as much if not more than you’ve enjoyed “From the Catbird Seat.” If you are a newcomer—welcome! Please follow this link to subscribe to “Bookmarked” and share with other bookworms and literature lovers in your life.

While we will cease posting on this blog, all previous posts will still be accessible and discoverable on the Library of Congress website, and anything you have bookmarked will remain unchanged.

We look forward to seeing you all on the other side of the page!

Since Dunbar’s groundbreaking reading, the Library has hosted thousands of literary events, many of them featuring Black poets and writers following in Dunbar’s footsteps. A quick examination of the Library’s online Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature (ARPL), for instance, turns up a veritable who’s who of notable 20th century Black poets, among them Arna Bontemps, Melvin B. Tolson, Ishmael Reed, Alice Fulton, Audre Lorde, Etheridge Knight, Dolores Kendrick, June Jordan, Lucille Clifton, Ishmael Reed, Sharon Olds, Rita Dove, Claudia Rankine, Marilyn Nelson, Michael S. Harper, Quincy Troupe, and Cornelius Eady. Meanwhile, readings and literary programs from the past two decades featuring Black poets and writers who visited the Library or appeared at the the National Book Festival, can be found through the our extensive collection of Event Videos.

Black writers have directly and indirectly impacted the Library’s current mission to “engage, inspire, and inform Congress and the American people with a universal and enduring source of knowledge and creativity.” During the past decade, Walter Dean Myers, Jacqueline Woodson, and Jason Reynolds have made lasting contributions to the Library’s efforts to promote and increase literacy and a love of literature by serving as National Ambassadors for Young People’s Literature, while Toni Morrison (2011), Colson Whitehead (2020), and, Jesmyn Ward (2022) have been recognized for their distinguished bodies of work as winners of the Library’s annual prize for American fiction (now known as the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction). Most recently, Rita Dove was awarded the 2022 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry recognizing her lifetime achievement in poetry, a prize previously awarded to Black poets Terrance Hayes (2020), Natasha Trethewey (2020), Nathaniel Mackey (2016), Claudia Rankine (2016), and Patricia Smith (2014).

In the field of literature, the Library is best-known as the home of U.S. Poet Laureate, a position which from 1936-1985 operated under the less recognizable title “Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.” In celebration of Black History Month, this post highlights Black poets who have served as Consultant in Poetry or U.S. Poet Laureate.

Robert Hayden

Robert Hayden became the first Black poet to serve as Consultant in Poetry in 1976. Originally invited to serve as Consultant in 1969, he was forced to decline due to work circumstances. When he was again invited to serve in the position in 1975, he was able to accept.

Hayden’s inaugural reading as Consultant in Poetry took place in the Coolidge Auditorium on October 5, 1976, and included poems about well-known Black poets Phillis Wheatley and Paul Laurence Dunbar, as well as poems about John Brown, Crispus Attucks, and Frederick Douglass.

The position of Consultant in Poetry was much closer to a reference librarian and literary programmer than to today’s Poet Laureate. During his tenure, Hayden helped plan the Library’s literary readings, recruit poets to record the work for the Library’s Archive of Recorded Poetry, and respond to mail and telephone calls on an array of topics from the public, all in addition to performing his poetry at the Library and a host of other institutions. Hayden also instated a unique “Coffee with the Consultant” program in which local poets met with him in the Library’s Poetry Room. One of the major initiatives of his terms was a March 6, 1978 reunion of twelve former Consultants at the Library, who gathered to discuss the history and future of the position and to participate in an evening reading.

Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Brooks was the 29^th and final poet to serve as Consultant in Poetry before the position’s title was rebranded as Poet Laureate in 1985. Brooks, like Hayden, had been offered the position years earlier. She declined the original 1972 invitation from Librarian of Congress Quincy Mumford to focus on her family and the local Black poetry community in Chicago. She did, however, agree to serve as an Honorary Consultant in American Letters to the Library of Congress between 1973 and 1976, and a decade later she accepted the Library’s new invitation to serve as Consultant.

Although Brooks served only a one-year term—she did not wish to serve a second—she was very active during that year, especially when it came to handling the voluminous correspondence directed to her from people inviting her to read at local events, seeking feedback on poems they enclosed for her review, and hoping for guidance on how to get their poems published. She enthusiastically replied to all of these letters and accepted most requests to read and talk in the D.C. area.

