The Library of Congress Recognizes Rita Dove for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry

Rita Dove, the Henry Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Virginia, received the 2022 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry for lifetime achievement from the Library of Congress.

Professor Dove has published 11 collections of poetry including her latest book Playlist for the Apocalypse: Poems (W.W. Norton, 2021) and Collected Poems, 1974-2004 (2016). In addition to poetry, Dove has published a book of short stories and the novel Through the Ivory Gate (Pantheon, 1992).

The 2022 Bobbitt Prize marks the 17th time the award has been given. In its lifetime achievement citation for Professor Dove, the Bobbitt jury wrote that “her new collection, as well as [her] dazzling decades-long work in poetry, brings honor to this prize.” The panel also said Playlist From the Apocalypse is “quintessential Rita Dove: ethical and lyrical, moving in and out of the whirlwind that is history, playful in her use of form – sonnets, odes, addresses, invocations, aubades – and generous in her gathering of different voices and tribes to her pages.”

Professor Dove, who served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1993 to 1995, won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1987. She is the first poet to receive the National Humanities Medal and the National Medal of Arts.

Professor Dove is a summa cum laude graduate of Miami University in Ohio, where she majored in English. She holds a master of fine arts degree from the University of Iowa. Professor Dove joined the faculty at the University of Virginia in 1989.

CHECK OUT SOME OF THE BOOKS BY RITA DOVE

Princeton professor named country's next poet laureate

Tracy K. Smith has a long list of accomplishments, from publishing three books of poetry to winning the Pulitzer Prize in 2012, and she just added one more prestigious achievement.

The Library of Congress named Smith its 2017-18 Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, an honor she shares with only 21 others.

"I am profoundly honored," sad Smith, a creative writing professor at Princeton University. "As someone who has been sustained by poems and poets, I understand the powerful and necessary role poetry can play in sustaining a rich inner life and fostering a mindful, empathic and resourceful culture."

"I am eager to share the good news of poetry with readers and future readers across this marvelously diverse country," she said.

Smith is the author of the poetry books "Life on Mars"; "Duende"; and "The Body's Question"; all of which have won awards. Her memoir, "Ordinary Light", was a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award in nonfiction and recognized as a notable book by The New York Times and the Washington Post.

Smith was appointed by Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden on Wednesday, and is succeeding Juan Felipe Herrera.

Hayden called Smith a "poet of searching," and said she has a way with her poems.

"Her work travels the world and takes on its voices; brings history and memory to life; calls on the power of literature as well as science, religion and pop culture," Hayden said.

[SOURCE: NJ.COM]

Library of Congress, Smithsonian buy newly discovered photo of Harriet Tubman

An old photo album containing a rare portrait of the legendary underground railroad conductor Harriet Tubman has been jointly acquired by the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, the institutions said Friday.

The new image depicts Tubman as a much younger woman than she appears in other known pictures. It is among 44 rare images in the album, including the only known photograph of John Willis Menard, the first African American man elected to the U.S. Congress.

“We are so thrilled,” Gayle Osterberg, a Library of Congress spokeswoman, said Friday in an email.

“The institutions have agreed to joint ownership and will digitize the photographs as soon as possible,” she wrote. “The intention is to make them as widely available as possible through online images everyone can use.”

Read more: Library of Congress, Smithsonian buy newly discovered photo of Harriet Tubman

Dr. Carla D. Hayden: First African-American Librarian Of Congress

Senate Confirms Carla Hayden as 14th Librarian of Congress

The United States Senate today by a vote of 74-18 confirmed Dr. Carla D. Hayden, longtime chief executive of the Enoch Pratt Free Library system in Baltimore and a former president of the American Library Association, as the 14th Librarian of Congress, for a renewable 10-year term.

Dr. Hayden was nominated by President Barack Obama in February.

"This is truly a great honor to be nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate to lead the nation’s library, the Library of Congress," Dr. Hayden said. "It has been my privilege to serve the citizens of Baltimore for 23 years and help restore the Enoch Pratt Free Library as a world-renowned institution. I look forward to working with the dedicated staff of the Library of Congress. I will be honored to build on the legacy and accomplishments of my predecessors in this position, to be part of a continuing movement to open the treasure chest that is the Library of Congress even further and to make it a place that can be found and used by everyone."

Dr. Hayden is the first woman, and the first African American, to serve as chief executive of the Library of Congress, the largest library in the world, with 162 million items in its collections. It also oversees the U.S. Copyright Office and the Congressional Research Service. It serves Congress and makes its research collections accessible on site and online.

