Grace Cavalieri is an American poet, playwright, and radio host of "The Poet and the Poem," a public radio program sponsored by the Library of Congress that shines the spotlight on leading poets from around the world. The author of sixteen books and chapbooks of poetry, Cavalieri is a full-time writer and playwright who has had twenty-six plays produced on American stages. When not writing or interviewing today’s most accomplished poets, she travels the country giving lectures and teaching workshops at various colleges and universities. For twenty-five years, Cavalieri served as visiting poet and assistant director of the annual Poetry Festival & Workshop at St. Mary’s College of Maryland.
Cavalieri’s career in broadcasting began in 1977 as founding core staff of WPFW-FM. She later became Associate Director of education/children’s programming for PBS and then Program Officer for the National Endowment for the Humanities media funding. She founded two poetry presses in Washington DC that continue to thrive and is presently the poetry columnist for The Washington Independent Review of Books. Her papers are in the George Washington University Gelman Library Special Collections.
"The Poet and the Poem" was created and developed by Cavalieri in 1977 and was first broadcasted from WPFW-FM in Washington DC. In 1997, she took the program to the Library of Congress where it has since featured interviews with many of today’s most well-known poets, including Pulitzer Prize winners and US Poet Laureates. Recorded and engineered at the Library of Congress, the program is broadcast on public radio stations across the nation through the Public Radio Exchange and is also available as a free podcast on the Library of Congress website.