Brooks also led three brownbag lunchtime readings in the Poetry Office, recommended and introduced readers for the Library’s Whittall-funded literary series, and ended her year-long term with a rousing lecture titled “The Day of the Gwendolyn.”

Rita Dove

Rita Dove was appointed the seventh U.S. Poet Laureate, and first Black Poet Laureate, on May 19, 1993. She opened her duties as Poet Laureate on October 7^th with a reading of her work.

Dove used her first term to focus on the diversity of poets and writers featured at the Library of Congress and greatly increased the audience size at Library events. During her second term, she continued to host many Library of Congress events and symposia that championed children’s poetry and jazz, and explored artists throughout the African diaspora.

A few years later, in 1999, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington named Rita Dove as a Special Bicentennial Consultant, along with W.S. Merwin and Louise Glück. Billington explained: “We want to create a once-in-a-century arrangement, not only to celebrate poetry during our 200th birthday, but also to significantly increase support for the national outreach of the Poetry Office and the Poet Laureate.” Dove served one term as Special Bicentennial Consultant. During this time, she worked with Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, along with the other special consultants, to celebrate the Library’s bicentennial with poetry readings and a symposium.

In 2022 she received the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry (for lifetime achievement) from the Library of Congress.

Natasha Trethewey

On June 7, 2012, Natasha Trethewey was appointed the 19th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry. Her first term as Poet Laureate was noteworthy for her “Office Hours” during which she met with the general public in the Library’s Poetry Room, harkening back to the tradition established by Robert Hayden and several other of her predecessors.

For her second term project, Where Poetry Lives, she joined PBS NewsHour Senior Correspondent Jeffrey Brown for a series of on-location reports in various cities across the United States. Each episode explored a large societal issue through a focused lens offered by poetry and Ms. Trethewey’s own coming-to-the-art. Her second term concluded with a reading in the Library’s Coolidge Auditorium on May 14, 2014.

Tracy K. Smith

On June 14, 2017, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden announced the appointment of Tracy K. Smith as the 22nd Poet Laureate, making her the first Laureate appointed by the current Librarian. Smith’s signature project in the position involved bringing poetry to audiences outside places where poets typically present their work. Smith described the inspiration behind her rural communities project in an April 2018 Library of Congress podcast:

I wanted to sort of step off the path of the circuit. I wanted to feel the difference between doing what I normally do which is reading poems as part of a reading series or festivals—communities of writers—and reading poems in places where there are probably aspiring poets and lovers of poetry and then people who aren’t as connected to the art form who might come out of curiosity. I wanted to see if it’s true that the feelings that poems alert us to transcend different divisions of place, of, you know, almost everything, geography being one of them (and, of course, there are lots of things that geography is a container for as well). So I wanted to see what it would feel like to, kind of, cross different divides, and it’s been exciting.

Smith took three pilot project trips to rural communities in New Mexico External, South Carolina External, and Kentucky External during her first term. On March 22, 2018, Smith was appointed to a second term as Poet Laureate, during which she expanded her outreach efforts to rural communities through her project American Conversations: Celebrating Poems in Rural Communities. As part of her second term as Laureate, Smith also edited an anthology called American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time, which was incorporated into her visits to rural communities.

During her second term, Smith also served as host of a weekday podcast and radio feature titled The Slowdown. The podcast launched November 26, 2018 and became available through public radio on January 14, 2019. Each five-minute episode featured Smith reading works by writers from around the country and the world, exploring how poetry helps us better understand life, history, art, science and more. More than one hundred episodes of the program, currently hosted by Major Jackson—himself a 2003 Library of Congress Winner Bynner Fellow, selected by former Poet Laureate Billy Collins—were recorded during Smith’s tenure as laureate.

The Library welcomes and shares all voices and stories; even though these are the final days of Black History Month, we continue celebrating the accomplishments of Black writers throughout the year.

Discover More

Key resources on the Library’s website for accessing literary recordings and videos, as well as more information about many of the poets mentioned in this post, include:

• Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature
• Event Videos (includes videos from the National Book Festival and other literary programs at the Library)
• The PALABRA Archive (hundreds of recordings of poets and prose writers participating in sessions at the Library’s Recording Laboratory and at other locations around Spain and Latin America)
• Paul Laurence Dunbar: A Resource Guide
• St. Mark’s Poetry Project Audio Archive (more than 400 recordings St. Marks Church-in-the-Bouwerie in Manhattan’s East Village)
• United States Poets Laureate Research Guides (includes guides on Gwendolyn Brooks, Natasha Trethewey, and Tracy K. Smith)

This may not be the first time we celebrate this day, but it is a first time that we’re joined by Meg Medina, the newly inaugurated National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature.

