Irene Rouse
From DC Poetry: A Splendid Wake
Irene Munson Rouse (1928 - December 6, 2017) is the author of a poetry collection, Petty Street (2009). She was raised in Arlington, and graduated from James Madison College in 1950. Briefly an English teacher and later a children’s librarian, Rouse married, raised a large family of five children, and took up a career as an antiquarian book seller, running a succession of book shops in Fairfax, Falls Church, Alexandria, and the Eastern Shore. She hosted a poetry reading series in her Alexandria shop, “Positively Prince Street,” in the 1970s and ‘80s, and published an anthology of the same name in 1979. In retirement, she took up painting.
Submitted by Kim Roberts, August 2016
