Philip Levine Gives Inaugural Reading as U.S. Poet Laureate

Philip Levine, whose poetry has honored the working man for almost half a century, gives his inaugural reading as the 18th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry. Librarian of Congress James H. Billington announced the Laureate's appointment on Aug. 10.

Speaker Biography: Philip Levine is the author of 20 collections of poems, including most recently "News of the World" (2009), which The New York Times Sunday Book Review describes as "characteristically wise." Levine won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for "The Simple Truth," the National Book Award in 1991 for "What Work Is" and in 1980 for "Ashes: Poems New and Old," the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1979 for both "Ashes: Poems New and Old" and "7 Years From Somewhere," and the 1975 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize for "Names of the Lost."

For transcript, captions, and more information visit http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=5333.

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Education

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• Library of Congress
• poetry