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Collection Information
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Historical or Biographical Note
Grace Cavalieri, an award winning poet and playwright, lived for 25 years in Washington DC, and through her weekly radio program, "The Poet and the Poem," continues to be an important figure in the literary community of this city. She is the author of many books of poetry, including What I Would Do For Love (2004), Migrations (1995), New and Selected Poems (1994), Why I Cannot Take a Lover (1975), and Bliss (1986). She has had nineteen plays produced for stage and radio, including the off- Broadway production of "Getting Ready" at the WPA Theater. She published a major anthology of D.C Writers, The WPFW Writers Anthology, in 1992. Her drama, "Quilting the Sun," enjoyed a staged reading by its NYC cast at the Smithsonian Institution. She has written texts and lyrics for opera, authoring two productions, "String of Pearls," and "Migrations," and has written three radio dramas that received national broadcast.
Cavalieri was one of the founders of the Washington Writers Publishing House, and served on its editorial board from 1976 to 1986. She also runs her own small press, The Bunny and the Crocodile Press/Forest Woods Media Productions, Inc. She was an Associate Director of Programming at the Public Broadcasting System [PBS] for five years and then served as program officer of the media program at the National Endowment for the Humanities [NEH] from 1982-1988. She has lectured and taught throughout the country at several colleges and universities, and was, for 25 years, visiting poet at St. Mary's College of Maryland. She was resident writer at the Word Works annual retreat in Tuscany, 1996-2003.
This collection of sound recordings is directly related to the work Cavalieri has done with the radio station WPFW-FM. Cavalieri and a core staff opened this non-commercial radio station after being awarded a 3-year National Endowment for the Arts [NEA] Radio Development Grant in 1976. Cavalieri worked for the station as director of arts programming from 1976 to 1978, and as radio producer from 1976-85. She produced more than 100 programs in radio drama, poetry and arts criticism including "Poetry from the City," "Expressions," and "Writer's Workshop on the Air."
Cavalieri continues to work as a radio broadcaster at WPFW-FM, and is best known in the Washington literary community for her program "The Poet and the Poem," which has not missed a weekly broadcast since it began airing in 1977. This program airs every Sunday evening from 8-9 PM, and is distributed nationally through the Pacifica station network, which includes KPFA-FM/KPFB-FM Berkeley, California, KPFK-FM North Hollywood, California, and KPFT-FM Houston, Texas. Plans are underway to provide the program to all National Public Radio [NPR] stations via satellite.
Typically, "The Poet and the Poem" features poets who live in the Washington DC area and have become a part of the Washington literary community. Cavalieri has been committed to presenting the various cultural traditions of America on the program, and is particularly interested in the black literary community. The recordings of her programs includes a significant collection of African-American poets.
She has received many awards including the Pen-Syndicated Fiction Award, the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award, Bordighera Poetry Award, Paterson Poetry Prize, The Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry, The National Endowment for the Arts, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting Silver Medal, The National Commission on Working Women, and The American Association of University Women. She has enjoyed several state arts and humanities council awards and fellowships. She received the inaugural Columbia Award from the Folger Shakespeare Library Poetry Committee for "significant contribution to poetry."
Collection Organization
Organized into six series: Magnetic audiotape reels, Videotape cassette, Audiotape cassettes, Poems and prose in journals and anthologies, Plays, and CD-ROMs
Subject Terms
- Cavalieri, Grace
- Wilbur, Richard
- Nemerov, Howard
- Strand, Mark
- Brooks, Gwendolyn
- Walker, Alice
- Miller, May
- Jordan, June
- Clifton, Lucille
- Miller, E. Ethelbert.
- Lorde, Audre
- Ginsberg, Allen
- Atwood, Margaret Eleanor
- Grace Cavalieri papers
- Poetry
- Washington (D.C.)
Detailed Description of the Records
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