Her platform, “Cuéntame! Let’s talk books,” is inspired by the phrase Spanish-speaking friends and families use to catch up with one another, and encourages connection amongst families, classrooms, and libraries, by talking about books. Below, you can see her demonstrating a book talk at her inauguration for upcoming book Elena Rides by Juana Medina (no relation, as Meg pointed out!).

Meg Medina is a big believer in all kinds of reading, whether you read a print book, an e-book, or listen to someone read aloud to you—all reading counts!

Jamie Lee Curtis reads This is Me: A Story of Who We Are & Where We Come From
Atinuke reads Baby Goes to Market
Adam Rubin reads High Five during the National Book Festival 2019
Don Tate reads William Still and His Freedom Stories during the National Book Festival 2020
Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney (read by Library of Congress specialist Thea Austen)

What is your favorite book, story, or poem to read aloud?

In the beginning of this year, I had one of the most intense and meaningful trips of my laureateship. On January 7th my husband and I flew to Mexico City so I could participate in Un Fandango por la Lectura, a celebration of music, dance, and poetry hosted by Dr. Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller, wife of the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador–with special guest Dr. Jill Biden, the First Lady of the United States. This Fandango took place in the Salon Tesoraría, Palacio Nacional, during the North American Leaders Summit, and it highlighted the commitment to the power of language and the importance of reading shared by Dr. Biden and Dr. Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller.  

Even though my husband and I could only stay in Mexico City for a little over 48 hours, the trip was deeply moving. My paternal grandfather was from Mexico, and somehow flying into the capital felt almost like a homecoming.

We were met at the airport first by Dominique Martineau, our contact for the Presidency of the Republic and the organizer extraordinaire of the Fandango, and then by members of the State Department including David Fay, Regional English Language Officer. In the arrival lounge, we also met the incredible band La Santa Cecilia with the singer “La Marisoul,” who were slated to perform in the Fandango. We checked into the hotel and then, with Dominique and her colleague Rodrigo, we walked through El Centro, Alameda, and down Cinco de Mayo Street, to the rooftop restaurant at Círculo Mexicano which overlooks the Catedral Metropolitana de la Ciudad de México. After tacos de pescado, we took a driving tour of the city, savoring each neighborhood. Towards the end, we stopped by La Casa Azul to say hello to Frida Kahlo’s ghost for my mother, who is a painter. Then back to the hotel to rest.

The next day was Fandango day. After a brunch at Azul Historico and the best chilaquiles rojo one could ask for, along with traditional Mexican hot chocolate made right at the table, we went back to the hotel to prepare for the big event.

I was immensely honored to share the stage with Dr. Biden and Dr. Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller, as well as with indigenous poets from Mexico reading in their original languages. A total of five languages were represented during the poetry reading portion of the event: Spanish, English, Purépecha, Nahuatl, and Mixtec. My grandfather was Purépecha, and I know if he were alive he would have been utterly moved. I read my poem “What I Didn’t Know Before” and the Secretary of Culture read my poem “Wonder Woman,” while Dr. Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller honored me by reading “Cargo,” a poem I had originally written as a letter poem to the poet Natalie Diaz. She read beautifully, and I was moved to tears thinking about how proud my grandfather would be. There was dance performed by Veracruz Dance, and music by Santa Ceclia and Mariachi de la Sedena all punctuated with the powerful voice of La Marisoul.

Afterward, the poets and musicians gathered for dinner at Mercaderes where the great indigenous poet Natalio Hernández read some of his poems and La Marisoul joined him in an impromptu song. There was much talk about the importance of preserving and celebrating indigenous culture and language and how poetry is a way to support those efforts. And of course there was very good mezcal served with slices of oranges and sal de gusano. I was told that I must remember this, “Para todo mal, mezcal, y para todo bien, también.” I suppose the same could be said of poetry, “For everything that’s bad, poetry, and for everything that is good, poetry too.” This was definitely good. 

