Tom's guest today is the new Poet Laureate of Maryland, Grace Cavalieri. It would be selling her talents short if we only called her a “poet.” She has indeed published more than 20 books of poetry. But she has also written more two dozen plays, some of which have premiered here in Baltimore, and she’s penned text and lyrics for opera, TV and film productions as well. Grace Cavalieri is also well-known as the host of The Poet and the Poem, a radio interview show she has hosted for 42 years. It began on Pacifica station WPFW in Washington in 1977 and has evolved into a podcast that she produces now with the Library of Congress. Her interviews with poets are also broadcast across the country by more than 40 member radio stations in the Pacifica Network .Grace Cavalieri is the founder of several small-press publishing and printing houses. She teaches and lectures at colleges and universities across the country, and for 25 years, she was the visiting writer at St. Mary’s College in southern Maryland.Last November, she was appointed by Governor Larry Hogan to be the 10th Poet Laureate of Maryland. She joins Tom today in Studio A.

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