She takes the helm from Acting Librarian David S. Mao, who has served since the retirement of Dr. James H. Billington on September 30, 2015. She will be sworn in at a date to be determined and is expected to assume her duties soon.

Dr. Hayden has recently overseen the renovation of the central branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, a four-year, $112 million project, and has also led $40 million in renovations to other units within the 22-branch Pratt system. The system is named for the businessman and philanthropist who financed its founding in 1886.

She took the helm of the Baltimore system in 1993, winning strong praise for her work to ensure that the city’s library system offers a broad array of services to assist citizens from all walks of life, from access to books and other learning materials to computer access and job information. A program of outreach into neighborhoods served by the Pratt libraries included after-school centers for teens, offering homework assistance and college counseling; a program offering healthy-eating information for residents in areas with insufficient access to high-quality food; programming in Spanish; establishment of an electronic library, and digitization of the Library’s special collections.

Dr. Hayden won high praise, during recent civil unrest in some Baltimore neighborhoods, for keeping library branches open citywide to continue service and provide citizens with safe havens.

Dr. Hayden first served as a children’s librarian in the Chicago Public Library system, eventually rising to the post of deputy commissioner and chief librarian in that system. She also taught Library and Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh. She received Library Journal’s 1995 Librarian of the Year Award, and served as president of the American Library Association 2003-2004.

Dr. Hayden received a B.A. from Roosevelt University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Graduate Library School of the University of Chicago.

The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library, offering access to the creative record of the United States – and extensive materials from around the world – both on site and online. It is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office. Explore collections, reference services and other programs and plan a visit at loc.gov, access the official site for U.S. federal legislative information at congress.gov and register create works of authorship at copyright.gov.

Rosa Parks archive fully digitized by Library of Congress, now available online.

Rosa Parks’ archive of letters, writings, personal notes and photographs has been fully digitized by the Library of Congress and is now available online.

The library announced Wednesday the collection of 10,000 items belonging to Parks is available to the public.

Her collection was kept from the public for years because of a legal battle between her heirs and friends. But in 2014, philanthropist Howard Buffett bought the collection and placed it on long-term loan at the national library.

The library now holds about 7,500 manuscript items and 2,500 photographs from Parks, including the Bible she kept in her pocket, letters from admirers and her Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Read Rosa Park's archive here: ROSA PARK PAPERS

Rosa Parks' archive opening to public at Library of Congress

[SOURCE] Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus, reflected later on how it felt to be treated less than equal and once feistily wrote of how tired she was of being "pushed around" — parts of her history long hidden away.

Beginning Wednesday at the Library of Congress, researchers and the public will have full access to Parks' archive of letters, writings, personal notes and photographs for the first time. The collection will provide what experts call a more complex view of a woman long recalled in history for one iconic image — that of a nonviolent seamstress who inspired others to act at the dawning of the civil rights era.

A protracted legal battle between her heirs and friends had kept the collection from public view for years. But in 2014, philanthropist Howard Buffett bought the collection and placed it on long-term loan at the national library.

"I think it's one of the first times we're actually able to read her voice, and it just totally goes against this image of the quiet seamstress," said Margaret McAleer, an archivist at the library. "Her writings are phenomenally powerful."

"I had been pushed around all my life and felt at this moment that I couldn't take it anymore," she wrote. "When I asked the policeman why we had to be pushed around, he said he didn't know. 'The law is the law. You are under arrest.' I didn't resist."

Parks' archive provides scholars and the public with a fuller sense of her life and faith, her personality and her pain, said library historian Adrienne Cannon.

"It's important because we see Rosa Parks in a kind of almost frozen, iconic image — a hero that is not really real flesh and blood," Cannon said. "Here we get a sense of a woman that is really full flesh and blood."

The collection may surprise people by revealing Parks had an aggressive edge and supported more radical actions seeking equality over the years, archivists said. She used her symbolic status to support Malcolm X, Black Panther gatherings and the Wilmington 10 in North Carolina.

The library now holds about 7,500 manuscript items and 2,500 photographs from Parks, including the Bible she kept in her pocket, letters from admirers and her Presidential Medal of Freedom. A small exhibit is planned for March. All the items will be digitized and posted online.

Artifacts such as Parks' clothing, furniture and a pillbox hat she may have worn on the Montgomery bus, will find homes elsewhere. The library plans to place them with other museums or institutions that can conserve and display Parks' belongings. The library already is in talks with the Smithsonian's National Museum of African-American History and Culture, now under construction on the National Mall, to possibly house some items.