Raitt's Hollywood star unveiled on sidewalk

LOS ANGELES -- Grammy-winner Bonnie Raitt gave her fans something to talk about as she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Raitt's father, veteran Broadway singer John Raitt, was on hand Tuesday to perform "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning" and ended the song with the words, "Everything is going Bonnie's way."

"I can't believe that in my 50s, I'm standing here with my Walk of Fame star," said Raitt, whose star is in front of her record label, Capitol.

"If someone proposed this to me 20 years ago, I would have said, 'No way,"' she said.

Several hundred fans celebrated with the 52-year-old singer-guitarist, whose music runs the gamut of blues, country, pop and rock. Raitt has won nine Grammys and recorded dozens of albums including "Give It Up," "Takin' My Time," and her 1989 hit, "Nick of Time."

Missouri poet becomes winner of Tufts Award

ST. LOUIS -- Carl Phillips, acclaimed for his poems with sparse verse and deeply personal subject matter, has won the 2002 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for his book "The Tether."

"I'm delighted and honored," Phillips said Monday. The award, given annually by Claremont Graduate University in California, comes with a $100,000 prize. The ceremony is scheduled for April 26.

The Tufts Award is among the poetry world's most prestigious trophies. It's given for a single work and goes to writers such as Phillips who are considered to be in the middle of their careers.

Phillips, 43, teaches writing and literature at Washington University in St. Louis. A native of Falmouth, Mass., he didn't start writing poetry until his 20s, when he was a Latin teacher at Falmouth High School.

"The Tether," 81 pages long and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, is Phillips' fifth volume of poetry. The title borrows imagery from falconry. Trainers tether birds to their hands until they learn to stay there on their own.

"As I told my students, the only agenda is the next poem," he said. "I have to hope I keep writing in ways that please me and, with luck, have relevance for other people, too."

--From wire reports