Sidney Yates Auditorium, Department of Interior.
Dept. of Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne.
ALBC Commissioner Harold Holzer.
Poet and Chairman of National Endowment for the Arts Dana Gioia recites “Lincoln” by Vachel Lindsay.
John Barr, President, Poetry Foundation recites “The People, Yes” by Carl Sandburg.
National 2008 Read Out-Loud Poetry Champion Shawntay Henry emphatically performs “Frederick Douglass” by Robert Hayden and “Lincoln” by Leonard Nathan.
Former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, recites “My Childhood Home I See Again (Canto One)” – Abraham Lincoln and Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address.
Poet Kevin Young delivers “Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight” by Vachel Lindsay and “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” by Langston Hughes.
ALBC Co-Chair and Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Illinois) speaks about the upcoming Bicentennial celebrations.
Music from Dead Men’s Hollow.
Special guest Joan Allen – “Lincoln, The Man of the People by Edwin Markham and “Cool Tombs” by Carl Sandburg. View her complete performance, here.
Special guest Sam Waterston performs “O, my offense is rank (“Hamlet”) -- Shakespeare and When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d by Walt Whitman.
From left to right: D. Gioia; H. Holzer; ALBC Executive Director, Eileen Mackevich; R. Pinsky; S. Waterston; J. Allen; K. Young; S. Henry; and J. Barr.