The following day, we had a quick brunch at Cafe Nim and visited La Biblioteca de México briefly before the flight. We had a tour of the incredible building that was an old tobacco factory and now was an enormous and sun-filled library. What makes this library particularly unique was that it holds the five personal libraries of Mexican writers. Each library is designed to reflect the writer’s home and style while keeping their entire collection preserved in its entirety. A true gift to witness. 

And just as quickly as we arrived, it was time to return to the airport. We wish could have stayed longer, but we couldn’t have asked for a better 48 hours in Mexico City. It was my first trip of 2023, and I hope it sets the tone for how poetry can unite us even across borders.

The National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature is an initiative of the Library of Congress in partnership with Every Child a Reader. It is also a title that comes with prestige and a platform to spread a message of love for books and reading. Each Ambassador adds their own flavor to this goal, and Meg Medina, the eighth Ambassador, is planning a unique community-oriented approach to her upcoming 2-year term, encapsulated by her platform “Cuéntame: Let’s Talk Books.” A few days before her Inauguration as the next Ambassador (today, January 24, 2023!), we chatted about what brought her to this position, what drives her passion as a literacy advocate, and what she sees on the horizon. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Thank you to Literary Initiatives intern Natalie Miller for helping transcribe the interview. 

Cross-posted from Minerva’s Kaleidoscope: Resources for Kids and Families 

Sasha Dowdy: I’d love to help our readers get to know you. Can you tell us some fun facts that everyone should know? 

Meg Medina: Well, everyone should know that I write for kids of all ages. I think that I write from the very youngest all the way to teenagers and occasionally for adults. So for me, the thing is story, I pick the age group and the format that matches the story that’s in my heart that I want to tell at that time.

I think folks should know that I came to writing through stories in my family. I had very talkative Cuban aunts and grandmothers and mother, and they did a lot of talking and storytelling in the house. And that just developed my ear for story and for drama and for dramatic pause and for heated moments. And that all translated into my work. I write often about kids and culture and growing up and where those three things mash together, sometimes beautifully, sometimes painfully.

I think people should know that I used to be a teacher. I was a teacher for ten years in public schools in New York and in Florida.

And I think people should know that I love Milk Duds, but do not tell my dentist because I have been told I’m not allowed to eat them anymore.

SD: Yeah, my dentist is not happy with my chocolate habits either, but we have to have joy.

MM: That’s what I think.

SD: Can you tell us how first you wanted to become a teacher, and describe your transition from teacher to award-winning author?

MM: So this is a really strange little story. I graduated college and I went to work in publishing, of all things. And I worked at Simon & Schuster where I was the worst editorial assistant ever, right?…I made very little money and I was just not good at it and not happy there. And at the time, New York City was having a big teaching shortage. I did not want to be a teacher. I didn’t imagine that for myself because my mother had been a teacher and my tía had been a teacher and my abuelo had been a teacher and my mother would say things to me like “it’s a wonderful career for a woman” and all of these sexist sort of things about teaching. And I was determined that I was not going to be a teacher. But I needed money, I needed a job. And so I said, I’m going to do this for a little while until I figure out what I really want to do. And so they gave me the keys.

The board of education at the time gave me the keys to a classroom with 36 children in Queens. Almost all of my students were of Dominican descent and very, very recently arrived. And when I say very recently arrived, I mean like within days or weeks of arrival they were in my classroom. And when I think back on that experience, first of all, what did I know about teaching?

Right?

Nothing. And so boy, was that trial by fire. It was.

A steep, steep learning curve for me about managing a classroom and connecting with kids….I had no idea what a lesson plan was. Thank goodness I had all these people in my life who were teachers. But what I didn’t count on and what happened almost immediately, is that I fell in love with the children, with their families, who seemed so familiar to my family. I used to love to walk their neighborhoods and meet their mamís and papí’s, and I knew I could talk with the families.  And they sort of trusted me in a way, as young and inexperienced as I was. And what I most remember, aside from all the missteps, is how much the last day of school I cried when they were leaving me, because I didn’t feel like I could trust [whoever] they were going to have next year. Were they going to love them as much as I love them? And that was really like a turning point for me because I stayed in teaching and for true love reasons, I loved the process of being with little kids and thinking about things. And then I discovered children’s books again.

SD: Your stories have been incredible from the start, and you’ve been growing your audience. And now you get to be an Ambassador for these stories for two years. That’s pretty cool.

