Grace Cavalieri - Radio Career

Radio Career

Cavalieri has had a long-term connection with public radio and public radio programming. Cavalieri and a core staff founded the non-commercial radio station WPFW-FM 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, KPFT-FM Houston, Texas, and WBAI-FM New York City, New York. 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. 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.

In addition, she was an Associate Director of Programming at the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) for five years and subsequently served as program officer of the National Endowment for the Humanities media program from 1982 to 1988.