September 14, 2009 Poetry at Noon Series Starts Season with "Life is Beautiful" Reading on Sept. 22

Press Contact: Donna Urschel (202) 707-1639
Public Contact: Patricia Gray (202) 707-5394

A celebration of life is the theme for the first fall season event in the Poetry at Noon series at the Library of Congress.

For “Life is Beautiful” three guest poets—Sue Ellen Thompson, Barbara Crooker and Joseph Ross—will read poems from noon to 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 22, in the Whittall Pavilion on the ground level of the Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St. S.E., Washington, D.C. The event is free and open to the public; tickets are not required.

Sue Ellen Thompson is the author of four books of poetry, most recently “The Golden Hour,” which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. She is the editor of “The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry.” In 2006 she moved to the Eastern Shore of Maryland from New England, where she had taught at Wesleyan University, Middlebury College, and Central Connecticut State University. Her poems have been read by Garrison Keillor on “The Writer's Almanac,” appeared in the “Best American Poetry” series, and featured in former Poet Laureate Ted Kooser's nationally syndicated newspaper column "American Life in Poetry."

Barbara Crooker's poems have been published in anthologies, books and magazines, including Yankee, The Christian Science Monitor and Smartish Pace. She is the author of “Line Dance,” which won of the 2009 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence, and “Radiance,” which won the 2005 Word Press First Book competition. Garrison Keillor has chosen 16 of her poems for “The Writer’s Almanac.”

The poems of Joseph Ross of Washington, D.C. have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Poetic Voices Without Borders 1 and 2, Poet Lore, Beltway Poetry Quarterly and Drumvoices Revue. He co-edited “Cut Loose the Body: An Anthology of Poems on Torture and Botero’s Abu Ghraib.” (Fernando Botero is a Columbian artist who painted more than 80 works about abuse in the Baghdad prison.) Ross teaches in the College Writing Program at American University in Washington, D.C.

Poetry at Noon celebrated its 15th anniversary last year. The series was created by poet Patricia Gray, who manages the Poetry Office at the Library of Congress.

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PR 09-172
2009-09-14
ISSN 0731-3527