MM: Unbelievable. Yeah. I sometimes wonder if my mother is watching from somewhere. My elders, all of my tías and abuelas, they’re gone now. And when they came to this country, they were frightened and they were starting brand-new and they came feeling broken and wanting so much for good things to happen on down the line.…I hope that this made all that they went through worth it in some small way.

SD: I’m really excited to see how you will help families connect over books because that was part of my love for books. That I got to tell my dad the plot of the book from beginning to end in a rambling kid way. And then when he looked away for even a microsecond I’d hold his head to make him pay attention. 

MM: [An acquaintance recently] said that she’d finished a book and she was talking to her teenager about it and she said “I know my teenager’s never going to read this book. So I don’t know why I felt the need tell him what I was reading” and I said “Because it’s about passion, because what you’re really saying is ‘This is what really made me happy or frightened me or scared me or made me feel something.’” And that’s the thing that we’re sharing, right? To be able to say “This reminds me of your abuela.” or “did I ever tell you about the time that I stole Twinkies out of the Hostess truck?” You know, all of that is possible just by sharing a story. Just by sharing books and the things that we love about it.

SD: You were saying that talking about books helps us tell each other who we are. That is part of your platform, right? 

MM: “Cuéntame! Let’s talk books.” So “cuéntame” is a phrase we use when you’re sitting down with a friend you haven’t seen in a while and you say “Bueno, cuentame, so tell me what’s happening.” If you are translating it directly, you would say, “Story me.” I love that idea, because that is what I’m asking, ‘Story me up,’ tell me the books that you love, I’m going to tell you some of the books that I love. Let’s talk about lives, family stories, all of it.” It seems like the perfect catch phrase to capture the spirit of it, the invitation of it into relationship and conversation around books.

SD: Your platform makes it so accessible and possible for kids to think “I have a story and I can share it.”

MM: Oh, they can’t stop sharing. Just walk into a middle school lunchroom. The volume is somewhere up here because they cannot stop telling each other stories of what happened in third period, of what so and so did, of what their silly brother did. They’re just oozing. It’s connecting that back into “This is the story that you’re telling” and connecting back to reading, connecting it back to stories that they read and their actual experiences, to the experiences that they’re encountering on the page.

SD: I would love to hear from the perspective of these kids. If you were Meg the teen, and you learned about a person like you becoming the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, what would you hope that person does for you?

MM:  If this is Meg the teenager talking to you: I would hope she is not boring. I would hope she is not going to talk to me about reading as though it is broccoli or Brussels sprouts. Nothing against broccoli or Brussels sprouts, but that she’s not going to talk to me about all the detrimental and horrible things that will happen in my life if I am not a reader. Like, that’s not it. I’d want her to see me. And I’d want her to talk about books that make sense to me and not something that I’m not interested in. I would want her to have enough sense to think about what would really connect with me.

SD: You are committed now to work with children and helping them tell their stories and connect through books. Is there one promise you can make to the young kids that you will be working with during your term?

MM: I’m listening, I’m listening. I’m listening to what their passions are, to what interests them, and I’m really interested in being in conversation with them. I’m part of their reading family; that feels really exciting.

——-

Watch Meg Medina’s inauguration here.

To learn more about Meg Medina and her activities as National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, please visit the announcement or Library of Congress resource guide.

This is the final guest post by Jason Reynolds, who is concluding his third term as the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature.

FIVE WAYS TO SAY GOODBYE (a farewell newsletter)

