Library Exhibition “JFK: Poets Remember”
The University of Delaware Library (www.udel.edu/library) announces a new exhibition “JFK: Poets Remember” which will be on view in the Information Room, on the First Floor of the Morris Library from Friday, November 22, 2013, through Monday, December 18, 2013. November 22, 2013 marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th president of the United States, by Lee Harvey Oswald.
Like the events of September 11, 2001, the Kennedy assassination remains etched in the memory of those who witnessed it. The shooting of the young, charismatic president produced a reaction of stunned disbelief on the part of many Americans and, perhaps as many thought, brought an end to a period marked by a certain political and social idealism.
There was an artistic response to Kennedy’s death, as well. As with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln almost a century earlier, Kennedy’s shooting inspired an outpouring of verse. W.H. Auden, Gwendolyn Brooks, Allen Ginsberg and many other noted figures produced poems whose form, style and tone vary greatly, but which all bear witness to this key event in America’s collective memory.
The exhibition will display a first edition of the anthology Of Poetry and Power: Poems Occasioned by the Presidency and by the Death of John F. Kennedy, which came out in 1964. Other poems and photographs from the Special Collections Department will also be featured.
An online version of the exhibition will be available at [www.lib.udel.edu/ud/spec/exhibits/].
Wednesday, December 18, 2013 at 8:00am to 5:00pm
Morris Library, Information Room
Morris Library, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, USA