Grace Cavalieri papers

Grace Cavalieri, an award winning poet and playwright, lived for 25 years in Washington D.C., 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 Why I Cannot Take a Lover (1975), Creature Comforts (1982), Bliss (1986), Trenton (1990), New and Selected Poems (1994), Migrations (1995), Pinecrest Rest Haven (1998), and What I Would Do For Love (2004). She has had twenty-one plays produced for stage and radio, including a successful dramatic version of Pinecrest Rest Haven, and an off- Broadway production of Getting Ready at the WPA Theater. She published a major anthology of Washington, 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, co-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 and media production company, 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 to 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.

Many of the sound recordings in this collection are 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 a radio producer from 1976 to 1985. She has produced more than 100 programs in radio drama, and poetry and arts criticism including "Poetry from the City," "Expressions," and "Writer's Workshop on the Air."

Cavalieri worked as a radio broadcaster at WPFW-FM from 1977 to 1997, and is best known in the Washington literary community for her program "The Poet and the Poem." The show aired weekly from 1977 to 1997, and was distributed nationally through the Pacifica Radio station network, which includes KPFA-FM/KPFB-FM Berkeley, California, KPFK-FM North Hollywood, California, and KPFT-FM Houston, Texas. Cavalieri stopped airing "The Poet and the Poem" through WPFW-FM in 1997, and she now presents this series to public radio from the Library of Congress via NPR satellite. Approximately ten episodes from the Library of Congress series are produced each season, and podcasts are made available through the Library of Congress' website.

Typically, "The Poet and the Poem" features poets who live in the Washington, D.C. area and have become a part of the Washington literary community. Cavalieri has been committed to presenting various American cultural traditions on the program, and is particularly interested in the black literary community. The recordings of her programs include 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."

In 2019 Grace was named the Poet Laureate for the State of Maryland.

Frequently Grace Cavalieri writes testimonials or short reviews on the back cover of poetry books. These books are not retained in the collection. A list of some of those is below.

Final Deployment by Ann Quinn

Starlight & Error by Remica Bingham-Risher

Carousel new & selected poetry & fiction by Judith R. Robinson

The Bloomsberries and other curiosities poems by Lauri Byro

Trump Sonnets Volume 2 by Ken Waldman

Horse and Iron selected poems by Gred Kuzma

Crossing places by Ernestine Cowalton

The Book of Donuts edited by Jason Lee Brown and Shanie Latham