1. SEE YOU SOON. This is not the same as, See you later. I repeat, this is not the same as, See you later. “See you later” lacks urgency. It lacks seriousness and commitment. But my time as your National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature was certainly very serious to me and I was relentlessly committed. So to walk away from it, to bow out with a cavalier, See you later, is like throwing my hand up and waving goodbye while already turned away. Instead, I’ll say, See you soon. Because soon implies effort. That I’ll work to still be a light, partially to shine on the next ambassador, and always to shine on you.
2. No words. Just the involuntary vibration our bodies experience whenever we feel joy, and sometimes anxiety. In this case, both fit the bill. We spent so much time joking around, finding new things to laugh about, new ways to find spiked moments of bliss in such a complicated time, and we’ll need the laughter to linger as we part. I met a lot of you who were nervous to talk to me at first, and there would be nervous laughter. But by the end of our time, I’d like to think even if some of the nerves were still there, most of our hooting became rooted in relationship. That we got the joke. And still get it. So we get each other.
3. KEEP TRYING. As I take a step back, as I take off my medal, remove myself from this incredible position, I want us, you and me, to make a promise to each other. I promise to keep trying, if you do.
4. THANK YOU. One of the best ways to say goodbye. It can be interchanged with, I love you. They both work, and they typically have the same effect. You should know, I have been forever changed. Serving you these last three years has confirmed everything I already thought about the young folks of this country. That they love. And love big and wide and deep and high and whole. That they love enough to cry for their peers—I’ve seen it—or to cheer for them as if they are already famous. I’ve seen this, too. So, I could say I love you, but you already know that. Instead, in this moment, I’m going to offer some gratitude. Thank you for reminding what it is to be human. And for trying. And laughing. With effort and urgency.
5. DON’T. That’s all. Just don’t. Instead, say, hi. Reach out and let me know when you’ve dunked for the first time, or when you’ve written your first poem, or got your first pair of Jordans, or got your learner’s permit, or booked the role, or got into college, or made the team, or passed that class, or finally finally finally finished reading your first book. And I’ll tell you, hopefully, that I’ve just woken up from a sweet, sweet nap. My first in a while.

It’s the holiday season, and the season of year-end celebration. In that spirit, we are pleased to announce that 58 new recordings from the Library’s Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature have been posted online! The newly released recordings span three decades, from the 1960s-1980s, and feature writers reading, giving talks, and participating in panels at the Library’s Capitol Hill campus. I want to make special note of the 1998 recording, “A winter’s evening of English and American light verse,” with former Consultant in Poetry (now called Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry) Anthony Hecht.

There are a wealth of recordings in the collection, now 432 strong, featuring such authors/pairings as:

• Margaret Atwood and Galway Kinnell
• James Baldwin
• Elizabeth Bishop and James Merrill
• Gwendolyn Brooks, Michael S. Harper, and Robert Hayden
• Marianne Moore
• Robert Frost with Randall Jarrell
• Alan Ginsberg and Ishmael Reed
• Audre Lorde
• Mario Vargas Llosa
• Adrienne Rich
• Kurt Vonnegut
• Eudora Welty

The holidays are also a time to give thanks and reflect upon the year, and there was much in 2022 that I’m thankful for–such as our amazing new poet laureate, Ada Limón! But I want to give a special shout-out to the closing events of our former laureate Joy Harjo last April. In addition to the traditional event in our Coolidge Auditorium, the Closing featured the first-ever laureate dance party! More importantly, the closing included the inaugural retreat of In-Na-Po: Indigenous Nations Poets. During the week-long retreat, we had the opportunity to capture some of the In-Na-Po faculty and special guests up in Joy’s office, reading their poems and talking about her laureateship and the retreat, and what it all meant for Native poets and poetry. You can check out the videos on our website–watching them, I was reminded of how powerful that moment was and how grateful I was that we were able to capture it, and the poets, for posterity. I can’t tell you how moving it was to be in the room during the tapings–to experience Deborah A. Miranda talking about her ancestor Isabel Meadows, Elise Paschen telling the story about the genesis of “Poetry in Motion” (which Joy was a part of!), or Edgar Gabriel Silex honoring the In-Na-Po fellows and reading his poem, “Elegy for a Pen.” You can check out these videos and more on our “Featured Videos” page.

I hope you enjoy these recordings, and we look forward to sharing more big news and moving events with you in 2023!

On Thursday, December 8, the Library of Congress will host the winners of the 2022 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, Rita Dove and Heid E. Erdrich. The event will take place at 7pm ET at LJ-119, Thomas Jefferson Building, and timed-entry passes are still available.

Dove and Erdrich join a long and distinguished list of winners throughout the 22-year history of the prize. For more on the Bobbitt prize, here are a few highlighted links:

• A 1990 Washington Post article announcing James Merrill as the inaugural winner, for his book “Inner Room”—and featuring quotes from jurors J. D. McClatchy and Amy Clampitt.
• An article in the Library’s Information Bulletin announcing the 1996 prize and giving some background on the establishment of the prize—almost forty years after the poetry scandal that led Congress to abolish prizes at the Library.
• A webcast of the 2012 Bobbitt Prize reading, honoring Gerald Stern and his “Early Collected Poems: 1965-1992.” Mr. Stern passed away this past October, at the age of 97.
• The March/April issue of the “Library of Congress” magazine, containing the article “Love in the Stacks” (pg. 22) about the relationship that led to the Bobbitt Prize—and a picture of 2014 prizewinner Patricia Smith reading her poems in the Main Reading Room as part of a President’s Day open house.
• The 2020 Bobbitt Prize event webcast with Terrance Hayes and Natasha Trethewey, the first under Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden and the first to be fully virtual.

