Grace Cavalieri’s “The Poet and The Poem” Receives Grant From MD Humanities
The Other Voices, Other Lives author says of the grant, "It seems like a modest amount, but if you need that amount, it is abundant.”
MD Poet laureate, 2-time Ginsberg Prize winner, and WIRoB lifetime achievement honoree, Grace Cavalieri, received her latest honor this Tuesday, a $1000 grant, for her long-running radio program and podcast, The Poet and the Poem. The grant comes from Maryland Humanities whose aim is to "support nonprofit organizations who are using humanities to inspire Marylanders."
A recent article in The Sun by Jack Hogan elaborates:
"President and founder of Forest Woods Media Productions and Maryland poet laureate, Grace Cavalieri, said the funding her organization received was “the perfect thing at the perfect time.” She added that funding for poetry is often hard to come by and donations like this can go a long way.
“That thousand dollars, it seems like a modest amount, but if you need that amount, it is abundant,” she said.
Cavalieri said the grant her organization received will be used to help fund 15 programs as part of her radio series, “The Poet and the Poem: Voices of Maryland Poets”, which since 1977 has been a platform for Maryland poets to share and discuss their work. The funding will be used for post-production work like audio editing, adding music and credits.
Each of the 15 programs will feature a different poet and will be aired beginning in January 2021 on the Maryland State Arts Council website, iTunes and public radio."
Featured Audio: “Letter from Sligo Creek” a poem by Rose Solari
Like the cover photo, the poems in Difficult Weather are timeless and—unlike the poems in many first books—extraordinarily mature. Although the narrative voice is generally that of a young woman in her late twenties and early thirties whose subject matter sometimes ranges back to early childhood, these are poems of adulthood: the discovery and endlessly painful rediscovery of human frailty, sexual and emotional betrayal, bad love in all its familial and romantic varieties, memory, and elegy…
Listen to Grace Cavalieri Interview fmr. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky
Grace Cavalieri is known widely for her stirring and empathic poetry, collected in her Legacy work Other Voices, Other Lives, but did you know that she is also an impressive interviewer? On her NPR show, The Poet and The Poem, she interviews significant poets from the US and around the world, with an aim of interpreting their lives through their poetry. In her tenure on the program, she has interviewed 9 US Poets Laureate (you can find a list with these archived interviews HERE), including the incomparable Robert Pinsky.
Featured Poetry: “Toytown” by Grace Cavalieri
The name Other Voices, Other Lives, is not purely poetical, in fact, for Grace Cavalieri it is a mission statement. In her Legacy Book of the same name there are several sections in 3rd person omnipotent which aim to breathe the same air as famous women who have suffered adversity. Tragic figure Anna Nicole Smith, feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, Cora from William Carlos William’s Kora in Hell. All in all they are an admix of Grace Cavalieri’s poetic life, all brought together in one beautiful volume; so, perhaps, we might figure that Anna Nicole Smith converses with Mary Wollstonecraft for the very first time in the pages of Other Voices, Other Lives.
Today, from the Anna section we have the heart-rending “Toytown”