Claudia & Kent

Claudia Emerson & Kent Ippolito


Claudia Emerson’s poems have appeared in Poetry, The Southern Review, Shenandoah, TriQuarterly, Crazyhorse, New England Review, and other journals.

Pharaoh, Pharaoh (1997) and Pinion, An Elegy (2002) were published as part of Louisiana State University Press’s signature series, Southern Messenger Poets, Late Wife, for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for 2006, is also part of the series.

Emerson has been awarded individual artist’s fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Virginia Commission for the Arts.

Multi-instrumentalist Kent Ippolito has performed and recorded with bluegrass, rock, folk, jazz, blues, ragtime and ethnic music ensembles for more than 25 years.

Since the early 1980’s Ippolito has been an in demand session and side man on the Fredericksburg music scene.

Claudia and Kent were married in 2000, and began writing songs together in 2002, collaborating also with Stuart Whitford.

They have performed at the Fredericksburg Acoustic Roots Showcase series, as well as the (Athens OH) Billy and Brucie show.

Claudia and Kent have made guest appearances with Stuart Whitford, Stony Man, Mike and Beth Chafin (Ricky and the Rockets), and Laurie Rose Griffith and Peter Mealy, and Sugarbeet.

They are currently at work on their first CD, a collection of original songs tentatively titled No Rain.

Posted over on Songwriter's Showcase