We are eager to return to the Library this year for the Bobbitt Prize, the first time it will be held in the Library’s historic Jefferson Building as part of its new “LIVE! at the Library” series. We hope you come check out former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove and National Poetry Series winner Heid E. Erdrich, reading in one of the Library’s most beautiful and intimate spaces, and also grab a drink or bite to eat in the Great Hall!

On Saturday, December 3, 2022, the Library of Congress will host an evening with 2021 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Maria Ressa. A journalist with extensive experience in Asia, Maria Ressa is acclaimed for holding power to account and championing freedom of expression. Her principled stance and reporting have garnered multiple awards such as the Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, the Golden Pen of Freedom Award, and the Knight International Journalism Award. Her determination to tell the truth—to hold the line—has also made her a target of autocrats.

In her most recent book, “How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future,” Ressa recounts the consequences of this battle with authoritarianism by looking at the weaponization of the law to suppress Rappler, a digital-only news site based in the Philippines that she co-founded. She also traces the role of social media in spreading disinformation, fear, and strife, creating the conditions that have seen the rise of fascism and undemocratic rule around the world. Drawing on lessons learned from her personal and professional life, Ressa answers the implicit question in the book’s title, providing an approach to confronting the erosion of democratic values. To gain further insight into the book and Maria Ressa’s perspective, consider attending the December 3 event, which will feature a conversation between the author and the Library’s Chief Communications Officer, Roswell Encina. Free registration is available on the Library’s Events site. Please note that the event has been moved to room LJ-119.

In conjunction with the event, there will be a display in Room LJ-113 located the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building. The display, which will be open to the public on the day of the event from 4:30-6:00 pm, will highlight various Library items connected to historic Philippine newspapers, “seditious” Filipino playwrights, freedom of the press, photos of the 1986 People Power protests, and Filipino American publications from the Asian American and Pacific Islander Collection. These items give visitors a glimpse of the Library’s holdings on topics related to the press in the Philippines and the role of Filipino and Filipino American writers in shining a light on injustice in society.

A particularly valuable resource at the Library for exploring how Filipino journalists dared to imagine a freer society in the face of oppression is the Library’s collection of historic Philippine newspapers. Nationalist periodicals of the late 1800s drew attention to oppressive conditions of the Spanish colonial system and later the occupation by the United States. The Library holds several of these publications—originals in some cases and reproductions in others. An example is Filipinas Ante Europa, pictured below. The Library holds a rare first edition original copy of this newspaper, which was edited by Isabelo de los Reyes, a pioneering Filipino folklorist, lawmaker, co-founder of an independent church with Filipino leadership called the Iglesia Filipina Independiente, and one of the first labor organizers in the Philippines. To learn more about other historic (and contemporary) Philippine newspapers at the Library, please consult the Southeast Asian Serials research guide.

Besides newspapers, Filipino writers asserted their independence in theatrical works. Playwrights penned what colonial authorities saw as “seditious” dramas that questioned the injustices of the colonial order and advocated for freedom within a national framework.

One of the most famous “seditious” dramas was Aurelio Tolentino’s “Kahapon, Ngayon at Bukas” or “Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.” During the performance of this play at the Libertad Theater in Manila in 1903, Americans in attendance were reported to have stormed the stage when the heroine threw the American flag to the ground and raised the standard of the Filipino nationalist Katipunan society. The disturbance made the news in the United States, appearing on the front page of a newspaper in Texas.

