February 23, 1998 Poets Alan Shapiro and Tom Sleigh To Read at Library of Congress

Contact: Yvonne French (202) 707-9191

Poets Alan Shapiro and Tom Sleigh will read their poems at 6:45 p.m. March 5 in the Mumford Room on the sixth floor of the James Madison Memorial Building. Tickets are not required.

Alan Shapiro is professor of English and creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Happy Hour (1987), Covenant (1991) and Mixed Company (1996); and a memoir, The Last Happy Occasion (1996), which was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. His most recent book, Vigil (1997), tells the story of the life and death of his sister. Mr. Shapiro's honors include the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writer's Award for 1991 and the Los Angeles Times Book Award for 1996.

Tom Sleigh teaches at Dartmouth College. Among his many awards are grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Lila Wallace- Reader's Digest Fund. His collections of poetry are After One (1983), Waking (1990), and The Chain (1996). In his most recent collection, The Chain, he considers the nature of memory and how events can be recollected in contradictory ways.

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PR 98-026
1998-02-23
ISSN 0731-3527