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Poets Jill McDonough and Atsuro Riley, winners of the 2010 Witter Bynner fellowships, will read from their work tonight at the Library of Congress. The Fellowship recipients were selected by Poet Laureate Kay Ryan (right), who will introduce them.
McDonough, who is from Boston, is the author of Habeas Corpus, a 2008 collection of 50 sonnets. Each poem is about a legal execution that occurred from 1608 to 2005. She has taught in Massachusetts prisons and is an adjunct professor at the University of Massachusetts-Boston and the Harvard University Extension School.
Riley, who grew up in South Carolina and now resides in the San Francisco Bay area, is the author of the upcoming Romey’s Order, which will be out this year. You can listen to some of the poems from his collection online at atsuroaudio.org.
The fellowships provide each poet with $7,500 to support writing poetry. Each fellow must organize a reading in his or her hometown and participate in a reading and recording session at the Library of Congress.
THE READING TAKES PLACE AT 6:45 P.M. IN THE MUMFORD ROOM ON THE 6TH FLOOR OF THE JAMES MADISON BUILDING, 101 INDEPENDENCE AVE SE. FREE. (202) 707-5000
Photo of Kay Ryan by Christina Koci Hernandez