Filipino writers have not only made an impact in the Philippines but also here in the United States. Carlos Bulosan (c. 1911-September 11, 1956) was a Filipino American writer, poet, and activist best known for his novel, “America Is in the Heart.” He arrived in Seattle onboard the S.S. President Taft in 1930 and closely aligned himself with the causes of his fellow Filipino immigrants, many of whom worked in agricultural or cannery jobs on a migratory circuit that took them to points up and down the West coast of the United States: California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. As editor for Local 37’s 1952 Yearbook for the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU), Bulosan drew attention to how the union’s Filipino American officers were threatened with deportation for their union activities during the years of McCarthyism. In his other publications such as “The Power of the People,” Bulosan linked Filipino experiences both in the Philippines and America to larger themes of social justice. In an essay accompanying the Norman Rockwell painting “Freedom from Want,” which pictures a scene of a plentiful Thanksgiving table, Bulosan gave voice to the struggles of workers in capitalist democracies. This jarring juxtaposition of abundance and need, featured in the Saturday Evening Post issue of March 6, 1943, captured the attention of an American audience and served as an introduction to Bulosan’s writings. The Library’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Collection counts among its holdings some of Bulosan’s works mentioned, as well as the archives of several Filipino American writers and activists like Sarah Joaquin and Royal F. Morales.

For questions on Philippine and Filipino American resources, please contact Southeast Asian reference staff through the Library’s Ask-a-Librarian service.

Further resources:

• Maria Ressa, “Seeds of terror: an eyewitness account of Al-Qaeda’s newest center of operations in Southeast Asia”
• Maria Ressa, “From Bin Laden to Facebook: 10 days, 10 years”
• Philippine Elections Web Archive Collection

On Tuesday we announced this year’s winners of the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry: Rita Dove for Lifetime Achievement and Heid E. Erdrich for her book “Little Big Bully.” Before I sing the praises of both, a little background on the prize: it was first given in 1990, as a biennial prize for the best book of poetry in the preceding two years by an American poet. In 2008 the prize rules were changed to allow the prize to be given for Lifetime Achievement or best book of poetry, or both.

This year marks the fourth time the prize has included both winners–the first was for Charles Wright (Lifetime Achievement) and Bob Hicok (for “This Clumsy Living”). In 2016 the Bobbitt Prize went to Nathaniel Mackey (Lifetime Achievement) and Claudia Rankine (for “Citizen”), and in 2020–the last iteration of the prize–it went to Natasha Trethewey (Lifetime Achievement) and Terrance Hayes (for “American Sonnets for My Past And Future Assassin”).

Rita Dove follows Natasha Trethewey as a former U.S. Poet Laureate receiving the honor, and for Dove it follows almost three decades from the announcement of her laureate appointment (she served from 1993-1995, and as a Special Bicentennial Consultant to the Library of Congress from 1999-2000). Dove has continued to stay connected to the Library throughout this time, giving readings and participating in conversations (most recently with then-Poet Laureate Joy Harjo at the 2020 National Book Festival). She even participated in a webinar for high school teachers, cosponsored by the Library and the National Council of Teachers for English, that drew in over 1,000 attendees!

For those of you interested in a deep dive into Dove and her laureateship, I suggest you visit her LOC Resource Guide online. The guide includes Library-related links and external links to articles, interviews,  audio and video, as well as a selected bibliography. I would like to highlight the quote from our former Librarian of Congress, James Billington, on his appointment of Dove in 1993: “I take much pleasure in announcing the selection of a younger poet of distinction and versatility . . .  Rita Dove is an accomplished and already widely recognized poet in mid-career whose work gives special promise to explore and enrich contemporary American poetry.” I am grateful the Library has the opportunity to honor her again now and celebrate all she has accomplished in the art.

Our book prize winner, Heid E. Erdrich, is also no stranger to the Library of Congress. In 2018 she came to the National Book Festival for a program celebrating her anthology, “New Poets of Native Nations.” She was also a featured poet in Joy Harjo’s signature laureate project, “Living Nations, Living Words.” A recording of Erdrich reading her poem “Peacemaking”–from her Bobbitt Prize-winning book!–is featured as part of the American Folklife Center collection connected to the project.

Erdrich returned to the Library this spring as a faculty member of the In-Na-Po: Indigenous Nations Poets inaugural retreat, part of Joy Harjo’s third term closing events as Poet Laureate. The Library videotaped faculty and guest poets for the retreat in the office of the Poet Laureate, reading their poetry and talking about the historic occasion, and we are delighted to air those webcasts throughout the rest of November for Native American Heritage Month–starting with Heid’s webcast!

We hope you will come to see our two winners in-person on Thursday, Dec. 8, at 7pm ET at the Thomas Jefferson Building. The Bobbitt Prize reading will be part of our popular “LIVE! at the Library” series, so be sure to get there early–free timed-entry passes are required to enter the Thomas Jefferson Building, which will provide entry to the program.