Former Peace Corps CD Andrew Oerke To Receive Club Of Rome Lifetime Achievement Award

On November 18, 2009, Andrew Oerke (PC/Staff in Tanzania & Uganda, and CD in Malawi and Jamaica from 1966-71) will be presented with the USA Club of Rome Lifetime Achievement Awards for his latest collections of poems, Songs of Africa, published in English and Bulgarian by PSP & Fakel in Sofia, Bulgaria. The presentation will be made at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. 

Andrew is the 2006 winner of the Peace Corps Writers Award for Best Poetry Book. He also received the United Nations Artists and Writer’s Association award for Literature for his two volumes African Stiltdancer and San Miguel de Allende. Besides his time with the Peace Corps, Andrew worked on microcredit projects in more than 60 nations around the world.

Of his poetry, noted literary critic Harold Bloom has written, “Oerke’s eye is shrewd, his mind capacious, and his generosity toward humankind is endless. His poems, whether set in Africa, Mexico, or in the United States, invariably offer fresh perspectives upon the reality he has encountered.”

Oerke is the author of seven books of poetry. His poems have appeared in over 300 magazines, including Poetry and the New Yorker.