The National Portrait Gallery is hosting a special exhibition called “Poetic Likeness: Modern American Poets.” This art show will be on view until April 28th.

Historian David C. Ward curated this exhibits. You can find Walt Whitman, Sylvia Plath, Robert Frost, Marianne Moore and Allen Ginsberg in the show.

Here’s more about the exhibition: “‘Poetic Likeness’ will provide a documentary record of modernist poetry through compelling portraits—from the museum’s collection—and include extensive quotations from each poet. Additionally, audiovisual clips will show poets reading their own works.”

The iconic actress Marilyn Monroe may have played the role of a ditzy blonde in many films, but she was actually quite the bookworm whose reading preferences included books by James Joyce and Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Open Culture has more: “Once married to playwright Arthur Miller, Monroe stocked about 400 books on her shelves, many of which were later catalogued and auctioned off by Christie’s in New York City.”

Library Thing has made a list of 261 titles that were a part of Monroe’s personal library. Books on the list include: Out Of My Later Years by Albert Einstein; Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert; The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner; as well as poetry collections from Robert Frost, John Milton, and Edgar Allan Poe, among others. (Via Gothamist).

UPDATE: An earlier version of this post misspelled Edgar Allan Poe’s name.

Literary agent Robert Lescher has passed away. He was 83-years-old.

Lescher established his career in the publishing industry as an editor. He climbed his way up and obtained the title of editor-in-chief at Henry Holt & Company. During his tenure at Holt, he edited the works of legendary poet Robert Frost, short story writer Wolcott Gibbs and memoirist Alice B. Toklas.

Here’s more from The New York Times: “When Mr. Lescher began his literary agency in 1965, his reputation for aesthetic insight and painstaking attentiveness to writers made him highly sought after…[Lescher's] clients included Frances FitzGerald, Benjamin Spock, Paula Fox, Madeleine L’Engle, Andrew Wyeth and Georgia O’Keeffe. Isaac Bashevis Singer, having served as his own agent for many years, hired Mr. Lescher in 1972, six years before Singer would receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.” (via Shelf Awareness)

The Poetry Foundation has published “Poetic Presidents,” a study of 12 Presidents and “the poets that inspired them.”

Just in time for the election, the match-ups include George Washington and Phyllis Wheatley (the first African-American female to publish a book of poetry), John F. Kennedy and Robert Frost (the first poet to perform a reading at a presidential swearing in event) and Barack Obama and Elizabeth Alexander.

Here’s more from the article: “Politicians campaign in poetry and govern in prose, former New York governor Mario Cuomo once said. While it’s debatable whether this epically long and tumultuous election cycle has inspired much verse, we at the Poetry Foundation would like to think that poetry has its place at the White House regardless of who emerges as the victor on November 6.”

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Today Google introduced Google+ Pages, a way for businesses to join the social network and connect with customer. Follow this link to set up a page for your publishing house, editorial services, literary agency, book or literary brand.

We’ve also added a GalleyCat page on Google+. The network’s upcoming “Direct Connect” feature will let people search for a publisher or author’s Google+ page directly through the Google search bar (the video embedded above shows you how). In the release, Google quoted a Robert Frost poem at Poetry Foundation: “we’ve still got lots of improvements planned, and miles to go before we sleep.” Below, we’ve listed the available business and brand pages.

Check it out: “For businesses and brands, Google+ pages help you connect with the customers and fans who love you. Not only can they recommend you with a +1, or add you to a circle to listen long-term. They can actually spend time with your team, face-to-face-to-face … organizations can learn more about Direct Connect in our Help Center.” (Via Simon Owens)

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Renowned poet Maya Angelou has donated 300 boxes filled with her personal papers to the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Angelou had this quote in the press release: “The Schomburg is a repository of the victories and the losses of the African American experience … I am grateful that it exists so that all the children, Black and White, Asian, Spanish-Speaking, Native American, and Aleutian can know there is a place where they can go and find the truth of the peoples’ history.”

The donation contains the notes for her autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and some of her most famous poems. One notable inclusion are the notes for the poem written at the request of former President Bill Clinton, On the Pulse of Morning. The video embedded above shows her reading it at Clinton’s 1993 inauguration. Several unpublished manuscripts and poems have also been included in the lot.

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